Suzuki. (Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images)

It’s time for us to escape the muggy, soup-like weather of New York, where we’re all the more conscious of the fact that with every breath, we are inhaling someone else’s recycled air. Oh mighty Mayor Bloomberg, deliver us from damnation! Or at least from this city’s cursed summer months. If we can eliminate transfats, why not the heat?

Of course, a clever individual might just pack their bags and head for a different climate completely. Take Jeremy Lin, who—with the ever-helpful hand of fan favorite Jim Dolan—may have realized it’s not the heat, but the humidity, when he signed on with the Houston Rockets. But that doesn’t mean New York isn’t without its own acquisitions: The Yankees picked up one of the greatest hitters of all time in Ichiro Suzuki (who’s looking a little grayer these days—distinguished, we say), Rick Rash for the Rangers, Jeff Otah for the Jets and possibly English Premier League veteran Tim Cahill for the Red Bulls. Welcome to town, boys. We hope your managers set you up in an apartment with central air.

Meanwhile, the rest of us just can’t wait to escape from New York, be it by plane, train or Jitney-mobile. Sure, getting stuck in traffic can make the drive to and from the Hamptons all the more fun, but if you live in Brooklyn, you may be in luck. A new ferry traveling between Greenpoint (it sets sail from Mitchell Park) and Sag Harbor is being christened the new Water Jitney, which raises only one question: Can we have a nice afternoon drink on it? (Scotch, neat.) If not, we’ll just stick to the LIRR, thank you very much.

We were also thinking about heading to Los Angeles for a quick break from the heat, but it’s not much better over there. What if we run into Lindsay Lohan or Tara Reid, which the weather has seemed to resurrect like ghosts from 2003? Ms. Reid was hospitalized in France with acute pancreatitis, which probably has nothing to do with all those horrific stomach surgeries (and corrections to said surgeries) she endured back in the early-to-mid-aughts. Ms. Lohan finished production on her made-for-TV movie about Elizabeth Taylor, Liz & Dick, and miraculously found a new job opposite porn star James Deen in Bret Easton Ellis and Paul Schrader’s new Kickstarter-funded film, The Canyons. Talk about a comeback through the back door. Not that Mr. Ellis doesn’t have problems of his own: primarily the unadulterated Nikki Finke experience. The Deadline Hollywood editor-in-chief is out to ruin the American Psycho author after he tweeted that he lived in the same building as the reclusive blogger. Now ICM, the agency that represents Mr. Ellis, has been forced to call in the big guns—litigation lawyers Howard Weitzman and Lawrence Iser—to protect their employees against the onslaught from the relentless Ms. Finke. (For our own purposes: How many emails in a 24 hour time frame constitute harassment?)

Some advice? Steer clear of L.A. until the bloodshed is over: you don’t want to be caught between these two. There’s also the possibility that you might end up sitting next to Fred Willard at Arclight—and that would just be awkward.

Last season's New York Knicks sensation is this season's New York Knicks departure: Jeremy Lin is gone, off to the Houston Rockets. Jeremy Lin says he would have preferred New York, why New York Knicks owner and president James Dolan says he's feeling hurt and betrayed by the move. Whose side should Knicks fans take? 

The dispute came down to a matter of money: The Knicks didn't want to pay Jeremy Lin the offer handed to him by the Houston Rockets; they felt that he was untested, and not worth his asking price. But is this true? After all, Jeremy Lin brought a whole bunch of fans to basketball and the Knicks who weren't there before, which is besides the fact that his emergence as a global sensation basically solved one of the most bitter cable carrier fee disputes in recent history. Shareholders in Madison Square Garden Entertainment stock certainly don't buy the Knicks' line; the stock has taken a hit since Lin's departure became imminent (and continues to go down through today).

Now, we're hearing from Jeremy Lin and James Dolan, as each air out their own side of the story.

[READ MORE: The Jeremy Lin Effect on $MSG Stock: Jimmy, We're Going Down]

Sports Illustrated's Pablo Torre got an exclusive interview with Lin. Highlights:

Why Lin Left:

"...My main goal in free agency was to go to a team that had plans for me and wanted me. I wanted to have fun playing basketball. ... Now I'm definitely relieved."

The Moment Lin Knew He Might Leave:

"[Former Knicks point guard Raymond] Felton's signing was the first time when I thought, 'Oh, wow, I might not be a Knick,'" Lin said.

Why Houston?

"The Rockets kept saying how sorry they were that that they'd cut him, and how much of a mistake it was," [Jeremy Lin's agent Jim Tanner] said. "They almost said it too many times. They kept acknowledging it."

Why It's Not About The Money:

The notion that Lin has always cared about money above all else, in particular, eats away at him, especially as he sleeps in his childhood home. "If I really wanted to, I could have triple-digit endorsements," Lin pointed out, but he does not. Instead, and in large part because Lin wanted to concentrate on basketball, he declined to cash in on the Linsanity gold-rush -- namely, the mountain of business opportunities in Asia -- and picked only three companies: Volvo, Steiner Sports and Nike.

What James Dolan Told Lin:

"I have plans for you in the future," Lin recalled the owner saying. "This is a long-term investment. Don't rush back."

Lin on Playing in New York City:

"I love the New York fans to death," Lin said. "That's the biggest reason why I wanted to return to New York. The way they embraced me, the way they supported us this past season, was better than anything I've ever seen or experienced. I'll go to my grave saying that. What New York did for me was unbelievable. I wanted to play in front of those fans for the rest of my career."

Meanwhile, Knicks owner James L. Dolan unofficially aired out his side of things via sourcing to the New York Daily News:

The decision was both financial and emotional since Garden chairman James Dolan was upset over Lin restructuring his deal with Houston last week to include a third year salary of $14.9 million. Dolan, according to sources, felt he was deceived by the 23-year-old Lin.

That's it. No interviews, no media statements, nothing else from James Dolan other than the fact that he felt "deceived." James Dolan's relationship with Knicks fans is already tense: There was that nasty streak of letting Isaiah Thomas run the team that didn't work out, which is to say nothing of contracts like those handed to Stephon Marbury, Eddy Curry, Zach Randolph, and so on. He's had an embattled relationship with the sports press, at one point all but completely denying them access to the team. And ticket prices—which have only steadily risen over the years despite the team's lack of serious playoff appearances over the last decade—recently took another hike as box seating was placed lower in The Garden, effectively alienating the socioeconomic majority of fans who even could see the team play even further.

Even as the press files away columns on the matter—like the usually even-handed New York Times ("Dolan Breaks Faith With Knicks Fans Again")—the true test of public opinion will be how Knicks fans react to Lin when he comes back to the Garden to play against the team in Houston next year. He could be booed, or—as was the case with Hideki Matsui, who the Yankees declined to resign after the championship season for which he was awarded 2009 World Series MVP—be embraced.

Either way: Besides the fact that the public financial interest (and thus, faith in him) isn't exactly surging these days, it's pretty clear James Dolan's name will not be worn by fans any time soon.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Let's flash back quickly to February, when Jeremy Lin started making notable appearances on the court for the Knicks:

For a few days, the stock experienced slow, steady gains. And then, as Lin started performing, the rest of the world —(and the markets) took notice:

$MSG stock began to experience spikes and swells, and continued to rally. Despite Lin's injury in March that took him off the court for the rest of the season, there was little speculation that he'd be traded. In May, after the Knicks were ousted from the playoffs, talk of Lin's contract began with a dispute over the nature of his free agency, and whether or not the Knicks could exceed the salary cap in attempting to resign him. In recent weeks, it was made clear that Lin would be talking to other teams. And in recent days, it was made clear that Lin was taking some of these talks seriously.

But at the end of June, the question of how much the Knicks could pay Lin was resolved in their favor. For a moment, things looked up.

And then...

"Lin Withdraws From U.S. Select Team, Citing Free-Agent Status" - New York Times, July 3, 2012

"Knicks Get Kidd and Make Plans to Keep Lin" - New York Times, July 5, 2012

Lin stayed out of the Olympics to deal with his contract negotiation (and not run the risk of injuring himself further, so he could still court offers). Lin also signed a term sheet with Houston that the Knicks would have to begrudgingly match.

Which is when this happened:

Retuers reports:

"I think the gain in MSG shares earlier in the year as well as the Jason Kidd incident/potential Lin loss that hit the shares yesterday and today has already efficiently been reflected in the stock movement," said Miller Tabak analyst David Joyce.

What's perceived by many to be the legendary mismanagement of the New York Knicks by ownership (and is generally reflected in their winning percentage from the last few seasons) proved a decent map to see where this was headed: Regardless of Lin's ability as a player, he is a global fan phenomenon—for nerds, for Christians, for Asian-Americans—especially in New York City. Lin piqued the interest of those who had no interest in basketball prior to his rise. Lin was essentially responsible for ending one of the most bitter cable carrier disputes in recent history.

And yet: An investment in a consistent, larger fanbase, let alone the potential for Lin's play on the court to elevate the team notwithstanding (which, to an extent, was arguably proven) didn't prove enough for the brass at The Garden to resign Lin. Whether or not it was a good play or not has yet to be seen; given the track record at hand for the team, however, the very least that could be said about the move was that it's not unexpected. Not necessarily because Jeremy Lin wants to make as much money as he possibly can so much as that the Knicks seem to do whatever will further alienate fans and spectators as a matter of course.

Or as New York Post columnist Mike Vaccaro:

If the Knicks themselves asked you to look at [Jeremy Lin's numbers, comparable to his inflated asking price], you might wonder where the catch was. The Tappan Zee Bridge couldn’t span that credibility gap. And somewhere in the murky waters below rests the Knicks’ benefit of the doubt. Even if they happen to be right.

It looks like that credibility gap might extend to the fleeting glory of a high-tide share price as well.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

(Mark Hammermeister)

Two weeks ago, Phil Mushnick, a respected veteran sports writer for The New York Post, published a column about the Brooklyn Nets’ new brand identity, as designed with the help of Jay-Z. The team—previously known as the New Jersey Nets—had switched their colors to black and white. “Why not have him apply the full Jay-Z treatment?” Mr. Mushnick suggested, referring to the team’s part-owner. “Why the Brooklyn Nets when they can be the New York N------s. The cheerleaders could be the Brooklyn B---hes or Hoes ...”

Once upon a time, a remark like that would have led to a call for Mr. Mushnick’s head ... or at least a resignation. And while several media outlets picked up on the story on their Web sites, the “scandal” was a non-starter. Mr. Mushnick was not reprimanded by The Post. Forbes even defended him.

If the story of Mr. Mushnick seemed novel, though, it was only because it didn’t happen on Twitter. At times, it seems as if the microblogging platform was designed to ease the glide path of users’ feet directly into their mouths as they dash off unthinking, offensive commentary: Cee Lo Green calling a fan of The Voice ‘gay’; CNN commentator Roland Martin’s homophobic tweets after the Super Bowl; Chris Brown being Chris Brown (his response to a hater: “Grow up n——a!!! Dick in da ass lil boy.”)

Ashton Kutcher's "brownface" PopChip commercial

Nearly four years after the election of a black man as president, intolerant attitudes are having a cultural moment. And one inspiration may well be Mr. Obama himself, whose occupation of the White House seems to have been misinterpreted as a signal that the country has overcome the ugliness of its racist past and we are now all free (at last) to air our most contemptible prejudices.

Of course, not all racists, sexists, anti-Semites and homophobes are created equal. There’s the bilious misogyny of a Rush Limbaugh and the unhinged anti-Semitism of a John Galliano or a Mel Gibson or a Delmon Young. There’s the mass-stupidity of all of those Hunger Games fans outraged by the casting of an African-American actor as a character they thought was white and the semi-ironic, "hipster racism" displayed by Lesley Arfin, a writer for the HBO show Girls.

The latter form was dubbed “ironic racism” after Ms. Arfin responded on Twitter to criticisms that the show didn’t feature enough women of color, cracking, “What really bothered me most about Precious was that there was no representation of ME.”

The tweet, quickly deleted, spurred bloggers to uncover other damning evidence of Ms. Arfin’s racist attitudes—including a 2007 interview on the Huffington Post, in which she noted the n-word “was a great word. It packs so much punch.” (To give more context, Ms. Arfin was asked to pick between three 'hate' terms as her favorite.) Gavin McInnes, Ms. Arfin’s former employer at VICE, jumped to her defense—not that he’s an especially respected authority on tolerance.

It seems that with the rigid speak-no-evil precepts of political correctness now as out of fashion as stonewashed jeans, the rules have become a little fuzzy. It’s interesting to see just what sort of parochialism is forgiven and what is not. The hit Comedy Central series Tosh.0 includes a segment called “Is It Racist?” that is itself, arguably, racist (it’s definitely stupid). Meanwhile, ESPN employee Anthony Federico was fired for headlining a story about Jeremy Lin “A Chink in the Armor,” though he later claimed the implication was inadvertent. There was Ashton Kutcher’s controversial “brown face” ad for PopChips and Jon Hamm’s not-that-controversial blackface in a special episode of 30 Rock.

It seemed an auspicious time for lunch with Taki Theodoracopulos, the charismatic 75-year-old Greek socialite, pundit and founder of The American Conservative, who has been making racist remarks—and getting away with it—for decades now. Despite a reputation for venomous rhetoric, his byline has graced the pages of Hamptons Magazine, Vanity Fair, The New York Press, The Spectator, The Sunday Times, Esquire and Newsweek.

More recently, Mr. Theodoracopulos has been writing mostly for his own Web site, Taki’s Magazine. While the site bears the tagline: “Cocktails, Countesses & Mental Caviar,” it is perhaps better known for a collection of race-baiting essays and blog posts by a rogue’s gallery of politically incorrect luminaries, including Pat Buchanan, Mr. McInnes and Redneck Manifesto author Jim Goad. In early April, the site posted an essay by John Derbyshire called “The Talk: Nonblack Version,” about what children should know about African-Americans (“Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally ... Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods”). Mr. Derbyshire was also a contributor to National Review, but not for long. The Review’s editor, Rich Lowry, quickly cut him loose, writing that the post “constitutes a kind of letter of resignation.”

Mr. Derbyshire quickly retreated from the public stage, and the news that he was undergoing chemotherapy for chronic lymphocytic leukemia may have even garnered him some sympathy points. But just a month later, Mr. Derbyshire landed a new gig on VDare.com, an anti-immigration site. His first article extolled the virtues of white supremacy.

Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center wasn’t surprised by the development. “More often than not, real racism lies right below the surface, and what holds it back is fear of criticism or fear of losing one’s career,” he said, noting that the center considers VDare a hate site.

Such outspoken racism is increasing, he said. “At a macro-level, what we’re seeing is a lot of white people feeling like they are losing their country ... that after Obama’s election, they’re drowning in a tide of color.”

The ethos of Taki's Mag (TakiMag.com)

Naturally, Mr. Derbyshire is still writing for Taki, who a few weeks after the notorious blog post was sitting in the Midtown restaurant Cognac, spooning up pink lobster bisque and chasing it with two large glasses of pinot grigio. Between bites, Mr. Theodoracopulos gossiped about his time working for—where else?—The New York Observer.

“I called A.M. Rosenthal from The New York Times ‘Abie,’ and his wife thought that was anti-Semitic,” he recalled in his languidly aristocratic accent. “How is that anti-Semitic?”

A genial man in a dapper blue suit and sparkling cuff links, Mr. Theodoracopulos bore a strong resemblance to Anthony Hopkins. He remembered being called into the office of then-owner Arthur Carter after Mr. Rosenthal’s wife, Shirley Lord, called to complain.

“Arthur would say ‘What is the problem, Taki?’” Mr. Theodoracopulos laughed. “I’d tell him, ‘The problem is that I’ve run out of shoe polish, Arthur. Would you mind if I took some from your hair?’”

He smiled.

“You get it?” Mr. Theodoracopulos asked. “Because his hair always looked like he rubbed it with shoe polish!”
When Fraser Nelson took over as editor of the Spectator, where Taki contributed a regular column, he jokingly told the columnist he would be fired. “He said, ‘No one is complaining about you anymore, Taki, so why are we paying you?’” Mr. Theodoracopulos recalled, snickering like a man who was having the last laugh. And perhaps he is.

In his inaugural editor’s “diary,” Mr. Nelson noted a change in the air. “It’s not that Taki is conforming to the world,” he wrote. “The world, I think, is finally conforming to him.”

Racial resentment seems especially uncharitable coming from someone like Mr. Theodoracopulos, a jet-setting playboy of good standing. His father, in addition to being an Olympic gold medalist in rowing, was a shipping baron. His grandfather, Panagiotis Poulitsas, was briefly the prime minister of Greece. After a career as a professional tennis player, and a short stint working in his father’s offices, Taki was recruited by Arnaud de Borchgrave, then senior editor of Newsweek, to go to Vietnam as a photographer.

“I didn’t want to work for my father, I didn’t want to be a shipper, or a tycoon’s son,” Mr. Theodoracopulos said of his beginnings in journalism.

He’s been married twice, currently to his wife of 31 years, Princess Alexandra Carlota Sophy von Schoenburg-Hartenstein, and has two children, “who have never disappointed me,” he said. His son, J.T., is a bike messenger; his daughter, Mandolyna, runs Taki’s Magazine. “She is actually the brains behind the site, because I don’t really read the Internet,” Mr. Theodoracopulos told us proudly.

The idea for the Web site came about after Mr. Theodoracopulos ceased his involvement with The American Conservative in 2007.

“At a certain time, I had to take a step back and say ‘Do I want to keep giving millions of dollars to magazines that no one reads, or something else?’” he recalled. Mandolyna, who spent the ’90s working for publications like Hamptons Magazine and, yes, The New York Observer (as a fact-checker under Graydon Carter, who not only hired her father for his original tenure at the Observer, but who went on to employ both father and daughter at Vanity Fair), then took off a decade to work as an interior designer before returning to journalism.

“I made peace with my dad years ago,” the London-based Ms. Theodoracopulos told us over the phone. “It’s really nice to have a family business.”

The only area where she and her father disagree, she told us, was the Middle East. (“I’m not saying Israel shouldn’t exist,” he said, “but they need to give back the occupied territories.”)

“Be nice to my dad,” Ms. Theodoracopulos warned before hanging up. “He’s one of the nicest, sweetest men you’ll ever meet.”

Taki Theodoracopulos with Arianna Huffington (Patrick McMullan)

MR. THEODORACOPULOS can be charming in person, which might explain how he’s been able to maintain some of his social cachet despite his disreputable opinions. Though he credits William Buckley at the National Review with giving him his first job, it wasn’t until he started his High Life social column in The Spectator that he found his niche. “I was a natural,” Mr. Theodoracopulos said. “People couldn’t believe what I wrote in High Life, but I didn’t care about access, I already had access. I knew what was going on. You have to get your foot in the door writing what you know about, and this was what I knew.”

That particular beat has shrunk with time. “Society doesn’t exist anymore ... or if it does, it doesn’t go out,” Taki sniffed. He is ditching his London home because, he explained, the city is “becoming overcrowded with Arabs.” He is more often found in his apartment on East 71st Street and is plotting a sailing trip to Cannes, where, he said, he will be shooting a movie with Norman Mailer’s son Michael.

During lunch, Mr. Theodoracopulos employed a number of epithets for various ethnic and racial groups. The n-word rolled off his tongue. He was unapologetic about his use of such terms, and made us uncomfortably complicit by leaning in conspiratorially and smiling while saying some of the more horrific things we’ve ever heard outside of a Quentin Tarantino film. He expressed disgust for professional athletes: “They have 12 kids and beat up on their wives, and she can’t go to court because she’s black and doesn’t have an education.” He praised Robert E. Lee and condemned Abraham Lincoln as “a murdering traitor.” He chuckled as he told us the story of a controversial Sunday Times editorial he once wrote: “I said that I thought I saw a gorilla once at Wimbleton. It was Venus Williams.”

Asked if he considered himself racist, Mr. Theodoracopulos shrugged. “It was very bad taste, but blacks make fun of us, why can’t we make fun of them?”

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Theodoracopulos’s mouth has gotten him into trouble over the years. “In this country, there are tremendous libel suits ... I’ve lost five libel cases myself,” he told us proudly. “Not four. Five.”
He sat serenely while we probed him about his xenophobia, then worked himself into a lather about the Saudis. “They are the ones who finance all the terror,” he said. “They eat their own shit. And we’re supposed to call them royals? These are not royal families ... I call them ‘ruling towelheads.’”

But even as he flaunted his most noxious opinions, Mr. Theodoracopulos was oddly eager to clear the record on at least one charge against him. Asked about an article in which he referred to himself as a “soi-disant anti-Semite,” he bristled.

“No! Everyone gets that quote wrong, because they don’t speak French. Soi-disant means ‘so-called.’ I am saying that everyone else calls me an anti-Semite!”

As in most matters, his opinion on this differs from that of the media. As The Guardian wrote, in fact, the term is generally translated as “self-styled.” Mr. Theodoracopulos indignantly told us that he had spoken French for most of his life and knew better than journalists what the translation was.

As if to prove that he had nothing against Jews, he continued, “All my WASP friends in America say, ‘What happened to our money, Taki?’ And I tell them, ‘You drank it all away, and the Jews and n---ers were able to get it.”

It seemed like a good time to mention we were Jewish.

“And you don’t drink a lot, do you?” Mr. Theodoracopulos replied with a smile. “You can’t ever say that the Jews are drunks. The WASPS are drunks.”

With that, the Greek socialite motioned for the waiter and ordered us a second glass of white wine. As it turned out, Mr. Theodoracopulos was right about one thing: we spent the rest of the day nursing a massive headache.

Lin. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

We know who we would give the money to: Jeremy Lin, the poor guy. Linsanity lasted approximately a month, in which the Knicks point-guard was the hottest thing since the Rolling Stones showed up in America and pissed off Don Draper. But after a recent knee injury, his career is being put down faster than one of the horses in Luck. Refusing to give up, the basketball sensation is still tweeting about his recovery from the hospital. He’s not out yet!

Maybe he could team up with Kris Humphries of the New Jersey Nets, who is refusing to give up and annul his marriage to reality TV robot, Kim Kardashian. He says he’s not in it for the money, but rather wants an apology from his wife of 72 days, and an admission that she and her family made money off their publicity stunt of a wedding. We’re sure Ms. Kardashian would admit it if she actually believed it to be true; unfortunately she’s spent so much time turning herself into a human brand that she probably doesn’t understand the issue. Doesn’t everyone get married for money (and an E! Special) these days?

Well, at least we know there’s some class left in New York: the celebrities are beginning to arrive for the Tribeca Film Festival, co-founded by Robert DeNiro and made famous by that Jay-Z song. French beauty Catherine Deneuve did not inspire any Repulsion while being honored Monday night at the 39th Annual Chaplin Award Gala. The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s gala brought out the heavy-hitters to honor Ms. Deneuve: Glenn Close, Susan Sarandon and Paul Feig were just several of the attendees to show their Franco-appreciation. It makes sense; we need someone to deify now that Jeremy Lin’s off the court.

Eddie Huang, the gleefully iconoclastic chef-cum-troublemaker, was in a back room at the Ace Hotel, remembering high school. He'd just finished serving as the host of a Jeremy Lin viewing party for a crowd of the chef's friends and "three random girls from Twitter." The wax-paper wrapped bao—the signature Asian bun sandwiches that have been drawing crowds to his restaurant, Baohaus, since December 2009—were long since emptied of their pork-packed glories. The Knicks had fallen to the New Jersey Nets. And Mr. Huang was in a reflective mood. 

Earlier that day, he had published a post on his blog, Fresh Off the Boat. The post examined the spectacle of an Asian-American like Mr. Lin exploding as a pop-culture force. It was a cutting, personal indictment of stereotypes and racism. By that evening, it had racked up over 32,000 unique views.

"It was mainly Asian kids that really hated on me," he remembered. "They thought that there was one face to being Asian, and I was different."

Mr. Huang was wearing a hybrid of high fashion and streetwear. The look was finished with large glasses not unlike the kind made popular by Kim Jong-Il, giving him the appearance of the lost Beastie Boy who'd finally taken Pyongyang.

If Mr. Huang has made a splash with his reinventions of quick-serve, high-end Asian eats, he is perhaps better known for his outspokenness. In a way, he admitted, cooking has always been more of a means than an end for him. "I went into the food world because I realized that no other place in America would let me break through and speak the way I speak. They will listen to us"—he pointed to himself, meaning, Asian-Americans—"because they want Combo Number Five. You know what I mean? We're cute. We're Hello Kitty-like."

Mr. Huang noted that Asian stereotypes were a double-edged sword. "At the end of the day, people would rather put me in a conference room"—sitting in on a business meeting—"than one of the dudes who works for me from LeFrak City, just because of the way I look and the way I smile," he said. "I recognize that it's an advantage. But it's also a disadvantage."

He laughed, adding, "No matter what I do, people will be like, 'He's cute. That dude is like Keroppi.'"

Of course, Sanrio's cross-eyed amphibian is internationally famous, and Mr. Huang is still just a local celebrity. But that might all be about to change. On the horizon for Mr. Huang—who before opening his own restaurant had stints as a streetwear retailer, a journalist, a weed dealer, a stand-up comic and an attorney—is a memoir and a television show.

"There's a lot of good things in place," Mr. Huang told The Observer. "The show, the book—those things are gonna happen. It's just like: Don't fuck it up Eddie. Do not. Fuck. This. Up."

IN MARCH, while negotiations were underway with the Cooking Channel—the Food Network's younger spin-off—over the fate of Mr. Huang's first national TV show, he took to Twitter to verbally fricassee one of the company's top celebrities, Anne Burrell.

After the frosty-haired host of Worst Cooks in America, Secrets of a Restaurant Chef and The Next Iron Chef derided him to another chef, Mr. Huang fired back: "you host WORST COOKS IN AMERICA, dress like Guy Fieri, and snitch to networks when you're not happy. i tell it like it is." And yes, Mr. Fieri is also a major Food Network star.

Mr. Huang admitted that network executives were not especially appreciative of his particular preparation of beef.

"They were pissed," he said.

As a negotiating tactic, trashing your would-be colleagues seems counterintuitive, but Mr. Huang can't seem to help himself. "I just love that," laughed his friend and mentor Anthony Bourdain. "Here's a guy on his way to getting a show on the Cooking Channel, and he's out there just mercilessly beating up on their stable of stars," he chuckled. "A guy with a vocabulary like that, who's that fast, and that funny? That's a dangerous entity to have. Especially in a target-rich environment like the Cooking Channel."

Mr. Bourdain, the bad boy former chef, author of Kitchen Confidential and Travel Channel regular, recently started his own literary imprint at Harper Collins. "I'm heartbroken that I didn't have my imprint up and running in time to publish him," he noted of Eddie's forthcoming book with Random House, which (Mr. Huang explained with unrestrained glee) is being edited by Chris Jackson, who also edited Jay-Z's memoir Decoded.

He was effusive in praise for Mr. Huang when explaining his appeal: "Here's someone less and less unusual these days in the respect that he’s clearly not done what his parents wanted him to do, who's broken the pattern of what's expected of him, and with that there’s come some guilt there, some discomfort there."

"There’s a lot of anger there, and as so often happens, a very very sharp, funny guy there with a lot to say." Mr. Bourdain finished: "Important stuff to say."

A few weeks later—just days after his 30th birthday (the party, at Southside, featured a "dream" performance by Prodigy, of the seminal rap group Mobb Deep)—Mr. Huang explained his Cooking Channel dilemma over a late lunch in Fort Greene.

He talked about weighing two alternative routes to video stardom: his planned basic cable show versus a project to be produced and distributed independently online. Despite the recent publication of a press release by the channel's parent company heralding Mr. Huang's arrival, his contract had not actually been signed yet. By him.

Mr. Huang declined to discuss the nuances of the deal, but it seemed clear that joining an established network would mean sheathing his paring knife, learning to be a team player, going along to get along.

"They told me straight up: 'Look, you can't make fun of anyone on this network anymore,'" he recalled. "'They're all family. You're part of the family now.'" At this, he threw his hands up. "I was like, 'I didn't choose to be part of this family.' Like, 'You're buying a show, I'm fulfilling my services on the show.'"

Or as Mr. Bourdain put it, "If you can't make fun of Anne Burrell and Guy Fieri, comedy's dead."

"Networks are always looking for something "edgy," he added, but when they actually get it, "it scares the shit out of them, and they think: Gee, not that edgy."

THE ELDEST of three brothers, Mr. Huang grew up in Orlando, Fla. His mother was just out of high school when she met his father, now a restaurateur whom Mr. Huang said had been affiliated with a Taiwanese street gang. "He ran shit," Mr. Huang said.

Eventually, the elder Mr. Huang settled with his brother in Washington, D.C., where he met Eddie's mother, who became pregnant with Eddie—the first of the three Huang boys—in college. The family then relocated to Orlando, where they ended up launching a steakhouse called Cattleman's, and the Black Olive, a Mediterranean restaurant—where Eddie and his two brothers were exposed to the business at an early age.

Still, the Huangs pushed their sons toward academics. "They wanted us to be straight-laced and overachieving," remembered Mr. Huang's 24-year-old brother, Evan, who in addition to living with Eddie in StuyTown, is a co-owner of Baohaus.

While Mr. Huang was a decent student ("B average-ish") he had a tendency to get into trouble. In high school, someone broke his middle brother Emery's nose, so Eddie earned his first assault charge for fighting. The second came when he was a film and English major at Orlando's Rollins College. He was then making extra money by selling weed, and he got into a fight with some fraternity types. The two offenses earned him felony probation.

Forced to clean up his act, Mr. Huang threw himself into his schoolwork, winning departmental awards in African-American and feminist studies, and trying his hand at sports journalism, penning an article on the Malice at the Palace for the Orlando Sentinal.

After the piece ran, Mr. Huang said, an editor called him in to interview for a job as a basketball beat writer. "The first thing the guy said to me was: 'Oh, no one's gonna talk to you with that face.' Those exact words. Not, 'Hi, hello.' And he caught himself: 'No, not like that—your age.'"

"But I knew what he meant. I knew exactly what he meant."

In early 2005, Mr. Huang enrolled in law school at Cardozo in Manhattan. While there, he maintained a number of side-jobs: He printed his own tees and hawked them online. He became friendly with 50 Cent affiliate and G-Unit member DJ Whoo-Kid, and began promoting parties for him. He took freelance writing jobs with XXL, Rotowire, NBA.com, and Law.com. He also continued selling marijuana, though "not, like, serious weight," he noted.

In September 2008, Mr. Huang was hired as an associate at white-shoe law firm Chadbourne and Park. The economy tanked immediately thereafter. On March 10, 2009, on what Mr. Huang described as "one of the best days of my life," he was laid off. He tried his hand at stand-up comedy, hosting open mic nights, but soon sensed he wasn't gaining traction. What did seem to be winning him fans was the food he often brought along for club owners and fellow comics.

After answering a Craigslist post, he landed a spot on the Guy Fieri-hosted Ultimate Recipe Showdown. He lost the competition, but by the time he went home for the holidays in 2009, plans for Baohaus were well underway.

Mr. Huang's parents, already unhappy with their son's rudderless streak, offered no financial help with the restaurant. The relationship worsened when Eddie managed to get Evan—then a single semester away from graduating college in Orlando—to join him in his new endeavor. "'My parents hated Eddie for a while," Evan laughed. "They thought he was going to ruin my future."

But Baohaus was a hit. So much so that barely half a year later, Mr. Huang decided to open another restaurant on the Lower East Side, Xiao Ye, in July 2010. Whereas Baohaus was a tiny, counter-based quick-serve restaurant, Xiao Ye typified the middle-class family restaurants his parents had run. Without the family part.

Hip-hop blasted from the speakers. A sign painted above the kitchen door screamed: "DERICIOUS." The menu read like any TigerMom's worst nightmare: "Cheeto Fried Chicken," "General Poke-Her-Face Prawns," "Robster Rice" and "Poontang Pot Stickers" were signature dishes. Only three months after opening, the restaurant earned a New York Times review.

In it, Sam Sifton slammed Xiao Ye as an "artful misfire," calling the food "dishonest" and finishing things off with a goose-egg. The review also noted the potential the place had "if Mr. Huang spent even a third of the time cooking that he does writing funny blog posts."

Oftentimes, restaurant owners respond to a bad review by taking up arms in the press against the critic in question. Mr. Huang took a different tack: wholeheartedly agreeing with Mr. Sifton, and posting a hysterically withering email from his mother, encouraging him to keep his law license active so he could potentially go back to being a lawyer.

"YOU MUST GET BURNT BEFORE YOU WILL HEAR YOUR MOM," she wrote. "You have a lot of potential, but you must make good choice and stick to it with the best choice. With all the staff, and your korean friend, no one was able to point out or warn you the mistakes, or problems you have???????????????????"

"I didn't want to do shitty food on purpose," he explained. "I wanted to just wild out, and do really dumb shit in an artful way."

He added that part of the original vision was that "customers could come in every night and know that it was going to be fun." That part, he definitely managed. That summer, a caffeinated malt liquor drink called Four Loko began to gain popularity. Senator Charles Schumer launched a war on the beverage, and Mr. Huang saw an opening. He changed his Twitter handle to "General Loko" and instituted an all-you-can-drink Four Loko dinner. After the plan was deemed illicit, he tacked on $3 per can charge. According to his tweets the morning after, the dinner was a great success.

But that night, the State Liquor Authority raided Xiao Ye and destroyed all the Four Loko. Over the next few weeks, the restaurant was raided by the SLA on three separate occasions after citations for serving underage drinkers (in the form of undercover SLA agents). Under threat of losing his liquor license—which would have made selling the space more difficult—Mr. Huang and his partners shut Xiao Ye down.

Reflecting on the failure, Evan is philosophical. "Xiao Ye was definitely Eddie trying to prove something," he said. "And he didn't fully prove it, but he learned a lot."

IN JULY, a second Baohaus was opened on 14th Street. On a recent Friday night, a line snaked around the door as Ol' Dirty Bastard's "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" pumped through the restaurant.

Mr. Huang has collaborated on a few one-off Chinese New Year's dinners, one of which received a glowing review from Mr. Sifton. Plans to open other Baohaus locations are in the works. And the book deal—which Eddie considers the best thing he's ever done with his life—has been signed.

Though he eventually wants to open another sit-down restaurant, he noted, "I don't have a plan. I hope people don't get upset that cooking is just one thing that I'm into."

Just a few weeks after our lunch, Mr. Huang was sitting in the lobby of the Museum of Chinese in America, having delivered a speech on the topic of whether Asians are black or not. Later, sitting with The Observer in the lobby, he was still mulling over the contract from the Cooking Channel.

He wanted success, but at what price? After all, it was the unfiltered Eddie Huang—self-destructive fuck-up, unlikely feminist, reluctant chef, crack-up, class clown and social equality advocate—who got him so far in the first place. Would those ingredients work any other preparation but his own?

A few days later, he made it clear where he stood, while DJing music on an Internet radio station. "My next song is for Anne Burrell and Guy Fieri," he wrote, tweeting out the link to a YouTube page. Those who clicked through found a G-Unit video: "I Smell Pussy."

The contract has yet to be signed, and negotiations are still ongoing.

During our interview, Mr. Huang recalled the posters he put up in his room as a child: Basketball players like Allen Iverson and Charles Barkley.

"There were no posters I could buy of Asian people besides Bruce Lee. And—I mean, no one's ever going to put up a poster of me, but I hope that, to some kid"—he paused, looking up. "I get emails from Asian kids, and it means the world to me, that they're like: Yo man, you're doing your thing, you're saying what I want to say, and you make me feel like I can walk around with my head up.

"People have sent me emails like that," he grinned. "I won."

[Illustration by Drew Friedman. Photo by Steven Lau.]

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

*Editor's Note: In October 2012, Eddie Huang's show—Fresh Off The Boat—was announced by VICE Media. The planned show with the Cooking Channel and Scripps never materialized.

image via USA Today

The Statue of Liberty is Tebowing on the back cover of today's New York Daily News.

The tabloid has swiftly transferred its hype-mongering efforts from Knicks phenomenon Jeremy Lin to the newest New York Jet, Tim Tebow, promising "Timsanity."

Yesterday's trade of the Denver Broncos quarterback was also splashed on The News' front cover, as well as that of  rival New York Post. The News went with a simple "Amen," while The Post has Mr. Tebow taking a knee in Times Square.

The Post headline is "God Him!"--an apparent reference to the "Got Him!" cover the paper published the morning after Osama bin Laden was killed.

We'll call the curious equation of these two events "Osama Binsanity."

In the span of a few months,

1. New York City's very own Archbishop Dolan becomes a Vatican-ordained Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

2. New York City's Jeremy Lin, the biggest breakout of the 2012 NBA season, is deemed The New Tim Tebow.

and now...

3. Tim Tebow, friend of Jeremy Lin, professional sports' most notoriously devout Christian, is coming to play for the New York Jets. ESPN Reports:

Unusually quiet in recent weeks, the New York Jets shattered the calm Wednesday by completing a trade for polarizing quarterback Tim Tebow, the team confirmed. The Jets will send a fourth-round pick to the Denver Broncos, a source said. Tebow, a former first-round pick, went on the trading block Monday when the Broncos secured free agent Peyton Manning, who signed a five-year, $96 million contract.

In other news, the New Testament is having quite a year in the five boroughs. While bookies have yet to set odds on the Jets' potential success with Tebow on the team, needless to say, watching the interactions between New York Jets coach Rex "Let's Go Get a Goddamned Snack" Ryan and one of the most popular figures of Good Christianity in the Western World will be nothing short of phenomenal.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

A few weeks ago we took note of Steinbrenner Syndrome, wherein a New York City sports player or team is only as loved as their last great performance. It's the disease embedded in the genetic code of New York City's sports media and fans. Now, as far as Linsanity's concerned, we can consider ourselves relapsed.

In today's New York Times, Howard Beck lays it bare in his headline: "Linsanity Has Left The Building," and who notes in his second paragraph that it's "the end of Linsanity as we know it." The primary case concerns the resignation of coach Mike D’Antoni, and his replacement, Mike Woodson, whose style of coaching (veterans over rookies, isolation play) doesn't favor Jeremy Lin (a rookie who thrives on the pick-and-roll offense). All this, even as Beck admits:

Despite his recent struggles, Lin remains wildly popular at the Garden, and with fans around the world, who were captivated by his incredible, come-from-nowhere rise. Lin is beloved by most of his teammates, who appreciate him for reviving their season with a seven-game winning streak and what seemed like a million uncanny clutch plays. But circumstances have changed, and Woodson cannot afford to be sentimental.

Beck, a revered sportswriter, is probably correct in his predictions. That doesn't make the headline any less sensational, nor the case of Steinbrenner Syndrome any less prevalent.

Mind you, a brief timeline of Linsanity:

Feb. 7th: The Times' first mention of "Linsanity," as written by Howard Beck.

Feb. 15th: The Times declares in a photo essay that Linsanity has "returned" to the Garden. Where did it go? Away games, obviously.

Feb. 16th: The Times goes to Harlem to ask people in Harlem about Linsanity. Elsewhere in the Times, "Knicks Win Again, Yawn" goes one blog headline. By our count, there are twelve separate articles published by the Times on the 16th with a mention of "Linsanity."

Feb. 18th: The Times notes Linsanity as "in full force" at the Garden.

Feb. 23rd: Linsanity, according to the Times, may be "peaking."

March 1st to March 7th: 0.71 seperate mentions of Linsanity over a one-week period. Compare this to February 10th - February 16th, when the Times averaged 5.571 separate articles per day with mentions of Linsanity. In New York City, Linsanity literally disappeared from the Google Trends chart at the end of February.

Compare that to Taiwan, where it hung on at a higher rate for a longer period:

And there might be a case to be made. But the fact is, Jeremy Lin is still filling seats at the Garden, because of Jeremy Lin fans (Knicks fans, less so). Linsanity is a wider phenomenon than New York and New York Knicks fans. The New York Times, while not normally prone to such pronouncements—unlike, say, the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and occasionally, ourselves—is as criminal in perpetrating a nuance-lacking hype-cycle as anyone else, and like anyone else in the hype-cycle perpetrating game, is bent on controlling it by making grand pronouncements concerning it. After all, if their most revered sportswriters aren't immune to taking part in it, who in New York's media isn't?

Howard Beck's concern is to be taken seriously in one regard: If Knicks owner James Dolan's replacement for D'Antoni does, in fact, decide to diminish the spotlight of Jeremy Lin—the most exciting thing to happen to the Knicks in ages—paired with the bi-polar nature of Knicks media and fans (who have apparently all but abandoned him), the fact is that Lin's fanbase will exist wherever he goes. And he might already be scouting new places to take it. Or as we explained a few weeks ago:

The fact is, New York City is a fair-weather town. Lin has a one-year contract with the New York Knicks. If he continues to be a sensation, he’ll soon have plenty of options deciding where to play. But will Lin flee the hot zone, and find a home free of that malady of the spoiled sports fan?

[Photo by Chris Trotman/Getty Images]

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

While you're at it, pity poor Larry Brown, and poor Lenny Wilkens, and poor Don Chaney, and poor Jeff Van Gundy. 

Isiah Thomas, who lead the Knicks to basketball hell (and tabloid newspaper glory) before D'Antoni came aboard in 2008, however, will never, ever deserve any of your pity.

These poor souls (once again, save for Zeke, that swine) have had to deal with an ever-changing roster of has-beens and never-will-bes, a fanbase and a media base that would praise you just as fast as they would tear you from limb to limb, and an owner who is, well, just the absolute worst.

That is, James Dolan, the "swaggering" vocalist of JD & The Straight Shot, head of Cablevision (his father Charles Dolan hired him for the position) and the miserable-looking fellow who can be found sitting  courtside at Madison Square Garden, appearing as though he is waiting for his turn to tell his sobriety group how his week went. This is the man who calls the shots in the supposed "Mecca" of basketball.

For the past ten years, those shots have been really, truly, absolutely shitty.

He has brought in head coaches with Hall of Fame pedigrees and New York City roots:  Lenny Wilkens,  the pride of Bedford Stuy and the one-time winningnest coach in the NBA's history (Don Nelson, another former Knick coach, now has that title), and Larry Brown, another Brooklyn-born Hall of Famer who is widely considered one of the all-time great basketball minds.

Both men came with great fanfare, expected to turn around a sputtering franchise that never seemed to regain its swagger since losing to the Indiana Pacers in the 2000 Eastern Conference finals.

Both men left in what has become a familiar exit: fired midseason and with a losing record (Knicks were 17-22 at the time of Wilkens' firing, and 23-59 when Brown was tossed).

So surely Mr. D'Antoni, the offensive guru who turned Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns into one of the most exciting offenses in the past decade, knew what he was getting himself into when he signed a 4-year, $24 million deal to coach the Knicks?

For in Dolan's world, having a revolutionary offensive system means bubkes in the scheme of things. In Phoenix, Mr. D'Antoni had a mainstay at the point guard position. In New York, he had Stephon Marbury and Nate Robinson and Jamal Crawford and Chris Duhon and Toney Douglas and Sergio Rodriguez and Raymond Felton and Chauncey Billups.

Then a miracle happened.

Jeremy Lin, the Harvard-educated scrub who was called up as a bench fill-in, eventually became that mainstay the offensive guru so desperately needed to survive in this town.

And for a brief, rapturous run, Mr. Lin and the Knicks did the unthinkable: They won, they became likable, and they were actually fun to watch (at least, only after Mr. Dolan and co. finally resolved their dispute with Time Warner Cable in February and New Yorkers could, you know, watch their hometown team on TV).  They won while Carmelo Anthony, the marquee player who Dolan overturned a promising roster for (say what you will, but Felton-Fields-Gallo-Stoudemire-Mozgov had character), sat out.

But then Anthony returned, he largely played his own style of basketball instead of D'Antoni's, and the Knicks lost. A lot.

Then yesterday, amid growing reports that the Anthony-D'Antoni rift was destroying all the goodwill  that "Linsanity" had built up, Mr. D'Antoni resigned.

Like his predecessors, he left with a losing record (121-167 overall record) and a lot of money. He also left amid reports that he had argued with Dolan about trading Anthony for New Jersey Nets point guard Deron Williams, a move that made some basketball sense.

"Basketball sense" has never really mattered to Dolan. There are more important matters afoot.

Madison Square Garden is currently transforming itself from the "World's Most Famous Arena® " into a state-of-the-art arena, reportedly at a cost of $850 million. In Dolan's mindset, having a balanced basketball roster (which wins) is not going to pay for the Garden's facelift. Stars like Anthony will. He hiked the average price of a ticket by 49 percent after he traded for Anthony in 2011, and raised it again by 4.9 percent last week. 

But the gloom surrounding D'Antoni's departure was short-lived. With newly-installed head coach Mike Woodson at the helm, the Knicks throttled a listless Portland Trailblazers team and D'Antoni, the mustachioed maverick, was an afterthought.  Stoudemire even slagged off his former Suns and Knicks coach by saying that "everyone wasn't buying into his system."

And why should they? There is no such thing as a system in the Dolan-owned Knicks. It's not about winning basketball games. It's about hiring coaches and bringing in players whose basketball pedigrees and New York City roots lure our sorry asses into the Garden. Marbury of Coney Island, Anthony of Red Hook (but really of Baltimore), Wilkins and Brown of Brooklyn... it works. We buy into the idea that a NYC-native will save this woeful franchise.  (Everyone was wrong: A California native turned out to be our team's savior).

So, the next question is: Why root for the Knicks? Why buy a Knicks t-shirt with, say, Timofey Mozgov's name on it if the fella is just going to end up getting traded the next day?(Editorial note: That happened to me) Why root for Dolan, who refuses to speak to the press (save for a brief statement yesterday), jacks up our ticket prices and laughs all the way to the bank while we read the Daily News and groan?

Because it's basketball. And because we still have Lin... unless Lin, like his old coach, gets the eff out of this circus.

drosen@observer.com