VF Daily

D.J. Cassidy Celebrates His Birthday with Music's Biggest Names

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:04:11 -0500

It’s My Party, I Can Wear a Red Tux If I Want To. D.J. Cassidy. From PatrickMcMullan.com. “Warm it up!” rapper Doug E. Fresh bellowed into the microphone as D.J. Ruckus filled the halls of the New York Public Library with deafening jams. Fresh was just one of the many performers, music honchos, and highly stylized trendsetters who had flocked to the Fifth Avenue institution to celebrate D.J. Cassidy’s 28th birthday last night. Cassidy Podell is one of the most sought-after D.J.’s in the music business, working parties from Hollywood to Capitol Hill; in fact, he was the official D.J. at President Barack Obama’s Inauguration Ball, in January. And D.J. Cassidy certainly draws a crowd. A slew of hip-hop royalty paid homage to the spin-master, including rappers Treach, from Naughty By Nature, Heavy D, Greg Nice, and R&B crooner Maxwell. Even Jay-Z and Nas showed up. The party was a throwback to throwdowns of the past, when the bass was heavy, the vibe was laid-back, and people actually danced—it certainly didn’t hurt that Belvedere provided cocktails honoring Cassidy’s music icon, Michael Jackson. (“Could I get one Smooth Criminal, P.Y.T., and Thriller, please?”)

David Myers's Vichyssoise with Miso, Scallop, and Lovage Puree

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:30:12 -0500

David Myers. In the August issue of Vanity Fair, Laura Jacobs writes about the late Julia Child, the chef who continues to be an inspiration to many of today's culinary stars. VF Daily asked today's top chefs around the country to create twists on Child's classic recipies. Herewith, the results. Bon Appetit! Vichyssoise with Miso, Scallop, and Lovage Puree by David Myers Sona Restaurant 401 N. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90048 310-659-7708 sonarestaurant.com Adapted from the Vichyssoise recipe printed in Julia Child's 1989 cookbook The Way to Cook (Knopf).

Pricked by Neptune's Fork: Maserati Quattroporte

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:20:33 -0500

You know how you feel when you run into someone at a restaurant, someone you’ve flirted with in the past but with whom you didn’t seal the deal, and now he’s all paired up and tan and sharing food from his date’s salad bowl, looking like they just came back from vacation in Madrid? You know what I’m talking about: that brain-biting twinge of I should have done him when I had the chance? The French call it, regret. This is just how I felt when I’d bump into a Maserati Quattroporte. I had spent a morning in the company of this handsome specimen at this year’s Detroit Auto Show, when filming the seminal Stick Shift video What is the Sexuality of the Maserati Quattroporte? with my pal Eddie Alterman. I’d lusted after it from afar, frequently mentioning it as the best-looking sedan on the market, and reveled in my ability to be in its direct company, to feed it flattering lines, and to run my hands over its muscular flanks. I even managed to get its number.

The House Shoots Down Michael Jackson’s Legacy

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:00:00 -0500

• The secret to winning the hearts and minds of the White House Press Pool? Grill them hot dogs! [Gawker] • Nancy Pelosi says Michael Jackson won’t get his commemorative resolution after all. (And, in other news, Peter King now knows what the first line of his obituary will be.) [L.A. Times] • John Ensign on why he gave $100,000 to his mistress’s family: I was in a gift-giving mood! [Politico] • What’s the best way to promote climate legislation? Show up to the Senate playing Daft Punk. [Daily Kos] • They’re still protesting in Iran! [Huff Post] • The newest plan to save journalism: The New York Times is considering charging $5 per month for access to its Web site. [Bloomberg] • Proof that Roger Federer is, in fact, not human. [NYT]

The World's Top Mixologists Discuss the State of Cocktails

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:54:05 -0500

The best way to describe Tales of the Cocktails, a five-day convention in New Orleans, is that it's ComiCon for barflies. "Super Bowl" is too mainstream an analogy because the people here really are, well, cocktail geeks. In its sixth year, bartenders, mixologists, liquor companies, and their entourages have descended upon the Big Easy to swap recipes, try new liqueurs, and give each other high fives while pouring behind the bar. New Orleans is the perfect location for such an event. With no open-container laws preventing the party from moving down the street, and no shortage of balconies and stoops—not to mention an excellent culinary reputation—the city is a veritable playground for carousing. When I say that these people are cocktail nerds, I'm not exaggerating. Listening in on a conversation between a group of bartenders from Los Angeles, I was intrigued to hear their heated debate about where cocktail "vortices" are located—points on planet Earth where the perfect cocktail can be created. The final consensus seemed to be Siberia because of its cold temperatures, although the Swiss Alps got similar praise because of their altitude.

In Response to John Ensign

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:00:17 -0500

July, 2009 John: Thanks to Google Alerts, I saw your apology note to Cindy Hampton where you mentioned me not once, not twice, but eight times. Why’d you drag me into your sordid sex scandal? You even admit, “God never intended for us to do this.” That’s right, buddy. I gave you Ten Commandments and TWO of them warn against doing exactly what you did: (1) Thou shall not commit adultery; and, (2) Thou shall not covet your neighbor's wife. (You and the Hamptons all lived in Summerlin, right?) So you ignore my laws and then claim, “I know He loves me + I know He loves you.” Don’t put words in my mouth. Maybe I’m not as free with my love as you are with yours. And don’t be so certain when you say, “I know He wants to restore Darlene and me + wants to restore Doug and you.” Honestly, you guys are not a high priority for me. I’m too busy trying to get Sean Penn and Robin Wright Penn back together—they’re Hollywood royalty! So you gorged on sin and now you’ve crawled back, insisting “He wants to restore our relationships to Him.” What am I, sloppy seconds? Or worse, your wife? You make me sick. And that goes for Governor Sanford, too. I heard him the other day, comparing himself to King David. I knew King David. King David was a friend of mine. Mark Sanford is no King David. Still, I hope you learned one thing from this mess. The next time you break up with a mistress, don’t send a letter that her cuckolded husband can find and plaster all over the Internet. You’re better off ending things with a phone call. Sincerely, God p.s. When you told Cindy, “I was completely self-centered + only thinking of myself,” you do know that’s redundant, right? Like if I called you “a moron + an idiot.”

A Summer Romance for Queen Noor and Her Mexican Billionaire?

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:04:42 -0500

Queen Noor, widow of the late King Hussein of Jordan, is reportedly being wooed by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú. According to an admittedly shaky source, the Jordanian royal visits Mexico City with some regularity and has even taken Spanish lessons. Don't expect to read about this potential romance in The New York Times, however—Slim, the world's third richest man, is also The Times's largest shareholder outside of the Sulzberger clan. Slim, a widower, lost his wife to a kidney ailment in 1999, the same year that King Hussein passed away after complications from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Can America Call Mexico Out on Alleged Torture Use?

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:20:00 -0500

Members of the Mexican army salute during a ceremony in Mexico City in March. The army has been accused of employing torture in its war against drug traffickers. Dick Cheney does not want to hear you complain about torture being uncouth. Don’t even start him on the “contrived indignation” and “phony moralizing” inspired by the use of interrogation techniques like waterboarding. “People who consistently distort the truth in this way are in no position to lecture anyone about ‘values,’” he declared in his widely publicized sermon on terrorism in May. Cheney meant that as an attack on Democrats, but the same argument is now being made about the American government on the whole—that is, how can a country that has used torture tell another country not to do the same thing?

The CIA and Murdoch Will Get Away With It

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:21:18 -0500

The CIA tells lies to the rest of the American government. Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids engage in nefarious means, including illegal electronic eavesdropping, to get dirt on celebrities. The current director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, has apparently admitted as much to Congress. The Guardian says Murdoch has paid out $1.6 million to secretly settle cases of phone hacking. Each of these stories ought to be seismic. The CIA, at the center of the intelligence debacles of the last decade, ought to be investigated at least as intensely as it was in the late '70s after revelations of its internal spying. The Murdoch organization in the UK, which has as much influence on the British government as any other private business, ought to face the kind of independent examination that could, free from outside influence, send an impressive number of Murdoch lieutenants to jail. And yet, the overwhelming likelihood is that Washington and London shrug. The CIA and the Murdoch organization are protected by their own consistently bad behavior and negative image. People don’t get excited about what they already know. CONTINUE READING at Newser.com �

Ward Churchill's Wild Ride

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:05:50 -0500

By now you may have forgotten about Ward Churchill. He is the angry professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado whose perspective on the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, was so cruel and grotesque that school officials immediately tried to fire him when they learned of his published writings on the topic. In a rambling, often incomprehensible 2002 article entitled “On the Justice of Roosting Chicken,” Churchill called the victims who died at the World Trade Center “little Eichmanns” complicit in their own murders by virtue of their support for America’s military and diplomatic policies going back to the Persian Gulf war in 1991. He wrote: “True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire—the ‘mighty engine of profit’ to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved—and they did so both willingly and knowingly.” Churchill continued: “More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.”

International Social Calendar: Kimberley

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:00:02 -0500

What: Kimberley. When: Sometime in July (rumored to be July 11). Where: Kimberley Hall, Norfolk, U.K. Relevance: Established in the early 1990s by Peter Buxton and his younger brother Robbie, Kimberley (or “Toffstock” as Tatler calls it) is part festival, part rave, and part private party. You must be invited to buy a ticket, making it one of the more exclusive dates on the summer social calendar. Those lucky enough to score an invite swarm the grounds of the stately home for a long weekend of debauchery. Highlights: The festival and acts are a closely guarded secret and media is actively discouraged, but most of the entertainment involves D.J.’s and dancing until dawn. Who: Society libertines. More information: kimberleyhall.co.uk Related: More events on the International Social Calendar.

Now Might Be the Time to Buy That Private Island

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:30:33 -0500

What are private islands going for these days? Not as much as you might think, it turns out. VF Daily surveyed the global private-island market and found that prices have been slashed—in some cases by half—as anxious sellers are hurrying to unload their properties. So if you weren’t Madoff’d, or if you’ve been hiding a stash of money under your mattress and not in a stock portfolio, then consider investing in one of these gems.

Rebecca Guinness Meets Harley Viera-Newton

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:45:50 -0500

VF Daily's resident social scribe, Rebecca Guinness, meets those people whose names you always see bolded in society columns, but whom you never know anything about. Name: Harley Viera-Newton. Age: 21. Hometown: London/L.A. Occupation: Student/"D.J."

Jackson Memorial Service Was a Ratings Flop

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:59:00 -0500

• A humbled Ruth Madoff goes apartment shopping. Among the amenities of the tiny Upper East Side one-bedroom that could be her new digs: Orange linoleum floors and yellow Formica counters. Welcome to the real world! [NYP] • Michael Jackson has nothing on Ronald Reagan or Princess Diana—ratings-wise, at least. [Hollywood Reporter] • Also, a fun fact: His brain was not in the coffin during Tuesday's memorial service. [The Sun] • Nancy Pelosi is vindicated: The C.I.A. admits it made a regular habit of snookering Congress throughout the Bush years. [NYT] • Michelle Obama is spotted carrying a $6,000 purse while going for a stroll in Russia. They probably don't sell that at J. Crew! [NYDN] • Michael Moore has his next target: Wall Street. [Variety]

Sarah Palin's Sure Shot

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:00:12 -0500

Have a newsworthy cocktail hour with VF Daily’s current-events-inspired concoctions. Today’s cocktail is in honor of the nearly-former governor of Alaska Sarah Palin, because she’s gonna be a force to be reckoned with in 2012. A force for those damn moose, that is. Sarah Palin’s Sure Shot 1.5 oz. Alizé Red Passion 1.5 oz. champagne Lemon peel Combine Alizé and champagne in a champagne flute. Garnish with a lemon peel.