50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers - 2004
lab~mouse
"How come you guys are such haters?" someone asked us recently.
Shocked and insulted, we shook our heads. Our biggest issue thus
farólast September's Best of Manhattan issueówas a compendium of
positivity. On any given week we're founts of compassion: lovers, not
haters; uniters, not dividers. Our Chelsea offices burst with fresh
lilacs. We adopt kittens and support the arts. We volunteer in our
communities.
Haters? You must have us confused with those monsters at New York
Family
When asked to elaborate, our detractor referred to last year's
inaugural "50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers" issue. Almost a year after
its publication, her impression of New York Press was still stamped by
this feature. So a quick word about 2004's Top 50.
This list is not about hate. More like highly enriched concern. In
defining the word "loathsome," we cast a wide net and caught all
manner of frauds, blowhards and bloodsuckers. Sometimes the people
displaying this behavior are representative of unseen forces and
larger groups; other times they're self-contained symbols, their
loathsomeness obvious.
By nailing these 50 men and women to the cross, aren't we making New
York an even darker, nastier place?
Nope. Like the matter of the universe, loathsomeness can be neither
created nor destroyed. It can only be more justly reshuffled. If you
can't beat all the loathsomeness in the world, we figure, you might as
well catalogue it.
One love.
THE EDITORS
50 Sofia Coppola Director
AN ART BIMBO whose daddy happens to be movie royalty rides in on the
tired back of Bill Murray and is proclaimed a new film genius. The
genius' film, Lost in Translation, is the most pretentious, overrated
movie of last year, about an alienated Yale brat who feels so lonely
in her five-star hotel that she strips down to her panties and curls
up on the windowsill every half-hour (accompanied by My Bloody
Valentine and Jesus & Mary Chain, just in case you didn't get how much
pain she's experiencing). Even Translation's pretty palette and indie
minimalism couldn't hide the empty dual core of Coppola and her Tokyo
alter ego. L.A. can have her in 2005; this year the bicoastal princess
of pout kicks things off at #50.
49 Bruce Ratner Developer
YEAH, IT WOULD be nice to have a pro team back in Brooklyn. It would
also be nice if wings sprouted from our shoulders and we could fly
like pixies. Wannabe Batman villain Bruce Ratner pays no heed to the
heinous traffic mess a new arena would create for Flatbush and
Atlantic Aves. He speaks nothing of the people forced out of their
homes, nor of the enormous amount of public dough needed to fund his
private enterprise, nor of the dozens of buildings being condemned at
ludicrously undervalued pricesóeven as his nearby, failed Atlantic
Center Mall depends on City Hall back-scratches to pay rent. A true
visionary, Ratner can only see his multi-billion-dollar dream
extending heavenward. The people of Brooklyn are just diorama props
for investor display, pouring soda and serving hot dogs at minimum
wage.
48 50 Cent Rapper
WHAT UP, GANGSTA? Look at you, up from the underground with mix tapes
and DVDs in hand, riding the coattails of Jam Master Jay's murder into
the TRL ether. We probably could have handled the Teen People cover,
but the Teen People centerfold was off the cliff: You posed in a
bulletproof vest for a glossy magazine aimed at 12-year-old girls. Did
you know that the press release for your Grammy performance had you
next to Celine Dion and Richard Marx? Time to go get fitted for a pair
of MC Hammer pants and bring your act to Foxwoods.
47 Drew Barrymore & Fabrizio Moretti Celebrities
CUPID SHOULD BE flambÈed for piercing this female-condom poster ho and
her pubic-haired li'l drummer boy. This is the kind of celebrity
couple one dreams of razoring into bite-sized nibbles and feeding to
baby pigs. If they're not strolling through Soho, stopping every 10
feet to tongue wrassle, they're sticking their hands in one another's
ass pockets, making Fab's 15 minutes extra super special. We acted
like this, tooóin junior high.
46 Michael Gansas Captain of Staten Island Ferry
PERHAPS HE REALLY was inspecting the lifeboats, as some claim. Or
maybe he was pounding his pud or taking a nap, as many suspect and
reports indicate. Whatever he was doing, he wasn't anywhere near the
helm when the Staten Island Ferry plowed into the pier, which is where
the captain of any ship should be when the vessel sets sail or makes
land. His behavior after the accident was even worse: laying low and
hiding behind his legal counsel. Michael, don't even think of taking
the MTA's conductor test this spring.
45 Bonnie Bellow EPA spokesperson
"THERE IS NOTHING we have found that is at a significant level," said
Bonnie Bellow of the EPA in October 2001, "that would say you should
not come here to live or work." The lawsuit filed in March against the
EPA claims the agency showed "a shockingly deliberate indifference to
human health" and will no doubt highlight this and numerous other
statements made by Bellow and her boss, Jane M. Kenny, who has called
the lawsuit "preposterous." Last fall, Bellow again assured wary
residentsóthis time of 114 Liberty St.óthat their building was safe,
in a statement sounding a lot like those she dutifully issued in the
immediate aftermath of the attacks. Back then Bellow's EPA colluded
with a company called the Ambient Group and local realtors to fake
test results of "visible dust" inspectionsóall to keep real estate
prices up. You got a bridge to sell us, too, Bonnie? We'll buy if you
jump.
44 Pasquale DiFulco AirTrain Spokesman
AIRTRAINóthe light rail system serving JFK from LIRR's Jamaica Station
that replaces the free shuttle bus between the A train's Howard Beach
station and airport terminalsórolled in last December, past due (after
a death-dealing accident during trial runs) and $400 million over
budget. Now commuters riding the subway to JFK have to get aboard this
automated rip-off and pay an additional $5 each way, with no discounts
for seniors or the disabled. No matter that the 8.1-mile AirTrain tour
takes as long or longer than the free shuttle bus ride, or that
drop-off points are farther from terminal entrances and expose
travelers to the elements. No matter that airport employees say
AirTrain service is so erratic they wind up taking cabs between
terminals. Who's the title-deserving New Yorker behind this insult to
the world? Gov. George Pataki and Port Authority's Charles A. Gargano
share the bulk of the blame, but when we called Port Authority to ask
who's officially in charge, AirTrain spokesman Pasquale DiFulco
couldn't be bothered to do his job and hung up on us. You win, dick.
43 Barak Pridor Data Miner
WHEN THE DEVIL talks, he uses language like this: "Our solutions
deliver complete, industry-proven, content extraction and analysis
applications enabling research-intensive organizations to create new
opportunities, shorten time to market, increase productivity and gain
competitive advantage." Don't have the faintest idea what that's all
about? That's probably because you don't use technology developed by
Pridor's oxymoronic ClearForest company, which enables clients like
the FBI, the Dept. of Homeland Security and Dow Chemical to
surreptitiously sift through publicly available content to learn More
About You. Increasingly, it is pointy-headed, anonymous entrepreneurs
like Pridor who are teaching the Man how to tailor his pitch or craft
his search warrant to ensnare that meddlesome forest animal
irritatingly resistant to the cage: the unwitting, ordinary human
being.
42 i-Snobs
THE BLINDING WHITE cords flowing out of my sublimely waxed ears say it
all: I'm in no mood for talking, and my income bracket makes
cumbersome CDs so unnecessary, so Second Wave. With thousands of songs
from my iPod at my polished fingertips, I can now walk through life
effortlessly, angelically, shielded by the anodized aluminum of my
futuristic listening device. I can strut with confidence and
disinterest past those in my chosen path. I'm cut off from your dirty
world by my ear buds and their enhanced sound and noise-suppression
features. I'm a creature of advertising, a walking cliche with
25-minute skip protection and Volkswagen dreams. Shit, my profile even
resembles the faceless, platonic form in the billboard.
41 Jim Dolan Cablevision CEO
THAT THIS RECOVERING alcoholic calls his white-guy blues ensemble J.D.
& the Straight Shot is bad enough. That Dolan owes his entire bloated
life to his rich daddy and has adopted the music of poor black people
as his hobby is worse. Maybe Dolan's love of the blues made him cut 80
MSG workers this past winteródon't all good blues songs start, "Done
lost my jobÖ"? Sadly, few classic blues songs start "Standard & Poor's
put the company I inherited from my dad on CreditWatch" or have
refrains about SEC probes. Or how the hockey team you own sucks. Or
how your cable company tied for last place in a 2003 Residential
Cable/Satellite TV Customer Satisfaction Survey. Then, maybe our pudgy
billionaire bandleader would have something to sing about.
40 Donny Deutsch Ad Man
DEUTSCH REPRESENTS THE latest trend in that most loathsome of New York
traditions: the selling of adolescent greed, egomania and narcissism
as charisma and depth of character. The chief of David Deutsch
Associates says he only hires "Jews, chicks and fags," and is known
for tearing off his shirt during office hours and sayingówithout
ironyóthings like, "I can kick the ass of any CEO in advertising!"
Think Steven Seagal meets Charlotte Beers. The "Elvis of Advertising"
has been dabbling with a CNBC talk show and even told New York
magazine that he'd consider running for mayor. Qualifications: good at
selling shit, does lots of pushups. Look out, Bloomie.
39 Eric Alterman Pundit
WHAT LIBERAL DICKWAD? Milhouse is all grown up: He has a goatee, a PhD
from Stanford and an online diary where he proclaims his love for
Jackson Browne. Liberal bloggers are holding it up like the fucking
Alamo, but his run-in with Dennis Miller last month left Alterman
looking like he was about to get his head dunked in the toiletófor the
third time. Even if you agree with him about Ann Coulter and Alexander
Cockburn, it's hard not to root against this smirking, center-left
prick who likes his dinner dates rich and famous and his fois gras
seared. "He constantly wants to remind you that he's Eric Alterman,"
one of his interns revealed in a rumor-confirming Village Voice
hatchet-job, "[and] that he knows a lot of important people, and that
you're a lowly intern." Dear future self-respecting Alterman interns:
If this creepy Bruce Springsteen groupie ever cops an attitude, just
take a breath, start laughing and print out some of his
"Alter-Reviews" at random. If you're lucky, you'll hit a Jackson
Browne box set.
38 Chuck Klosterman Critic
KLOSTERMAN ISN'T A loathsome New Yorker so much as a loathsome
creation of New York, a North Dakota circus monkey desperately trying
to ape the role of an authentic Midwestern, beer-drinking mullet-head.
In his excruciatingly stupid collection of essays, Sex, Drugs and
Cocoa Puffs, Klosterman declares that Billy Joel is "great," Steely
Dan "more lyrically subversive than the Sex Pistols and the Clash
combined." The author goes on to compare himself and his yuppie
girlfriend to Sid and Nancy because they're both so
"self-destructive." Lester Bangs would have vomited down this guy's
shirt before shaking his hand.
37 Abe Foxman National Director of Anti-Defamation League
FOXMAN'S ADL HAS paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and
civil suits for various abuses over the yearsólike spying on the
African National Congressóand yet continues to enjoy the endorsement
of law enforcement officials and a cowed media. The superhumanly
self-righteous gasbag makes $450,000 as Likud's point man at the
highest echelons of U.S. thoughtcrime enforcement, where he smears
critics of Israel with allegations of anti-Semitism and honors the
memory of the Holocaust by allying with oven-chasing lawyers and those
who would downplay the Roma genocide to bolster the case for Jewish
exceptionalism. Even fellow Sharon-shill Bill Safire wanted him to
resign after his role in the Marc Rich pardon. For the book on Foxman,
see Norman Finkelstein's The Holocaust Industry (Verso), written by
the child of two survivors. Foxman helped block the publication of one
of Finkelstein's earlier books in 1998. Just another day at the ADL
office.
36 Bud Selig MLB Commissioner
HIS FACIAL EXPRESSIONS evoke William S. Burroughs' "commissioner of
sewers" character. And maybe that's just what 69-year-old Allan H.
"Bud" Selig is. Major League Baseball's greed machine has shifted into
high gear under his reign as he mishandles one crisis after another.
For years he's childishly trumpeted increased attendance as an actual
barometer of the sport, while relying on MLB's dubious marketing
schemes and false-fronted emphasis on "internationalizing" baseball to
carry all the public relations weight. Once a below-average auto
dealer, he's Wisconsin through and through, but Bud's office is up
there on Park Ave. with the rest of the league royalty, probably
pissed that he goes unrecognized when eating at nearby Smith &
Wollensky.
35 Thomas Renyi Banker
THE SLOE-EYED CEO of the Bank of New York just revealed that he paid
himself more than $10.6 million this yearóthat's the compensation that
we know aboutóproving once again that in the world of finance, it is
always possible to keep the scandal out of Washington and go back to
your old inflated pay scale as soon as the bad press dies down. Renyi
was running BoNY at the time the bank was caught in the biggest
money-laundering scheme in the country's history, but managed to
survive by cutting his bonus that year to a paltry five mil and
letting two subordinatesóhusband and wife Peter Berlin and Lucy
Edwardsóassume full responsibility for the billions in dirty Russian
money that was somehow (unbeknownst to him) being pumped through his
bank. With profits finally up again this year, Renyi and his officers
are again respectable citizensóand back to being some of the
highest-paid bankers in America.
34 Chuck Schumer U.S. Senator
The Senator puts even his peers to shame with his media whoritude.
During the Waco hearings, he grandstanded by berating the hapless
survivors of that tragedy like an alcoholic school principal. Always
trying to protect us from ourselves by pushing for laws to ban
anything that seems dangerous in the slightest, but at the same time
doing everything he can to help car owners, cellphone users and his
friends in the (formerly) Big Five accountancy firms. His weekly
Sunday press conferences never amount to anythingóexcept in those
cases in which he's taking credit for someone else's legislation.
Schumer's most recent loathsome act? Oh yeah, calling on the EPA to
exempt New York from new cleaner gas laws so gas prices wouldn't go
up.
33 Iris Weinshall DOT Commissioner
CHUCK SCHUMER'S EVEN lesser half physically may resemble the
androgynous "Pat" character from Saturday Night Live, but she has the
political instincts of Rudy. In classic Giuliani fashion, the
senator's wife tried to install a seven-foot-tall chain-link fence
along the Queensboro Bridge without approval from the city's Landmarks
Preservation Commission. She often (incorrectly) says that her job is
"to keep the traffic moving," which even includes through city parks:
Weinshall opposed making Prospect Park car-free, possibly out of
unfounded concern that overflow traffic from the park would be
displaced to Prospect Park West, which happens to be where she and
Chuck live. In the aftermath of the Staten Island Ferry crash, she
screamed for investigations on-camera, but took little action when the
microphones disappearedóher attention, apparently, turned back to
protecting union boss Mickey McFarland, accused almost two years ago
of bilking the DOT by falsifying the records of waste-disposal runs.
32 James Frey Author
IT STILL BOGGLES the brain that so many fell for this brawny brat's
2003 rehab memoir, A Million Little Pieces. Clearly there's a huge
audience starved for dimestore, parodic Hemingway machismo. And Frey,
the self-proclaimed "greatest writer of his generation," is the man to
give it to them. He boasts about getting in real old-time fistfights
with his fellow junkie patients and about beating a priest almost to
death for daring to touch Frey's very masculine thighóclassic 1930s
retro-prose, homoerotic and homophobic at once. His characters are as
anachronistic as his writing; there's a steelworker "as hard as the
material he works with" and endless tearful farewell scenes with a
fisherman, who actually says, "I ain't much for words, kid." Frey's
fellow patients all talk like outtakes from a Spencer Tracy movie,
pasted into Frey's poorly written, 400-page ode to his family-funded
self.
31 Judith Miller New York Times reporter
CONSIDERED A DOUBLE expert in weapons of mass destruction and Islam
despite lacking both a science background and Arabic language skills,
Judith Miller is more than a veteran lecture-circuit fraud. By relying
on Pentagon officials and Ahmed Chalabi for her "scoops," she was
instrumental in pumping bogus intelligence into the media echo chamber
in 2002 and 2003. Thousands of dead later, she's been outed by nearly
every serious watchdog journal in the country but is still defending
herself. When the Army unit with which she was imbedded decided to
abandon its fruitless search for weapons, she threatened to write an
unfavorable story for the Times unless the search was resumedóforcing
what one officer called a "rogue operation." Considering Miller's
sources, it shouldn't shock us that no WMD ever turned up. It should
shock us that the bitch still has a job.
30 Joan Rivers comedienne
CAN WE TALK? Can we shop? Can this whiny yenta with nine lives kindly
shut the fuck up? The bleach-blond medusa of Puh-lease stabbed a
rental car agent in the eye with a pen in 2002, and over a 30-year
career has done more to birth and reinforce negative stereotypes of
her kind than a million New Jersey housewives rushing the sale table
at Nordstrom on a Sunday afternoon. Her celebrity gossip website is a
proud exercise in vertical integration gone wildóno product goes
unmentioned, no designer goes unblownówhile her QVC line of beauty
productsó"Nobody's perfect but why not come as close as you
can?"ómight have mentioned all the money she's dumped at the plastic
surgeon's office to anglicize her nose, raise her breasts, fix her
knees and, we can only assume, revitalize her labia. Oh, rightóshe
does mention that, every week at Fez, during her abominable
mother-daughter show. Is there a heart still beating beneath that
tight, leathery exterior? Or was it replaced with a bionic annoying
bitch machine? Will it ever stop?
29 Strand Staffers
SLAVING AT A used bookshop may be a nobler vocation than trading pork
bellies, but is it too much to ask that someone make eye contact
through his or her Elvis Costello glasses? Is it unreasonable to
expect the occasional acknowledgement of a customer's presence? Do new
employees take classes to learn how to display utter contempt? Screw
the Strand and its narrow aisles and indecipherable shelving practices
and overpriced used books and staff of petulant clerks. They can ram
all eight miles of books up their mopey asses. Next to them, the
people at Barnes & Noble are downright motherly.
28 Dick Grasso ex-CEO of New York Stock Exchange
WHEN FORBES.COM CALLS you "dangerous," you're either Hugo Chavez or a
Wall St. monster so grotesque you threaten to bring down the house on
the whole party. During the hunt for Grasso's shiny scalp, the SEC
subpoenaed 65 former NYSE directors, seeking records relating to
Grasso's pay package of $188 million. After finally stepping down as
chairman and CEO, Grasso gave $48 million back, but his lawyer Brendan
Sullivanópreviously seen defending Oliver North in the Iran-Contra
hearingsómade sure there was plenty left over for legal fees. Grasso
may be no worse at root than any other Wall St. douchebagócertainly no
more than his meatball-stained kingmaker Kenneth G. Langoneóbut the
oily dome and snake-in-the-garden grin put Grasso over the top in
2003.
27 Bonnie Fuller Tabloid Queen
THIS CANADIAN-BORN tabloid succubus has been getting a hail of belated
bad press for mistreating and overworking her underlings. Despite
being among the highest-paid editors in publishing, she reportedly
still hogs the promo merch like
a shifty intern. Her Evil Queen act would be forgivable if her formula
weren't, as described by her former employer the Toronto Star, "sex,
shopping, clothes, celebrity hairstyles, gossip and more sex." Her big
genius move at Us Weekly was to run pictures of sweatpants-clothed
celebrities without makeup. She alsoócall the Pulitzer committee!óran
a slutty picture of Kobe Bryant's accuser on the cover of the Globe.
Anyone who's ever wondered in post-9/11 reverie Why They Hate Us need
only ponder this woman's career. Better yet, do what one of Fuller's
former colleagues allegedly did: Foul her lunch with bodily fluids.
26 The Hilton Sisters Socialites
IT IS SAID that in pre-revolution France, aristocrats would dress up
as peasants and roam the countryside. A few years later, their heads
sat atop spikes. Let this be a little cautionary tale for the Hilton
girls. Just because you've gone to Arkansas and fisted a cow doesn't
mean you're anything but the same dirty debutantes with bony behinds.
If you're smartóand based on those empty, coke-burned stares, you're
notóyou'll just drug yourselves into plush oblivion and leave the
world's celebrity porn sites alone, lest the wrong psycho take a
fascination to you.
25 Lenny Kravitz Musician
WHEN IN PUBLIC, neo-hippie glam rocker Lenny Kravitzóaka Moe Ronóhas
been known to employ a man to follow him around and carry the flowing
tail of his royal cardigan sweater. According to Vice magazine's Jesse
Pearson, who once witnessed this crime with his own eyes, Kravitz's
sweater chauffeur carries the hanging garment at an appropriate
distance, "like a bridesmaid." We knew Leonard Albert Kravitz was a
lip-glossed prima donna who spent two hours a day touching himself in
front of a full-length mirroróbut a bridesmaid for a boutique
cardigan? That's 51 percent loathsome, 49 percent humiliatingófor all
of us. Don't stop fucking yourself, Lenny.
24 Mr. Wiggles Teddy Bear
IN THE ANNALS of New York cartooning, never has there been a more
loathsome character than this vile little child-molesting bear.
Foul-mouthed and foul-smelling, Mr. Wiggles gives teddy bears
come-to-life a bad name. His partner and creator, Neil Swaab, deserves
at least half the blame for the crimes of this Frankenstein anti-Pooh.
Not only did the sinister Swaab once pee in Tony Millionaire's soda,
he still laughs about it.
23 Diane Sawyer Anchorwoman
THE QUEEN OF broadcast journalism infotainment, Diane is ABC News'
incessant ingenue that we hope one day interviews a hungry Siberian
tiger. As Good Morning America's 50-something going on 30-something
blond and blue-eyed eternal debutante, she coyly sucks pudding from
Wolfgang Puck's spoon, creams over celebrities and moguls of any
stripe, cries like an insipid crocodile for the victims of fÍted daily
tragedies and bats her eyelashes while touting her
Nixon-White-House-past. For her current multi-million-dollar-per-year
contract, Diane guarantees an overdose of saccharine sufficiently
strong to send viewers into a coma, but not strong enough to flush the
fourth-place network's morning ratings out of the toilet.
22 Pierre Rougier Fashion publicist
IN THE SEA of slimy New York fashion publicists, Pierre Rougier is a
giant squid: oozy, tentacle-wielding and capable of inflating to a
tremendous size. It's a mystery why his designer clients don't bolt
from the nose-in-the-air, thumb-up-the-ass Frenchman. With all the
tact of Courtney Love and foresight of Martha Stewart, Rougier
brown-noses fashion royalty to the point where even they notice, all
the while shafting, with barely a shrug, anyone not endowed with a
wardrobe allowance. But revenge will be sweet. Gucci execs have been
urging Balenciaga designer Nicolas Ghesquiere to cut the cord, and
Anna Wintour, the famously frosty editrix whose repugnance for Rougier
is her only shared trait with the rest of humanity, has repeatedly
called for his perfumed head.
21 Cast of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
OF THE MANY Sambo queers who have captured the pop-cultural spotlight
since Stonewall, none has wreaked as much damage as the minstrel cast
of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Kyan Douglas, Ted Allen, Carson
Kressley, Jai Rodriguez and Thom Filicia have taken the
self-conscious, hyperstylized stereotypical homo to the next level.
Their show's popularity doesn't signify growing acceptanceóit just
makes it easier for America to see gay men as effeminate fashion
snobs. There's no other way to say this: The "fab five" are the most
annoying faggots we've ever seen on television.
20 Lloyd Grove Gossip Columnist
HE CAME FROM the Washington Post as a sniveling insider notable for
daring to report that Tim Robbins threatened him with violence for
reporting a simple truth. As gossip columnist for the Daily News,
Grove has been flummoxed by the city and is reduced to covering petty
internet bickering long after it's old news. Check out his sterling
reporting on Martha Stewart, hacking away several days after the
verdict to tell us that Hillary Clinton has sympathy for a perjurer.
Big scoop, Lloyd. This would usually be incompetent instead of
loathsome, but the stakes were raised once you conned the Daily News
into paying massive bucks for your groveling.
19 David Cross Comedian
CALL IT HUMOR for slow hipsters: Cross is condescending, meandering,
undisciplined and...not funny. His HBO comedy special opens with him
screaming a lot and pretending to speak Italian. If only Andrew Dice
Clay could have jumped out of the front row with two sets of brass
knuckles. His new DVD, Let America Laugh, follows him cross-country as
his smug brand of humor falls on deaf ears and loud mouths. He's
literally cursed off the stage in Little Rockóa show he likens
offstage to "babysitting retarded puppies." Apparently it never
occurred to Cross that he got the cane not because they couldn't
handle his acidic New York witóer, he's from Georgiaóbut because even
hicks have taste. To understand why Cross requires a beatdown, imagine
Jeff Foxworthy working his more "down home" jokes at the Apollo.
18 Moby Musician
IT WAS BAD enough when Moby started singing; now he's singing and
talking at the same time. When not crooning school-girl poetry (see
"We Are All Made of Stars") or desecrating classic punk songs between
hissy fits on stage, the techno prophet cum vegan ethicist of the
early 90s is schooling credulous fans on a wide range of contemporary
issues. Between lessons in Nicaraguan history and tales of Rummy's
early-80s holidays in Baghdad, Moby pontificates in prose that would
make even DJ Spooky cringe ("We're so inherently locked into our
temporal and corporeal selves that we're irrevocably locked into
subjectivity") and Michael Stipe wince ("cos at the end of the day
peace is better than war, right?"). We're thankful for "Go" and the
car commercial songs on Play, but mister, please put your space helmet
back on, get in your space ship and don't stop till you hit Pluto.
17 James Lipton Dean of the Actors Studio
IT'S NOT JUST that his sycophantic interviewing technique has
transcended butt-kissing to become all-out analingus, or that he's
sullied the stage where Pacino performed Mamet with paeans to Ben
Affleck. It's not the fey cadence and maddening British affect. It's
that Lipton has become so obsessed with full-penetration starfucking
that he's allowed the Actors Studio to deteriorate into a fifth-rate
factory whose graduates aren't prepared for a two-liner on Law &
Order. In the days of Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg, the Actors Studio
was considered more important than the Yale School of Drama; today it
competes with continuing education classes at the Learning Annex. Memo
to Lipton: Taking it from Jay Leno and Ethan Hawke isn't doing much
for your students. And you look ridiculous.
16 Billy Bush Access Hollywood Reporter
IT'S A NOBLE thing to insult and infuriate celebrities. But the key is
to do it out of contempt for them and in a spirit of humor. (Remember
the UK's Dennis Pennis?) When you're just another paparazzi who pisses
off Tom Cruise by being an even bigger asshole than he is, that's a
rare accomplishment in loathsomeness. Normally we'd applaud someone
who offended Oprah Winfrey, mortally embarrassed Keisha Castle-Hughes
and disgusted Nicole Kidman, but we can't begrudge anything to the
Access Hollywood reporter and presidential cousin Billy Bush. Just
imagine the man Billy Crystal called "the most annoying man in show
business" in a red-carpet screaming match with Brad Pitt's publicist
over allotted mic-time. Now say you don't want to see Angelina Jolie
smash his nuts into five easy pieces.
15 Choire Sicha Blogger
WHERE'S AL QAEDA'S crack cyber division when you need it? When edited
by Elizabeth Spiers, Gawker was occasionally funnyóvapid and cloying,
but occasionally funny. When Spiers left the site to slog buckets for
New York magazine, she handed the reins to Choire Sichaóyes, folks,
that's pronounced "Cory", and yes, it's a dudeówho turned Gawker into
an unreadable circle-jerk for the cream of New York City's wannabe
media asshole crop. To read Gawker now is no longer an enjoyable five
minutes in the morning; it's stumbling into a horrifying online
cocktail party hosted by a humorless, obnoxious prick and attended by
his even less interesting obnoxious prick friends. Go ahead and gawk,
but there's nothing to see here.
14 David J. Moore Media Exec
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER of 24/7 Real Media, Moore is the Alex
Rodriguez of corporate loathsomenessóan annual Triple Crown threat.
How many people can claim a biography like this: His company is one of
the world's largest purveyors of pop-up internet ads, and it once
owned another company, Exactis, which was one of America's most
notorious spam-producers. 24/7 also does "e-mail marketing." Moore and
Co. later sold Exactis to Experian, one of the world's leading
credit-scoring companies. And here's the kicker: As a young executive
in the cable industry, he helped found the Cable Health Network, which
later became the Taj Majal of Depressingly Transparent
Narrow-Demographic Targeting media outlets: The Lifetime Channel. If
you want an autograph, he works at 1250 Broadway. Better yet, email
him at david...@247realmedia.com.
13 Sarah Jessica Parker Actress
WHEN GIRLS THINK another girl is beautiful, but guys know she isn't,
call it the Sarah Jessica Parker syndrome. Parker is a dual monument
to millennial American female vanity and inanity. Spoiled and groomed
to the point of psychosis, Sarah Jessica Parker is the final dead-end
in the American feminine odyssey. She dresses like a drag queen, a
slave and sometimes a clown. Her hair is bleached and processed
literally to the breaking point: A hairdresser revealed that all of
Parker's hair once broke off beneath her ears. The actress speaks like
an 11-year-old girl and has less to say; lacking utterly in charm, she
compensates with screamy clothes and pointy shoes. Now that she is at
long last gone, we're hoping new icons will spring up to replace her,
and we're hoping they'll be wearing no-name jeans, going light on the
eyeliner and reading a newspaper every once in a while.
12 Gene Borio Anti-smoking Activist
THE EVANGELICAL EX-SMOKER behind tobacco.org won't stop until everyone
knows what he and the Canadian Health Ministry know better: Smoking is
really bad for you. Like most single-issue activists, Borio probably
has a good heart; it's his nicotine-stained self-righteousness that
makes him loathsome. On a web page titled "A few of our losses," there
is a list of more than 100 celebrity smokers who've diedófrom Gracie
Allen to Krzystof Kieslowski to Warren Zevon. Tucked in there is one
man who might have smoked, but whose health problems can't be reduced
to the tabac: John Candy. To hijack the heart-attack death of the
morbidly obese Candy is disingenuous at best, despicable at worst. Why
not John Belushi? Or maybe Kurt Cobain? No doubt they puffed every
once in a while. Hey, Gene: Suck our cancer sticks.
11 Audrey Silk Pro-smoking Activist
SHE'S BEEN SHOWING up all over the press in NYC with her questionable
organization, New York City Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker
Harassment (NYC CLASH), attacking Bloomberg's smoking ban (which was
actually more flexible than Pataki's), but we won't take issue with
her one-person activist "group." Instead, we'll attack her for denying
what even five-year-olds can figure out: Second-hand smoke is
poisonous. We believe that people should be allowed to have bad
habitsójust don't try and pretend that smoking isn't toxic or that it
doesn't occasionally infringe upon non-smokers.
10 Jeffrey Sachs Professor
THE JOHN DENVER of development has been given quite a double gig:
advise the U.N. Millennium Project and direct Columbia University's
Earth Institute, both mammoth programs whose missions are nothing less
than to reduce world poverty, disease and illiteracy. The celebrity
professor teaches no classes, grades no papers and, according to a
handful of Columbia students, carries himself like the Zeus of
Morningside Heights. But Sachsówho often starts speeches on
sustainable development with openers like, "When I was having dinner
with BonoÖ"óshould have been injected with air bubbles after
overseeing Russia's "shock therapy" during the 90s, which decimated
the economy and saw the country's assets get gobbled up by Yeltsin's
cronies and their advisors at Harvard. Nice contribution to the new
millennium, Jeff. With friends like you, Africa doesn't need ebola.
9 Janeane Garofalo Comedienne/Activist
"OHMIGOD. IT'S RIDIC," exclaimed the daughter of an Exxon executive
when asked about the backlash against her born-again activism. Less
ridic is the ditzy disdain this liberal Dennis Miller with tits has
for the rest of humanity. "Evil is in the face of every frat guy that
ever raised a beer cup and went whoo-hoo," Garofalo once observed in a
tv plug. But that was before her political phase, so maybe Janeane's
evil bar has been raised. In a 1996 Playboy interview, Garofalo
explained: "I don't want to see Friends anymore, even though I am
friends with some of the Friends." She's a name-dropper who claims to
hate the names; a counter-culturist who likely reads Adbusters over a
Starbucks mocha latte; a muddled activist who protested Bill Clinton's
bombing runsóat least starting in 1998óbut still hangs a picture of
the man on her wall (she's shaking his hand). "I never imagined that I
would never care about dumb things anymore. I never imagined I'd be a
person who could transcend that kind of nonsense," she told the
Progressive. We never imagined a second-rate comic could so bug the
shit out of us.
8 Donald Trump Developer
THE MAN AND his nest of orange hair refuse to die peacefully. Donald
J. Trump represents New York to Americans the way George W. Bush
represents America to Europeans. The Tower casts a shadow over New
Jersey in the morning and Long Island in the evening, while the tax
breaks Trump receives for his projects cast a shadow over New York
City's budget. Despite his wealth, Trump's resume of significant good
works could be spoken without a breath by Brenda Vaccaro doing a
Playtex commercial. Even he admits that his pro bono re-engineering of
Central Park's troubled Wollman Rink was to give his own kids a place
to skate. The Donald's primary public service since 1987 consists of
taking out full-page ads in the major New York dailies calling for the
death penalty for five defendants in the Central Park jogger
caseówhose convictions were later overturned. Bill Gates has donated
$100 million to fight AIDS in Africa; Donald Trump's contribution to
the war on HIV consists of having his supermodel prostitutes tested
before going in bareback. He claims to build things people like, but
if most Manhattanites had the chance, they'd throw him off the island
in a pair of cement Pumas.
7 Howard Stern Disc Jockey
WE NEVER CARED for Howard's mooky blatherings, but we support him in
his 11th-hour conversion to free-speech champion. Too bad the jackass
waited so long to take a standóa more chickenshit millionaire you'd be
hard-pressed to find. He choked when he ran for governor, helping
instead to elect the biggest tax-and-spend Republican in New York
history (who gave us two of the biggest subway fare hikes in history).
With his money and fan base, Stern could've taken on the criminals at
the FCC a long time ago, but as always, the smut jock went ostrich,
burying his face in a pair of fake tits while the Constitution got
crumpled. Come to think of it, scratch the opening line. We hope
Ashcroft locks him away for 10 to 20.
6 Kevin Brown Yankees Pitcher
THIS SURLY REDNECK gives the term "clubhouse cancer" a new name. Now
the 39-year-old right-hander gets to wear pinstripes, bad back and
all. Brown, who'll certainly be on the disabled list by the first day
of summer, duped the Dodgers in 1998 into giving him baseball's first
$100 million contract. He also had the team pay for 12 private jet
trips for his family to fly from his hometown of Macon, GA to select
games, plus ground transportation and eight premium season tickets.
The Dodgers paid Brown $400,000 in exchange for these demands as part
of the deal. Brown says he likes being a Yankee because, like all
homesick redneck ballplayers, he feels "closer to home." He also said
he hopes to "sneak home" on the occasional off days to see his kids
play ball down in Georgia. Well, Kevin, when you come north with the
team, tell us how well your rebel flag goes over in the South Bronx.
5 Michael Flocker Metrosexual Guru
THERE WILL ALWAYS be famous dictators, notorious anti-Semites and
stand-out despots, but great hate movements always need lesser-known
worker bees to actually sit down and write that Stalinist
constitution, those Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Enter Michael
Flocker, the very self-satisfied author of The Metrosexual Guide to
Style. Giving in to a "lifelong urge to tell people how to live and
behave," Flocker became the first person on Earth to formally codify
the disgusting ethos of the self-hating, self-castrating consumerist
vanity craze known as metrosexuality, in which men frantically unload
their disposable incomes to become high-octane transvestites. Carry a
slim money clip or billfold (to avoid unsightly bulges), and make sure
your belt and your shoes match when you push this callow, pedicured
mannequin-conformist in front of the No. 9 train.
4 Rupert & Lachlan Murdoch Media Moguls
WHEN BRITISH TELEVISION playwright Dennis Potter learned he had
terminal cancer, he named the tumor "Rupert." A bloody, distended
hemorrhoid might have been more apt. The Aussie-born antichrist is
alive and well, enjoying U.S. citizenship and avoiding his tax
obligations, while Fox News continues to offer the world a glimpse of
what American fascism would look like. In the run-up to the Iraq
invasion, all 175 of Murdoch's papers argued for war and threw
editorial acid on those who disagreed. But if you're one of the
millions of people who can't think of a single good reason why Rupert
Murdoch shouldn't die a slow and painful death next week, here's one:
Lachlan, his tattooed, 32-year-old idiot-savant heir currently serving
as the publisher of the New York Post. As a newspaper reportedly
losing between $15 and $20 million each year, the Post is tied with
the pyramids for biggest vanity project in historyóall so that Little
Lachlan can have a star-spangled tabloid in New York. If there is a
chunk of the WTC that hasn't yet fallen to Earth, let it crash onto
father and son the next time they're dining at the Carlyle.
3 Eva Moskowitz City Councilmember
YOU PROBABLY SLEPT through the details of the Bloomberg and City
Council plan to sweep up and sell NYC's sidewalks to Clear Channel.
You were able to sleep because the plan came under soporific
euphemisms like the Street Furniture Bill and the Sidewalk Safety and
Beautification Act, both supported (the latter co-sponsored) by Eva
Moskowitz, the former Vanderbilt history professor representing the
4th district. Moskowitz and her colleagues in Council are working with
the mayor to revive Giuliani-era legislation to eliminate vendors and
independent newspaper boxesólegislation repeatedly shot down by courts
on First Amendment grounds. Self-described as "one of the City
Council's most prolific legislators," Moskowitz has also championed
laws to address such pressing issues as baby-changing stations, noise
control near nursing homes, the problem of bicycles on
sidewalksóbikes, the city's transport villain!óand excessive horn
honking. Quality of life is one thing, but screw Moskowitz and her
efforts to turn New York into a suburban safe zone for small children,
media conglomerates and Madison Ave. business associations.
2 Joseph Perello CMO of NYC
IF LOATHSOMENESS HAS a job title, it's "Chief Marketing Officer, New
York City." Give Joe Perello a snow-leopard trench coat and a pink fur
bucket hatóhe's the pimp-daddy, and your neighborhood is the busy,
busy bitch. Aren't there laws keeping pimps out of schools? A March
audit by the city comptroller showed that Perello's deal to give
Snapple exclusive access to all public buildings was crooked, and
quoted Perello as saying that no other bid had been seriously
considered before he awarded the $166 million contract. What does the
former Delta Tau Delta fraternity brother have in store for the "great
brand" of New York City? An interview with a marketing trade
publication betrayed Perello's enthusiasm for this city as giant media
canvas: "[B]us stop shelters, phone booths, ferryboats, and light
poles [can capitalize on the] broad appeal of the City of New York as
an idea, as a way of thinking, as an attitude [that] can help sell
more soda, can help sell more insurance, or cell phones, or whatever
you happen to need to sell at the moment." In 10 years, when Blade
Runner pops up on tv and you think it's a documentary, this is the man
to hunt down and thank.
1 Rudy Giuliani Businessman
FOR RUNNING AROUND the streets of Lower Manhattan without visibly
crapping himself, Giuliani was elevated from the world's most
hypocritical goon to He-Man, Master of the Universe. Forget his
violating federal handicap laws, his wars on rent control and
community gardens, his refusal to test DNA rape kits until the
five-year statute of limitations was up, or his corporate real estate
giveawaysóRudy is now considered a Great and Heroic American Mayor.
After office, Rudy wasted no time cashing in on his immaculately
conceived new stature, riding into a post-mayoral sunset of private
sector millions, five-figure lectures and flattering rumors about his
political future in the GOP. It was toward this last end that Rudy
came out in defense of Bush's Ground Zero campaign ads last month. And
why not? He's co-chair of the Republican National Convention host
committee, and the tragedy saved his sinking ass too.