The Gray Lady Cringes, Part I

Yesterday, I went to one of the New York Times' Arts & Leisure Weekend panels, with the cast and creators of Entourage. I've never actually seen the show, so I felt like a big old poser, but the tickets were free, the auditorium was warm, and I've got a thing for Jeremy Piven. The members of the cast were witty and easygoing, and it would have been a successful event all around if it weren't for overstuffed moderator David Carr, author of the NYTimes Carpetbagger blog, which incidentally is written in the faggy third person. We are not Mr. Mickey, David.

While I and my companion drew a caricature of Carr being stabbed, dismembered, and bitten by small monsters, he cheerfully embarassed himself and (one would hope) the Gray Lady. He interrupted panel members with his own insipid anecdotes, and engaged in what he probably thought was fraternal jousting, but what came across as awkward and poorly-timed insults. He chuckled over Adrian Grenier's intellect, used the term "hit the skins" in reference to drumming, pointed out that one of the shows characters is "sensitive, but a playah", and laughed uproariously at his own suggestion that the cast spiked their cigars ("blunts") with drugs. A good example of Mr. Carr's unsettling wit can be found in his NYT bio, in which he suggests that "movie theaters should be equipped with flying monkeys that drop out of the ceiling and attack people who insist on talking during films" - whatta laff.

As it happens, Piven was hilarious.

Cincinatti was robbed,

~Andrea