First Sighting of Steve Jobs Officially Back at Work
Apple won't say whether Steve Jobs was at the office today as part of his official return to the company. But a Valleywag spy spotted the CEO on his company's Cupertino campus. Jobs apparently left early: I had lunch with a friend at Apple today and as I was leaving the campus I saw Jobs getting into a chauffeured black Lincoln Continental. This was right outside 1IL [Infinity Loop] at about two PM today. A Lincoln is, of course, not Jobs' usual ride, and the notorious micromanager usually likes to be behind the driver's wheel; his Mercedes is known for turning up in Apple's handicapped parking spots. But Jobs just underwent a liver transplant and is only traveling to the Apple campus a "few days" per week, according to an Apple statement heralding his return to the company today. Presumably, the CEO's health is such that he needs to conserve his energy for activities other than driving, like running a company. Earlier today, Apple declined to tell Bloomberg News whether Jobs was on campus. The company had good reason to avoid such a discussion: Entertaining that line of questioning might have led to a discussion of Jobs' itinerary and unwelcome question about why the CEO had to leave early, and about his health. More practically, it also would open the company up to endless questions from reporters about where Jobs is on campus that day. Of course, there's a good chance Apple is going to be getting those queries anyway, whether it answers them or not. Anyone else spot the newly-returned honcho today? We'd love to hear from you. UPDATE: Last week, Reuters spotted Jobs leaving the campus in a "black car." UPDATE 2: The original version of that Reuters story last week had Jobs being "driven off by men in black suits with ear-pieces." (Pic: Jobs at a MacBook press announcement on Apple's Cupertino campus in October via Getty) MORE >>
Joe Jackson: Plugging Away
Oh, Joe Jackson. Deceased Michael's monster of a father held a press conference today with Al Sharpton in which he managed to lovingly honor his tragically-fated son promote his "record company" and just appear all around looney-tunes. Obviously the Michael Jackson story is big news, and the man's father has a right to say what he wants about his dead son, but the twinkly gleam in his eye as he revels in the press attention just chills our blood a little bit, the record company plug being the cherry on top. Sad that even in death, MJ still isn't free of his scary father. Earlier: Watch Joe Jackson Stoically Use His Son's Death to Plug a DVD MORE >>
Ruth Madoff's Guide to Redemption
Lost in the glee over Bernie Madoff's prison sentence is this: What will become of poor Ruth Madoff? She's stalked by paparazzi; rejected by landlords; and left with a mere $2.5 million. Here, Dear Ruth, is your road to redemption. Wise Money Management: Your settlement with the Justice Department left you with only $2.5 million to live on—a mighty blow for a 68 year-old woman with little earning power left. Have no fear! With a little skill, you should be able to survive your remaining days without going hungry. Even at a modest 4% rate of return, this principal invested wisely would earn you $100,000 per year. You'll find that a human being can survive on this modest stipend. You're being forced to sell your posh penthouse; that's actually good! Check out Craigslist for cheaper rentals. You can find a roommate there, too. Your hair salon doesn't want your business any more, which will help you save on grooming costs. Try Head & Shoulders. Above all, be sure to invest your money under a different name. Lest something "happen" to it. Resurrecting Your Reputation: You should just forget this one. There's no point stressing yourself about it. You'll be despised by a large portion of the public for years. But you can slowly develop enough distance from the fraud to, at least, allow yourself to walk the streets without immediate fear of maiming. You haven't started off on the right foot, though. Your post-sentencing statement about being "betrayed and confused" by Bernie's fraud: come on. Betrayed and confused by math, maybe! Didn't you work at his firm? Ha. This tactic will probably fail. Better to downplay the part about you not having any idea what was going on, and play up the meager restitution to the fraud's victims that you plan to make your life's work! You won't be able to make a speck of a dent in the total amount owed, of course. But by making it clear that you will pay back the token amount that you can, it will also make it easier for you to... Get a Job: A real job, lady. MTA conductor. Shoe salesperson. Wal-Mart greeter. Well, maybe not a job that necessitates direct contact with the public; could be dangerous. But a job, nonetheless, where you can be photographed—preferably dirty, and sweating—to show the world that you are paying some penance for this colossal crime. You only have to work a few days a week. Then you tithe a percentage of your earning into a fund for victims. A large percentage. 100%, for example! And really, what else do you have to do with your time? It's a winning idea all around. You could even sell paintings, like some serial killers do. Kitsch appeal and all that. Move: Don't just move out of your luxury apartment. Don't just move out Manhattan. Don't just move out of New York. Don't just move out of America. Move out of the Western world. Move somewhere like Botswana, or Nepal, or Suriname, where the Madoff scam is not likely to be a topic of discussion for a long period of time. For at... MORE >>
Hung and Nurse Jackie: Shows We'll Warily Watch
So who watched Hung last night? HBO's latest installment in its string of series depicting lives lived on the fringes of America is about a well-endowed gym teacher who becomes a gigolo to earn some extra cash. It was... good? Video clip probably NSFW, BTW! It's so hard to tell about the general quality of the show, glamored as we were by director Alexander Payne's reliably gentle/tough hand and the nimble work of Jane Adams, as Thomas Jane's pimp, who is one of Hollywood's most criminally underused actors. She gave a fine, nuanced, weird performance last night—spanning from sexual ecstasy to untethered artist sadness to hard-minded pragmatist with natural ease. And Payne's details—his close-ups, his visual aesthetic that's both warm and chilly—provided such a lovely backdrop for this kind of pleasingly lived-in acting. But Thomas Jane? Hm. He's always been such a conundrum. He was maybe going to break out and be big after The Sweetest Thing and The Punisher and then it just fizzled into nowhere. And he's got that curious face, that bashed-up maybe-handsome, maybe-too-unfocused set of features that can be manly and attractive one minute, and then sort of sad and grizzled the next. It works mostly to his favor, we think, in the role of Ray Drecker, a washed-up high school coach who, in his youth, had a string of opportunities that never panned out (hey... sounds familiar!). Anne Heche ably plays his angry, moved-on wife in a part that could either stay shrill or round out to something unlikable, sure, but undeniably compelling in its true-to-life humanity (see: Nikki Grant on Big Love). So we like it OK. But we're definitely not in love. We're trying to remember the last time a TV pilot grabbed us and demanded further viewing. Didn't happen for True Blood or, hell, even Big Love. What about over on Showtime? We're sorta liking Nurse Jackie, but it's really only for the same reason as Hung: a wonderful performance by a lead actress amid a sea of other, murkier things. In the case of Nurse Jackie: What the hell were they thinking casting that guy as Jackie's husband? He's like twenty years younger and belongs in some indie about softly strumming guitars in a sparsely-furnished New York apartment, not playing the borough-dwelling owner of a local dive bar. Also, Anna Deavere Smith is sort of embarrassing herself with jokey-joke cameos as a stern hospital administrator. And while Eve Best is a terrific actress, we're not sure that her hyperbolic character—bitchy blase rich Englishwoman doctor with a boatload of Blahniks but no love for children—belongs alongside Falco's more dependably "real" Jackie. Both of these shows have promise, and we'll stick with them, but we're disappointed that we're not more excited. Not everything can be The Sopranos or Mad Men where we're hooked like suckers from the very beginning, but watching a show out of duty or some pretentious high-minded ideal that this is Good Television starts to... MORE >>
Locked Up for Life: Madoff Sentenced to 150 Years In Prison
Bernie Madoff has just been sentenced to 150 years in prison for running the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. It was the maximum sentence the judge could have given him. Before sentencing, Madoff addressed the courtroom: "I'm responsible for a great deal of suffering and pain, I understand that," Mr. Madoff told the court. "I live in a tormented state now, knowing all of the pain and suffering that I've created. I've left a legacy of shame, as some of my victims have pointed out, to my family and my grandchildren." Addressing his victims seated in the courtroom, he said: "I will turn and face you. I'm sorry. I know that doesn't help you." But after hearing a succession of Madoff's victims plead for a harsh sentence, Judge Denny Chin rejected the Madoff team's pleas for leniency, including their (preposterous) suggestion of a 12-year sentence. Bernie Madoff will now die in jail. [NYT, WSJ. Pic: Getty] MORE >>
Look Who's Snarking Now: Novelist Uses Twitter to Trash Critic
Alice Hoffman has a new novel out. Roberta Silman gave Hoffman's book a lukewarm review in the Boston Globe. Alice Hoffman then went insane on Twitter, even publishing Silman's phone number and encouraging her fans to call and attack her. The most vexing thing about of all of this is that Silman's review wasn't a trashing by any standard, other than inside of Hoffman's obviously delusional mind of course, but it certainly wasn't positive either. Here's a sampling of the most critical statements by Silman we found in her review: "...this new novel lacks the spark of the earlier work. Its vision, characters, and even the prose seem tired." "This heavily plotted part of the book becomes more predictable, yet also more unconvincing." "...the author doesn't deliver." "There may be lots of readers who crave books that have their feet planted both in reality and fairy tale, complete with mysterious passages like those introducing each chapter of this puzzling, and, in the end, unsettling book." It should be noted that Silman also said some nice things about Hoffman: "...one of my favorite books is her "Illumination Night,'' which amply displays her gifts of precise prose and the ability to create sympathetic characters. I especially remember its evocation of the awful condition we call agoraphobia, as it was suffered and mostly conquered by Vonny." "This section is described with real skill and precision, and my heart lifted as I began to feel some empathy for this eldest child who has caused such pain, and then goes missing." "...there are some wonderful passages as the book winds to a close." But Silman's sprinkling of praise didn't stop Hoffman from acting like a petulant child on Twitter. This was the first of 27 tweets that Hoffman fired off in response to Silman's review, where she immediately took the high road and called Silman a "moron" for having the audacity to criticize her writing. Then the blissfully ignorant Hoffman displayed a staggering level of intellectual laziness by obviously not even bothering to Google Silman's name, where she would have learned that her reviewer is not only not an "idiot," but someone with a rather long and esteemed literary career. Hoffman then went one step further and trashed the paper itself. Hoffman published Silman's phone number and and email address and encouraged her fans to contact her to give her a piece of their minds. Hoffman trashed Boston, her hometown, which is actually kind of funny. Hoffman then brought out the smoke and mirrors in a pathetic attempt to disguise her behavior as feminism in action. Then Susan Orlean, always willing to enter the writerly fray on Twitter, provoked Hoffman to betray Boston in the worst way possible. For all the criticisms that exist about writing on the internet, this situation is a bright, shining example of one of the best things about writing on the internet—After a while it thickens your skin to the point where you're easily able to easily... MORE >>
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