[EVG Flashback] Celebrities are just like us! (Dive bar edition) (aka: OMG! It's Keanu!)

Originally posted on Sept. 2, 2008...


According to this week's Page Six Magazine, "stars are forgoing getting trashed at clubs —- and seeking a far trashier scene." Like bars WE like to go to! And so the magazine features six such places where you don't have to pay $12 for a bottle of beer: "Pull up a stool to New York’s greatest, and grubbiest, dive bars." (Their words, not mine.)

Here's their report on Joe's on East Sixth Street:

Alphabet City Dive-y-est Element: Gunk-covered floor and bathrooms tinier than airplane stalls — all presided over by the toothless but friendly day-shift bartender, Tommy.

Celebrity Customers: While the former speakeasy hasn’t changed — or perhaps been mopped — since owners Joe and Dot (who refuse to give their last names) took over in the ’60s, stars have made Joe’s their dirty little secret. “Drew Barrymore comes here and so does Matt Dillion,” reports barfly Magda. “Keanu Reeves was just in last month, playing pool,” she adds. “Celebs are sick of getting their covers blown and want a taste of reality,” says Tracy Westmoreland, owner of legendary but now-closed dive Siberia. That “shipwrecks” like Joe’s are more popular than ever signals “the new golden age for dive bars,” he adds.

Looking for love and thick slices of Viennese apple strudel: Page Six Magazine doesn't fail to deliver again!

The new issue of Page Six Magazine was included for free today in the Post that costs 50 cents. If it gets better than this (deliriously and unintentionally hilarious features), then I'd like to know about it...

Attila and Marius Dogudan, NYC's New Stud Muffins
Attila and Marius Dogudan are gentlemanly Austrian millionaires who brought the Demel pastry empire to the United States. Now they're luring in the ladies with sharp suits, a glamorous backstory and a secret weapon...chocolate.

And that's just the headline and second deck of the story...which begins!

At the Demel pâtisserie at the Plaza Hotel, two dashing Chuck Bass look-alikes — Attila Dogudan Jr. and his brother, Marius — are cutting thick slices of Viennese apple strudel and chocolate torte and pondering one of their favorite subjects: Manhattan's women.

Their decadent pastries aren't your typical nutritionist-approved nosh, but that doesn't stop a parade of Park Avenue blondes from venturing into the bowels of the Plaza to sit at the café and flirt with the handsome brothers who man its counter. "My brother is a complete chick magnet," laughs Attila, 25, regarding the ladies who seem more interested in Marius, 23, than in his Sacher torte. Attila also has a fan club. He waves to a pin-thin girl with long, straight hair cascading down her back, as she makes a "call me later" motion with her hand.

And then! A wave of liquid heat crashed through her. She looked up to find his eyes on hers, filled with smouldering amusement

Page Six Magazine is back! And with this cover story that begins....good lord!

Padma Lakshmi sits in a cozy corner of the East Village Italian restaurant Supper, her black hair half pulled back, the rest rippling around her shoulders. As she orders a cup of coffee and an appetizer of burrata mozzarella with tomato, basil and grilled bread, the Italian words come out with a perfect roll of the r's. The waiter, eager to please but flustered, strains to avoid looking in the direction of Padma's spectacular breasts.

[Bad romance novel quote via]

Page Six Magazine says the Bowery calls to mind "an L.A. vibe"

Page Six Magazine never disappoints! And the now-a-quarterly (still free!) insert in the Post is back to highlight all the loathesome things in the neighborhood. Like in its look at "three hot hoods" yesterday. Hey, it's the Bowery!




"Once littered with punks and drunks, the Bowery (thanks to hotels Bowery and Cooper Square) now brims with lounge lizards and sun-kissed girls in bright rompers and frocks, calling to mind an L.A. vibe."

(This piece isn't online just yet...)

Previously.

Page Six Magazine keeps it assy

Hey! Page Six Magazine has returned for an issue! And their online version features the following photo of the issue's cover model, a branded Heidi Klum...



Previously.

The last weekly issue of Page Six Magazine: Meet the "Recession Vultures"

The last weekly issue of Page Six Magazine didn't fail to disappoint this week. The winner is the story titled "New York's: Recession Vultures."

Here's the intro:

For the city's movers and shakers, it's suddenly cool to be frugal in the new economy. But for young employed New Yorkers, Manhattan is suddenly a sky's-the-limit playground. Meet the city's recessionistas, who are living large while everyone else is down for the count.

Yes!

"The recession has not affected me at all financially," says Karen Granit, 26, who works as a sales manager for Godiva Chocolates and lives in a two-bedroom apartment with a roommate near Union Square (her roommate, Laura, lost her newspaper editor job last October). "Laura better find a job because she has to pay half the rent," says Karen. "I'm on the lease, so it's my responsibility."

The magazine will now be publishing on a quarterly schedule.

Ivana more Page Six Magazine

As you may have heard, Page Six Magazine, which is free in the Sunday Post after you pay $1.25 for the paper, will now appear quarterly. The Feb. 15 edition will be the last on the weekly schedule. The recession and continued advertising decline are the culprits. Some staffers will be let go. Of course, I'm sorry to see anyone lose a job.

Selfishly though, how will I get my weekly fix of the likes of Ivana Trump's Ivana-logues column? This and other P6M features are arguably some of the most over-the-top, what-recession?, yuppiefied crap ever put to paper.

For instance, consider this week's installment of the Ivana-logues, under a headline "God forbid you sit next to some fatso at Fashion Week." Indeed!

Anyway, in another titillating item from this week's column:

I underwent a "recession makeover" for the March issue of Harper's Bazaar (on stands February 17), and it was fun, to a point. There are three things I dislike: rice pudding, social climbers and photo shoots — though not necessarily in that order. I knew they were going to put my hair down. My hairdo has become my trademark and my curse because if I show up at a gala with my hair down, people shriek, "We want Ivana!" And I say, "You have Ivana." And they say, "No, we want the Ivana hairdo." So I told Bazaar, "I will not cut my hair, because if I do, I cannot put it in a chignon." But the crew was fabulous. And I had a great laugh about the story. If people were not interested, magazines would not write about me. I am what I am.

Doesn't get much better than this!

So! What other gems have we picked up from Page Six Magazine through the months...?

"Private Clubs: Hideouts of the Rich and Shameless"

Meet the new Carrie Bradshaw

The Oct. 19 Ivana-logues (bonus excerpt!):

"You think I'm going to send a $10,000 Dolce & Gabbana suit to Honduras? UPS takes like three weeks. It's never going to arrive because somebody will steal it." Countries like that are beautiful but they are very poor, OK? So I am passing on that. Rossano is just looking for adventure. But I am really slightly worried. In the jungle there are no mobile phones, no computers and no cigarettes, but there are plenty of tarantulas, cockroaches and snakes. I hate those slimy things. I can deal with the sharks on Wall Street and the barracudas on Madison Avenue, but this is really too much."

Celebrities are just like us! (Dive bar edition)

And finally the most bestest ever Page Six Magazine column...from June 15 -- "The Socializer" by "woman-about-town" Kelly Killoren Bensimon. She wants to be a real-life Angelina Jolie (or something) and see Africa. You just have to read her column for yourself. (Click on the image for a better view.)



Gawker picked up my post ... Page Six Mag: African Suffering Is Trendy. Hey Look, Diamonds!

Noted

From a Page Six Magazine article titled "Private Clubs: Hideouts of the Rich and Shameless:"

The Core Club's membership model has all the over-the-top lavishness of a bygone Sex and the City era —- the annual dues only give you access to pay jacked-up prices on everything else. After all, lunch entrées like the club's pan-roasted Loup de mer (sea bass) cost $38. But today, many members say the thrill of belonging to a hermetically sealed bunker in Midtown is more appealing than ever.

"Every time I walk into the club for lunch, I say, 'No recession here,' " says Fred Davis, one of the founding members of the Core Club and a senior partner at the law firm Davis, Shapiro, Lewit & Hayes.

Articles that I didn't get around to reading

A Very Trump Christmas: At home for the holidays with Donald Jr. and family

Haven't we suffered enough?

From this week's Page Six Magazine.

Why you shouldn't be surprised if you run into Bill Murray at a bar or loft party or...

Page Six Magazine explains. Kind of.

Noted

From the Ivana-logues in Page Six Magazine this weeek:

My husband Rossano left for Honduras last week (don't ask me where that is) and I am not a happy camper. He's doing a TV show called L'Isola dei Famosi, which means "Island of the Famous." It's the Italian version of Survivor but with celebrities. I am freaking out! He's going into the jungle where you can get all kinds of diseases, and he went through a thousand pills and malaria shots. For some reason the show asked me to send his wedding tux to this hotel in Honduras. I said, "You think I'm going to send a $10,000 Dolce & Gabbana suit to Honduras? UPS takes like three weeks. It's never going to arrive because somebody will steal it." Countries like that are beautiful but they are very poor, OK? So I am passing on that. Rossano is just looking for adventure. But I am really slightly worried. In the jungle there are no mobile phones, no computers and no cigarettes, but there are plenty of tarantulas, cockroaches and snakes. I hate those slimy things. I can deal with the sharks on Wall Street and the barracudas on Madison Avenue, but this is really too much. And I honestly cannot see Rossano eating snakes unless it is smoked eel at Nobu.

Uh, Mabius for mayor?

In Page Six Magazine this week, "Ugly Betty" star Eric Mabius was asked the following:

If you were mayor of New York City, what would you change?

I'd stop all of the high-rises that are going up. They're making New Yorkers tourists in their own town. Most New Yorkers can't afford apartments in those luxury buildings.

Done.

Noted

From Ivana Trump's Ivana-Logues column in Page Six Magazine:

Once a year, I go directly to the lingerie department at Bloomingdale's and I try on bras and panties. Then I gather each piece in four colors and buy 24 of each set. I send 24 to my home in Palm Beach, 24 to Saint-Tropez, 24 to London and 24 to New York.

"As much a part of the fabric of New York City as the landmarks she helped popularize: Magnolia Bakery, Pastis and her beloved Greenwich Village

Page Six Magazine puts Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell on the cover of its new issue.

And we begin:

Honey blond highlights? Check. Sample-size physique? Check. Closet full of designer duds to wrap around said physique? Check. But Candace Bushnell, the creative genius behind Sex and the City and the NBC TV hit Lipstick Jungle, doesn't just look like a character from one of her best-selling novels. (Take your pick: Sex and the City, Lipstick Jungle, Trading Up or Four Blondes.) By the way she lives (a feminist, she eventually married a much younger man) and who she writes about (most famously, of course, Carrie Bradshaw), Candace, 49, embodies a modern breed of New York woman that is as ambitious about love as her career. She is also as much a part of the fabric of New York City as the landmarks she helped popularize: Magnolia Bakery, Pastis and her beloved Greenwich Village.

Candace, who grew up in "upper middle class Glastonbury, Conn.," also recalls moving to New York:

After three semesters at Rice University in Houston, she dropped out to "run away to New York City." Her goal was to become a writer, but when she first moved to Manhattan in 1978 at age 19 she lived in a two-bedroom apartment on 11th and Broadway with three other girls. She had to scrape to pay her $150-a-month rent, often eating $1 hot dogs or a can of soup for meals. Dating was a way to score free meals and meet the city's glitterati.

The article doesn't get into what Candace thinks of a post Sex-and-the-City New York ... or the impact the show may have had on New York.

Still, the article notes that: she is relieved to be out of the dating pool. "There's nothing harder than being single. And things are even harder for young women these days," says Candace.When I was growing up in the 1970s, you didn't have to shave your legs, let alone have a Brazilian wax."

Those who grease the wheels in Manhattan without (shudder) alcohol; and what's the booziest borough of them all?

Page Six Magazine covers an alarming trend: People who don't drink to wretched excess! No!

Meet the Wagonistas
There was a time when the fashion and media industries were known for their bacchanalian ways. Not anymore: The truly ambitious are giving up booze to boost their careers.

But while tastemakers often justify getting loaded as a way to grease the networking wheels, a growing number of ambitious New Yorkers in creative fields like fashion, media and entertainment say they are passing on the cocktails this year. It's not to lose weight and it's not a post-rehab regime. Instead, the impetus is much more mercenary: They're hoping that not nursing a hangover at work will give them a competitive edge in a tight job market.

And here's a stat from the piece:

According to the city's health department, about 16.8 percent of New Yorkers drink excessively, which is defined as imbibing more than two drinks a day for men and more than one drink a day for women, or consuming more than five drinks on any one occasion. Manhattan is the booziest borough of all, with about 23 percent of the population drinking excessively.

More than two drinks a day for a man is excessive? Good lord. What does three drinks an hour for, say, most of Thursday night and the weekend translate to?

Uh, any help here? Someone? Anyone? Jay McInerney?

"These people are probably giving themselves an unfair advantage by not drinking," says Bright Lights, Big City author Jay McInerney. "My friends still drink happily and copiously—except for the ones who went to rehab. These [ambitious teetotalers] are probably missing out on a certain amount of fun."

Celebrities are just like us! (Dive bar edition) (aka: OMG! It's Keanu!)

According to this week's Page Six Magazine, "stars are forgoing getting trashed at clubs —- and seeking a far trashier scene." Like bars WE like to go to! And so the magazine features six such places where you don't have to pay $12 for a bottle of beer: "Pull up a stool to New York’s greatest, and grubbiest, dive bars." (Their words, not mine.)

Here's their report on Joe's on East Sixth Street:

Alphabet City Dive-y-est Element: Gunk-covered floor and bathrooms tinier than airplane stalls — all presided over by the toothless but friendly day-shift bartender, Tommy.

Celebrity Customers: While the former speakeasy hasn’t changed — or perhaps been mopped — since owners Joe and Dot (who refuse to give their last names) took over in the ’60s, stars have made Joe’s their dirty little secret. “Drew Barrymore comes here and so does Matt Dillion,” reports barfly Magda. “Keanu Reeves was just in last month, playing pool,” she adds. “Celebs are sick of getting their covers blown and want a taste of reality,” says Tracy Westmoreland, owner of legendary but now-closed dive Siberia. That “shipwrecks” like Joe’s are more popular than ever signals “the new golden age for dive bars,” he adds.

Meanwhile, in Saint-Tropez

Please allow this quick diversion away from EV Grieve's usual topics...where we visit the pages of Page Six Magazine for The Ivana-logues, the high-society column written by Ivana Trump. Without comment:

To get to a party in Saint-Tropez last week, guests were asked to board a shuttle bus to the property. Well, I have not been on a bus in 20 years and I’m not about to get on one now. So I see this gorgeous French police guy with his big motorbike. I go up to him in my high heels—the guy has no idea who I am, he just sees a good-looking chick—and I say, “Monsieur, can you give me a ride?” I jump on the bike and he has these huge shoulders and he takes me two-and-a-half miles, through the bushes, to the party. When he drops me off, he says, “You look like Ivana Trump.” I say, “I am Ivana Trump and thank you so much for the ride.” He totally freaked out.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Post scribe thinks turmoil in Africa is so trendy in the news right now!

“The hotel guests also used to be culturally hip people. Now we get Mom and Dad from Cedar Rapids. It’s like living at Motel 6.”

Page Six Magazine on the Hotel Chelsea:

“It’s chaos here,” says one resident....many tenants haven’t paid rent (because there’s no one around to pay it to), and there’s been no super on duty for repairs. Tenants also say they are worried that, at some point, their rents will double. While the building is rent stabilized, the apartments aren’t registered with the city, and a lot of the leases aren’t on the books.

For further reading:

Hotel Chelsea Blog

[Photo: Katie Orlinsky, Page Six Magazine, New York Post]

Post scribe thinks turmoil in Africa is so trendy in the news right now!

Page Six Magazine, which is FREE every Sunday in the New York Post -- you just have to pay $1 for the paper! -- has several doozies today. First, there's a "trends" piece titled "The Sex Effect." You see, there's a recent release called Sex and the City that seems to be very popular. More than that, "anything Carrie Bradshaw touches turns to gold." Indeed! For instance, the $885 Hangisi shoe that Big used to propose to Carrie has sold out from New York stores! (Sixty pairs were sold the day the film opened on May 30; there is now a 400-name waiting list for them!) Also, the New York Public Library, where Carrie planned her dream wedding, is apparently the new Perry Street townhouse. According to the article, "throngs of tourists have made a pilgramage to the steps where Carrie was" [EV Grieve edited out the last word so not to ruin the movie for anyone who may actually want to see it, but you really shouldn't].

Then there's the column called "The Socializer" by "woman-about-town" Kelly Killoren Bensimon. She wants to be a real-life Angelina Jolie (or something) and see Africa. You just have to read her column for yourself. (Click on the image for a better view.) Content from the magazine is not online.