Alex Shoumatoff's Vanity Fair Article On The Bohemian Club

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Bringing an end to a story that made my blogs famous, infamous Vanity Fair (VF) Contributing Editor Alex Shoumatoff finally published his work on the Bohemian Club’s timber management plan and how he got snared by police for tresspassing at its private retreat near the town of Monte Rio, Calif. 

If you remember, Alex Shoumatoff set out last year to help his Harvard roommate Jock Hooper do a smear job on the Bohemian Club, which is a kind of resort home for many San Francisco luminaries, and not all of them male.  Hooper was someone described as a "disgruntled former member" of the exclusive gentlemen’s club that has is favored by the business elite, former presidents, international leaders, and men who enjoy music, wine and song, and ok, I know at least two women who've recently been there (with their boyfriends).  The club's lightened up a lot over the years.

Anyway, Hooper quit the club when it wouldn’t approve his forest management plan (read: major ego) and then became the leading critic of the club’s plans to preserve and protect old growth redwood trees on its property.  He then got Alex and Vanity Fair to do some dirty work for him, or try to. 

Now I write this with the full expectation of being invited to the 2010 Vanity Fair Oscar Party, rather than having to sneak into it.  Hear me talking Graydon! 

This story started last year when Shoumatoff managed to sneak in to the Bohemian Grove during the annual event the club holds in July. But his wandering, covered in detail in his story, only lasted 40 minutes before he was arrested by security guards and a part-time service employee at the famed Grove who quickly spotted that the kind of sloppy, preppy Topsider-wearing editor was not one of their own. 

In VF, Alex writes that he was trying to fit in with that style of dress, but folks I talked to say he wasn’t hard to miss: he was dressed like a caddy wearing a Pebble Beach pullover and apparently asked off-beat questions that proved to be his downfall.  Most of which he mentions in his article. 

He was quickly captured cowering behind a bush, but his large body gave him away.  He was then arrested by the Sonoma County Sherriff’s Department, spent the night in county jail, and forced to pay a fine for trespassing.  His arrest was captured in the San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Post, Gawker, Huffington Post, and, of course, here at zennie62.com and the San Francisco Sentinel .

Shoumatoff’s piece in Vanity Fair this month may be the first case of a hatchet job that turned into a hachet boomerang:  Club members say Shoumatoff’s piece is so  dramatized and so full of factual errors (that I will detail in a follow-up post), that it proves to be an embarrassment for him and well as Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter. And they refered to being attacked by "right wing bloggers"! 

I'm neither right of center, nor posessing wings like a bird, but I am a blogger.  As an Oakland guy who hangs out in San Francisco a lot, has worked for and helped  many local politicians both Democrat and Republican (but I'm a Dem), and gotten to personally know a number of "Grovers" as Alex calls them, I can tell you they're more than a little tired of people putting them into this "conservative White male" box, especially since this "liberal Black male" has been invited to visit and by members who are not all White, and aren't at all conservative. 

I'm happy to come to their defense to be frank. 

I'm glad Alex got caught because he could have just used the contacts he was developing to visit the club in a legitimate fashion.  Instead, he bozoed his way in and looked like a clown in doing so.

And the club's forest plan?  According to several sources, it's going through the review process well.  But what I find so interesting even over the important consideration of the trees, is how one blue-blood institution, Vanity Fair, can muster the gall to call another blue-blood institution The Bohemian Club "elitist" when VF's not even invited me to its Oscar Party, and Graydon Carter will not take my calls. 

This'll teach 'em!

"Midnight Cowboy" Featured By Directors Guild of America Theatre in New York City

I got an email from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that they are going to screen the classic "Midnight Cowboy" in New York City, March 16th. You can gain a "taste" for the film from this fan-made trailer:

The Academy reports: "The 1969 Best Picture winner “Midnight Cowboy” will screen for New York audience as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ “Monday Nights with Oscar®” series on Monday, March 16, at 7:30 p.m. at the Directors Guild of America Theatre in New York City.

"Academy Award®-winning producer Jerome Hellman will join Academy Award-nominated actress Sylvia Miles in a post-screening discussion. David V. Picker, the executive-in-charge at United Artist during the film’s development, will moderate the onstage conversation, which also will include actor Bob Balaban, cinematographer Adam Holender, composer John Barry and costumer designer Ann Roth.

“Midnight Cowboy” stars Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight as two mainstream society outcasts who forge an unlikely friendship on the lonely and unforgiving streets of New York City. The film endures as a powerful story of friendship, compassion and redemption.

The tickets are cheap: $5 and the DGA Theatre is located at 110 West 57th Street in New York City. The box office opens at 5:30 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. All seating is unreserved, which means get their early. For more information, call (212) 821-9251

Mayor Bloomberg paints grim economic picture for New York City 2009 budget

More at NY Daily News: “Mayor Bloomberg's bad-news budget tries to plug a $4 billion hole with less than $2 billion worth of spending cuts and new sales taxes - and counts on unions, Albany and the federal govermment to come up with the rest.
He proposed a $43.4 billion budget Friday for the fiscal year starting July 1, up $123 million from the year before - one that slices deep into the pockets of city residents and the ranks of city workers.
"Are we going to go through some difficult times? I don't think there's any question about that. But we have a plan to balance our budget," Bloomberg said. "It is serious, but I think it is manageable."”

Mysterious sweet syrup smell wafts over Manhattan again

More at NY Daily Newst: “It's back!
That sweet smell that wafted over the city a few years ago - described as maple syrup, French toast, pancakes and even coffee cake - is in the air again, officials said Tuesday.
The city's 311 system received about 35 calls Monday night from New Yorkers reporting the mysterious scent drifting through parts of upper Manhattan and Queens.
[DO YOU SMELL IT?  Tell us where you are in the city and where you're smelling it in the comments section below.]
"The maple scent was light," a reader with the screen name LuckyLady wrote on nydailynews.com. "While moving around my apartment ... the scent hit me again, only this time it was stronger."
The city Department of Environmental Protection sent inspectors to the areas to conduct air tests.
They confirmed the scent, but the source of the smell is still unknown, officials said.
Another Daily News reader initially thought the smell came from a pine tree.
"I noticed it, and it was strong enough to make me want to know what it was before I got to my corner when I left my apartment," the reader, Page One, wrote on the Web site.”

Toyota predicts first ever loss as sales drop - Dec. 22, 2008

More at CNN.com - Dec. 22, 2008: “NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Japanese auto giant Toyota said Monday that it would suffer an operating loss due to plummeting auto sales and a strong local currency.

About 30 minutes after the market closed in Tokyo, Toyota said it expected to lose approximately $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion this fiscal year. Toyota reports earnings on a fiscal calendar beginning in April.

This would be Toyota's first operating loss since 1950, Toyota spokesman Steve Curtis said.

Despite the likely operating loss, Toyota expects to post a $557 million net profit for the fiscal year. The profit stems, in large part, from joint ventures whose revenues are not included in the automakers' accounting for its operating profits.”

--- This should show others that it's not just American car companies that are hurt by this economy.

Matthew Devlin formerly with Lehman , others charged with insider trading | Reuters

Insider trading story | Reuters: “Former Lehman salesman Matthew Devlin was charged with participating in an insider trading scheme, a criminal complaint filed in District Court in Manhattan showed.

The complaint said Devlin should have known not to divulge confidential information his wife shared with him.

His wife is a partner in public relations firm Brunswick Group LLC. Brunswick said in a statement: "The husband of a Brunswick employee has been arrested by U.S. authorities for using information obtained illegally from her and without her knowledge, which has then passed to third parties."”

GOV PROPOSES NEW BUDGET FOR NEW YORK - New York Post

GOV PROPOSES NEW BUDGET FOR NEW YORK - New York Post: “Gov. Paterson's proposed $121.1 billion budget includes wacky taxes on items ranging from luxury goods to downloaded music, movies and games from the Internet.

The plan also calls a massive 14 percent hike to public college tuition, slashing school aid by 3.3 percent, layoffs, higher fees for motor vehicles and fishing and allowing wine to be sold in grocery stores.”

-- NO! How is the Internet tax to be enforced? What if one blocks their IP address?

Tina Brown And "The Daily Beast": Any Black Folks Around There?

The Daily Beast  is a new website along the lines of The Huffington Post from a content standpoint and started by long-time magazine editor Tina Brown and with an investment by Barry Diller. The rumor has been that $18 million was invested in the site and that the company was burning through $1 million or so in a month. Here in the video, Brown dispells those rumors.

In all, The Daily Beast is certainly an interesting "go" in that Brown is not going to have a set of unpaid bloggers, as The Huff Post does, but all paid writers, In other words a news and content staff.


I think that's a terrible idea because it places a high cost template in the business model and causes a higher level of revenue to be reached. Translation: a constant burn rate. But what's even more alarming to me is this staff photo we see: where the hell's the staff diversity? 

Has Tina ever heard of Black folks at all? Indeed, she wasn't a fan of President-Elect Barack Obama, but one of those who knee-jerk pointed to the "media bias against Hillary Clinton " while walking ignorantly past the dark racism that Obama faced during the campaign.


Regardless, assembling an almost-all-white (one Indian) news staff in an era that prizes diversity is massively irresponsible.  


Partly as a result of this "one-think", The Daily Beast is woefully devoid of any original content at present.  It's a cross between the online version of The New York Daily News, and The Huffington Post.  If "news is advertising" as Brown says in the video, The Beast has terrible ad content.


For some reason I can see this lasting two or three years -- tops.  That's not because of the staffing, but the total package.  There's nothing original here.  

Interview: New NYT.com GM Denise Warren: | paidContent.org

Interview: New NYT.com GM Denise Warren: Tip-toeing Into Aggregation With Guarded Optimism | paidContent.org: “As if heading advertising for the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) Media Group wasn’t tough enough in this climate, Denise Warren is taking on the role of GM of NYTimes.com as the site fends off increased challenges from competitors and the economy. Warren has been chief advertising officer of the NYT Media Group for three years and has been with The New York Times Company for 20 years.”

Heather Brooke Rinehart and John Bzdil Charged in Columbia University Fraud Case

NY Daily News: Couple charged in big Columbia University con split for Christmas: “The feds say the couple bilked Columbia by submitting $112,500 in invoices for a bogus spinal muscular study. At the time, Bzdil was managing the pediatric neurosciences department of the Neurological Institute of Columbia.
He signed off on an invoice Rinehart prepared in which she claimed to be a clinical manager for an international support group for people with spinal muscular atrophy, prosecutors say. She claimed to be paying a Columbia doctor for the study.
The couple spent $25,000 on the "Bzdil/Rinehart Wedding" at the Skytop Lodge in the Poconos on Sept. 15, 2007, FBI Agent Jose Charriez said in a criminal complaint.
Bzdil approved another $84,000 in reimbursements for a massive online buying spree on Amazon.com, Charriez said.
Charriez said particular favorites were Bliss products such as Mammoth Minty Scrub, All Around Eye Cream and Lovehandler.
"Lovehandler wages war on not-so-hard 'core' areas by unleashing extended release caffeine to help whittle the appearance of wiggly waists and pudgy tummies," its product description reads.
Bzdil and Rinehart each face 20 years in prison if convicted on fraud charges.”

Bernard 'Bernie' Madoff: From Queens lifeguard to soaking fraud

Bernard 'Bernie' Madoff: From Queens lifeguard to soaking fraud: “BY LARRY MCSHANE NYDAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Saturday, December 13th 2008, 11:55 AM Feds say Madoff's Ponzi scheme was worst ever. Bernard Madoff, "Bernie" to his Wall Street pals and deep-pocketed investors, launched his financial career with $5,000 earned as a Far Rockaway lifeguard.

That was nearly a half-century ago. Today, investors with Madoff's firm are drowning after the former Nasdaq chairman admitted fleecing his customers of $50 billion.

Madoff, 70, was known as a quirky figure inside his company offices at Manhattan's Lipstick Building. Still, he was respected for his uncanny - and apparently illegal - ability to generate cash for his clients.
The Hennessee Group, which tracks investment performance, says Madoff's firm suffered just five down months in 13 years between 1993-2007.”

Bernard L. Madoff - Questions Are Raised in Madoff’s Massive Fraud - NYTimes.com

Questions Are Raised in Trader’s Massive Fraud - NYTimes.com: “For years, investors, rivals and regulators all wondered how Bernard L. Madoff worked his magic.

But on Friday, less than 24 hours after this prominent Wall Street figure was arrested on charges connected with what authorities portrayed as the biggest Ponzi scheme in financial history, hard questions began to be raised about whether Mr. Madoff acted alone and why his suspected con game was not uncovered sooner.

As investors from Palm Beach to New York to London counted their losses on Friday in what Mr. Madoff himself described as a $50 billion fraud, federal authorities took control of what remained of his firm and began to pore over its books.”

TheHill.com - Ethics committee expands Rangel probe

TheHill.com - Ethics committee expands Rangel probe: “By Susan Crabtree Posted: 12/09/08 06:21 PM [ET]Democrats faced more bad ethics news Tuesday when the House ethics committee voted to expand its investigation into Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.).

The investigation will now include more recent allegations involving an oil company executive’s pledge to an education center bearing Rangel’s name.

The same day Democrats were under fire after the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on pay-to-play charges, the ethics panel voted Tuesday to broaden the Rangel probe. ”

Michael Mele & Laura Garza: 'BLOODY SUV' IN CLUB-GAL HUNT - New York Post

'BLOODY SUV' IN CLUB-GAL HUNT - New York Post: “Cops hunting for an aspiring fashionista who disappeared from a Manhattan nightclub towed a bloodstained SUV from their prime suspect's upstate family home yesterday - hours after the sexual deviant called a pal begging him not to speak to police, sources said.”

Caroline Kennedy To Replace Hillary Clinton As NY Senator?

The Note: Caroline Kennedy would be an excellent choice for NY Senator.

Giants Suspend Super Bowl Hero Burress - TIME”

Loading “Giants Suspend Super Bowl Hero Burress - TIME”

Russel Timoshenko MURDER - DNA FINGERS 'COP-KILLERS' - New York Post

DNA FINGERS 'COP-KILLERS' - New York Post

Zennie Abraham's Trip to NYC For The CNN Roland Martin Show

This is a video of my just completed (as of this writing) trip to the CNN Roland Martin Show and the CNN iReporters, Kevin Negenberger, Maggie Dowline, and Katy Brown, I met.

California Unemployment Insurance Fund Going Broke - Economy Failing

It's one thing to have people out of work and drawing unemployment, but it's more terrible to be in a position where that unemployment insurance fund is running out of money.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle today the California unemployment insurance fund is running out of money and will have to borrow from the Federal Government for the first time since the 1930s.  The projected deficit for 2009 is $1.6 billion.  

To make matters worse, not just California but 18 other states may find their unemployment insurance funds in deficit, including New York, Ohio, Michigan and Missouri.   

Guiliani And GOP Insult Community Organizers and Populists

I'm watching former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani talk on and on ..and on, but what is so galling is that he can't "do" a good speech. Geez, he's droning on and on and on. The speech is too long.

Ok, back to business. It was a politically stupid speech, because Rudy just insulted and alienated every community organizer and populist and quite possibility kissed that vote good by.

Community organizers bring people together for a common goal, be it getting elected officials to act on a problem or making sure than a neighborhood gets the services they need. Community organizers can work for non-profits or for organizations like the police department in your city.

What a dumb speech. I'm sorry, it just was. Rudy should be ashamed of himself.