I had lunch today at Ammos Estiatorio on Vanderbilt Avenue with my friend John Leo. John, who had a long and distinguished career as a columnist at US News & World Report, is a resident scholar at the Manhattan Institute, from whose parapets he wags a stern and scornful finger at the soggy ignorance of …
Thanks to Nick Thompson of Wired , another of the famous Washington Monthly editorial finishing school, for a tasty Brazilian lunch at Ipanema on West 46th Street. Hopefully we’ll be able to work together sometime soon.
My friend David Jensen treated me to a day at Shea yesterday, where the first place New York Mets showed that poor relief pitching and a lack of timely hitting will ruin the Sunday afternoon of many a fan. Of course, whether the Mets won or lost wasn’t really relevant, since Dave and I had …
Perks of the position: got to go down to the West Village to a restaurant called Sushi Samba to have lunch with supermodel Carol Alt, and to interview her for an upcoming pictorial in Playboy. She is a very accomplished woman, and we spoke about her new novel, working for Bob Fosse, dating hockey players, …
It was fun to have lunch today at McCormick & Schmick’s with Steven Schragis, my friend from Spy days and the publisher of my first novel. We had a good time talking about politics and publishing–he thinks Sarah Palin may be a game changer, but I’m not so convinced. By the way, he is now …
My daughter Maria (the happy, pretty girl at the left) recently returned from a month in Italy. She had a blast. Here are excerpts from an interim report she sent: We got back late last night from Venezia (Venice) around 11pm. Our hotel was a 5 minutes walk from St. Marks Square. I took lots …
Congratulations to Cara and her friends in the Summercliff Players on their excellent performance of Les Miserables. It’s amazing that they were able to pull together this complicated show in just five weeks. It was very, very enjoyable, and I was happy to see that Cara seemed to enjoy the experience so much.
Cara was kind enough to let me photograph her at riding lessons on Saturday. I know nothing about riding, but she seems to look better and better each time I see her.
Thanks to my good friend Simon Monroe, the elusive, enigmatic illustrator who did the caricature of me that will henceforth make its home on this site’s blog page. My friend Ken Smith, a man who knows from illustrators, complimented the drawing by saying that it was “Sort of Mencken in spirit, and it sets off …
Those of you expecting to see Paul Newman and Alexis Smith will be disappointed, but I’m not. This week I was lucky to lunch with two of Philadelphia’s finest: Bill Tonelli (with me, left) of South Philly and Temple University, once my colleague at Esquire, and Joe Queenan (with me, right), the pride of St. …