Thanks to my friend Derek Alger, I was able to have lunch on Wednesday with Thomas Fleming, the very distinguished historian and novelist. Tom is the author of The Illusion of Victory, Duel, Washington’s Secret War, The Secret Trial of Robert E. Lee, and the just published The Perils of Peace, about the struggles the …
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 …
We got a visit at the office yesterday from the great James Ellroy, the author of L.A. Confidential, American Tabloid and other classic too numerous to mention. The classy Ellroy brought champagne for the staff, regaled us with memories of his favorite Playboy jokes and cartoons, talked about recording pornographic grunts for Velvet magazine in …
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 …
On Labor Day, Ginny and I coerced Molly and Cara to go down to the South Street Seaport and take a water taxi around New York harbor and catch the four waterfalls that were installed by artist Olafur Eliasson. Well, I don’t know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we saw them at their …
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. …