AS THE first year of the millennium’s second decade fades to a finish, Silicon Valley basks in promotional glow. The green eyes of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg peer from airport newsstands everywhere. He’s Time’s Person of the Year, an honor previously bestowed on popes, kings and presidents.
MarketWatch declared Steve Jobs CEO of the Decade for turning Apple into the world’s priciest tech company, an indisputable conclusion even if its editors overshot the decade’s end by a year, like those pilots who blew past Minneapolis last year. Apple stock now trades at more than 40 times its 2001 price. The typical Silicon Valley house, meantime, has grown in value by less than 1 percent a year. People continue to buy homes here, but more than a quarter of the purchases are from foreclosures. This begs the question of why, when our companies are the world’s envy, shared prosperity escapes us. More than 10 percent are unemployed in Santa Clara County.
Post-9/11 visa hurdles make it harder for us to raid the world’s brain trust and our battered schools won’t crank out the kind of local engineering talent that gave us the iPod 10 years ago.
That device changed our paradigm, of course, which is why there are no longer Tower Records stores—and music clubs are few and far between. Clubs of a different type sprouted up this past year and will likely remain, unless government gets in the way or marijuana becomes downloadable, too.
So, we’ve survived the Bush years, two burst economic bubbles and nuclear Korea. Computing speed is now measured in petaflops, while coffee has gone the other way, as the slow pour-over became the rage.
It is Metro‘s custom, in this annual rite, to look at some of the events and notable nonevents that make up the 365 planetary revolutions that we call a year. Blessed with good weather in this part of an analog dirtball, our physical movements tracked by Google Latitude, we remain appreciative that our lives themselves haven’t been fully digitized yet. Otherwise, we’d feel like those screaming Japanese skydivers in the YouTube video, suspended from cables and watching the ground approach through the magic of Google Earth. —Dan Pulcrano
Oracle Beats SAP Silly
The German enterprise software company SAP got caught stealing Oracle’s software. A subsidiary it was purchasing was found using its customers’ accounts to routinely download Oracle code. Oracle scored a $1.3 billion settlement in November—estimated to be the equivalent of SAP’s entire fourth-quarter earnings. SAP will likely appeal the settlement or ask that the amount be lowered. Nevertheless, they and everybody else learned a lesson. Never mess with Larry Ellison—he will crush you and then go sailing.
Good Dad, Bad Cop
An off-duty SJPD motorcycle cop became a national hero to parents of teenagers—as well as fans of rogue cops everywhere—by fake-arresting his 14-year-old daughter’s boyfriend. After the “arrest,” actual misdemeanor charges were filed against both daughter and BF for unlawful sexual intercourse.
The boy’s stepfather recorded the perp walk of the 15-year-old boyfriend on his cellphone and leaked it. Good viewing: “Not a good thing that the person you had sex with is a cop’s daughter … a cop’s daughter is not somebody you mess around with. You’re stupid.”
At last word, the allegedly stupid minor and his parents are considering pressing charges against the allegedly smarter cop. The policeman’s lawyer, Terry Bowman tried to explain it away: “It is a shame if the young man’s parents lose sight of the importance of the message [i.e., don’t sleep with a cop’s daughter] because they have chosen to focus on what the girl’s father was wearing [a uniform].”
You Can’t Hold on to an iPhone
Apple engineer Gray Powell learned a hard lesson when he left a supersecret prototype of the next-gen iPhone in a bar in Redwood City. Apple’s security team jumped into action to recover the phone, but not before Gizmodo paid $5,000 to obtain the prototype and show the world what Apple was building. Upon the phone’s official unveiling, customer reviews were mostly positive, but there was one not-so-minor glitch: The device couldn’t make phone calls—at least not if it was held a certain way. Apple responded by summoning its inner-mom to scold phone owners, telling them they were doing it wrong. Eventually, a compromise was hatched: Apple provided a free casing, which alleviated most issues, and everyone agreed to forget the whole mess and go back to using Facetime for video phone sex.
I Heart Colma
Authorities were stunned in October to find two human hearts buried inside glass jars in a Bay Area cemetery. Both hearts contained embalming fluid and each had a different picture of an unknown couple attached. Several burnt cigars and candles were also found near the scene. Jon Read, police commander for Colma, a small community by San Mateo, said the discovery might be related to the voodoolike religion Santeria. He reportedly added that whoever was responsible was “probably in possession of stolen property if you have a human organ like that.” Apparently, Read has never been in love.
Paperwork Abduction
Mark Smith walked into a Watsonville bank and allegedly demanded $2,000, and promised that if he didn’t get the money he’d detonate a bomb in his backpack. Smith said he needed the money to pay a friend’s rent. The manager instead convinced Smith he should take out a loan and called police while bank staff distracted him with forms. Smith was arrested and no bomb was found. Perhaps the 59-year-old should consider himself lucky police arrived before he signed on for a subprime.
The Touchy-Feely TSA
The best thing to come out of intrusive airport security pat-downs had to be a guy saying, “If you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested” to one of the screeners. The worst part, however, was the gaggle of “That’s the most play I’ve had in months” jokes that followed.
Mother Knows Worst
Once embraced by the community after being severely injured in a bad car accident, Los Gatos mom Sara Cole got in hot water for getting way too close with the teenaged friend of one of her sons. In September, Cole was arrested on three felony counts of canoodling with a minor—a 17-year-old from Los Gatos High. The case against included Facebook postings and more than 5,000 “disturbing” text messages—disturbing sexually and, apparently, grammatically, according to newspaper reports: He sez: “hi. want to chil” She sez: “didn’t we just chil?” He sez: “no, chil with me.” She sez: “oh you mean like come over and chil with you in your poolhouse? yea, baby, let’s go.”
The Tweeting Room
Get to know how long you’ll be suffering: this year Good Sam and Regional Med Center in San Jose both allowed the public to text its emergency room wait time, or to check the websites to see how long they’ll be reading a 10-year-old copy of Good Housekeeping and watching a Lifetime channel rerun with one eye. The next step is wi-fi in both ambulances (“Just broke my pelvis LOL!”) and the operating rooms so that surgeons can check Twitter (“Follow Friday #JackTheSnipper, #WhiteCoatHypertension, #MsSlicee49, #RustyHemostat”) and upload photos (“Shld this be turning blue??” “That’s gonna hurt in the morning!”)
We Got 99 Pot Clubs, but a Legal Operator Ain’t One
When city officials told San Jose pot clubs they were operating illegally, the voices of a thousand local medical marijuana advocates rose up in unison to counter with: “Well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man!” Unfortunately for them, it’s also the opinion of county and state narcotics agents, who apparently didn’t get the memo that even the president loves him some Prop. 215. Or the memo that 80 percent of San Jose voters approved the pot-tax plan.
The county raids on multiple dispensaries were just the latest chapter in a story that’s turned hazier than a Tuesday night burn cruise.
In March, the City Council punted rather than set up specific guidelines for medicinal marijuana clubs. Then they decided they had a chronic problem and told the clubs they couldn’t operate legally because there was no proper zoning for them. Then they considered banning pot dispensaries altogether. Then they voted down the ban and decided to tax the clubs instead. Then they admitted they have no clue what the hell they’re doing.
While the clubs’ legal status hangs in limbo with the city, higher authorities decided club operators were illegally making a profit off of their pot. To make matters worse, criminals have recently realized, “Hey, there’s marijuana in those marijuana dispensaries!” and proceeded to hit several clubs and even growers.
Downside: Countless sick people who rely on medical marijuana to ease their pain can no longer count on getting it safely nor legally.
Why Do You Think They call it ‘Alto’?
If the Stanford tuition doesn’t get you, the rents will. Real estate giant Coldwell Banker named Palo Alto the fourth-most-expensive real estate market in the nation, following La Jolla (“a nice place for old people and their parents,” as former area man Raymond Chandler put it), Beverly Hills and the Bush Dynasty’s royal stomping grounds of Greenwich, Conn. PA now averages at $1.4 million a home. Silver-lining it, Coldwell Banker suggested some affordable alternatives. At 1/10th of the cost of Palo Alto, how about Akron, Ohio? (“Won the All American City award three times and is the birthplace of the ice cream cone.”) Rubber City weather report as of this writing: 24 degrees, 17 tonight, snow expected.
Hey, Where’s My Pension?
It was way back in August of 2009 when schools superintendent Charles Weis sent DA Dolores Carr a report saying he’d found “evidence of apparent illegal fiscal practices and misappropriation of funds” at a charter school operated by the Mexican American Community Services Agency (MACSA). Immediately, reporters and others went to Xavier Campos, the former (longtime) COO of that agency, for comment. Campos, who was running for a City Council seat held by his sister Nora, responded by pursing his lips, arching his eyebrows, shrugging his shoulders—and criticizing the questioners’ motives.
For the next 14 months, while the DA sat on her hands, the candidate clammed up. In October, when investigators finally raided MACSA’s offices, Campos was again questioned, and again refused to speak. Instead he forwarded inquiries to his sister’s spokesman.
Meanwhile, he refused to debate his opponent, Magdalena Carrasco, and declined to speak to reporters about his campaign.
On Nov. 3, he won.
Death and Taxes
In April the feds launched their case against a Santa Clara man, Daniel Rigmaiden, on 74 counts of hacking, fraud and identity theft after a multi-year, multi-state investigation. Rigmaiden (29) is alleged to have used sophisticated computer techniques to poach the identities of dead people to obtain fraudulent tax refunds. Some 68K in ill-gotten returns were mailed to an address in Palo Alto. The mystery man who picked up the checks was traced to an apartment in Santa Clara. When all the indictments were totaled, the bogus tax claims exceeded $3 million. Rigmaiden is in federal custody awaiting trial; his alleged co-conspirator, one aptly named Ransom Marion Carter III is still at large.
Doh! Department, Collegiate Subdivision
The think tank known as CampusReform.org unleashed the most startling revelation of 2010: After completing an “in-depth profile of the political climate of Stanford University,” the group uncovered “liberal political bias” on the campus.
The study estimates that liberal student groups at Stanford outnumber conservative groups 19 to eight (is that all?). “America’s colleges and universities are dominated by liberals, and Stanford University is no different,” according to Morton Blackwell, president of CampusReform.org. “Too often, the campus left uses its power to indoctrinate the next generation.” So, that explains why we are living in a socialist paradise with high marginal tax rates for the ultra-wealthy.
Accept His Endorsement at Your Own Risk
San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed’s spectacularly successful 2010 included a landslide re-election and a big win over bellicose public-employee unions on pension reform. But he continued to baffle his allies and potential allies with endorsements that made no sense.
In April, he endorsed Richard Calderon, who was running against the popular Sheriff Laurie Smith. A few days later, Democrat Reed threw his weight behind the embattled Republican DA, Dolores Carr. And in August, he gave his imprimatur, or what was left of it, to the extremist Larry Pegram, another Reep, who was running against the up-and-comer Donald Rocha. The good news (for most everyone but Chuck) is that in each case, the mayor’s candidate lost.
Sharks Win Title, Bomb Out in Finals
(Wait, That Happens Every Year)
You have to hand it to the San Jose Sharks. At least they’re finding new ways to disappoint in the postseason. After finally breaking through and beating Detroit to reach the Western Conference finals, the Sharks managed to get swept by the Chicago Blackhawks. A legion of fans, seduced into believing this was their year, were left to call for a ban on the goalie named Nabokov.
Whack a Mole
Controversy continued to dog the Independent Police Auditor this summer, when SJPD Sgt. Bobby Lopez claimed someone within the IPA’s office had leaked information about its inner workings to him. The allegations about a possible SJPD spy rattled IPA LaDoris Cordell, who issued furious denials that such a mole existed, even—in an ironic move—bringing in an outside auditor. On the other hand, the story did allow the IPA to be featured in the same articles as cool secret agent words like “spy” and “mole,” briefly lending the office some sex appeal.
Now, That’s a Public Relations Disaster
There are distant cousins, and then there are, you know, distant cousins. When Robert Cortese entered the race for the District 9 seat on the San Jose City Council in March, his hopes were high. Sure, his main claim to fame was as “The Grand Wizard of Karaoke,” a minor celebrity on the circuit and a fixture at Japantown’s Bamboo 7. Still, Cortese must have been singing “Don’t Stop Believin’,” seeing as how he’s the second cousin of County Supervisor Dave Cortese. Turns out he should have gone with “Livin’ on a Prayer,” as Cortese had already endorsed his former chief of staff, Don Rocha.
Build It and They Will Not Come
Well-endowed Stanford boasts a beautiful new stadium, budget-conscious tickets ($12 for walk-ups), an 11-1 season of historic proportions, a Heisman runner-up not under a recruiting cloud—and they still can’t find enough fans to swing a tree at. Indeed, attendance is down 2,000 from last year’s anemic showing. Meanwhile, 113,411 fans in Michigan went to a football stadium to watch a … college hockey game.
Bizarre Facebook Insignia Explained
Mark Zuckerberg spawned more talk about Facebook being a sinister techie cult this summer when it was revealed that the inner lining of a sweatshirt he was wearing featured an unusual seal resembling a pentagram. Unfortunately for conspiracy theorists, the sweatshirt proved to simply be company shwag promoting its 2010 strategy. The clamor did, however, spark Dan Brown into action, as the most popular writer of this illiterate generation penned a new adventure for Robert Langdon, who infiltrates a secret society that is part Dilbert and part Indiana Jones’ Temple of Doom. The villain, based loosely on Zuckerberg, is said to flagellate himself with a corded mouse when he’s not ripping out the hearts of Indian programmers.
Battle of the Binaries
Cyberwar broke out in December following the arrest of WIkiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Swedish sex charges. Hackers sympathetic to the anti-secrecy activist launched distributed denial of service attacks on “enemies” of WIkiLeaks, including the websites of Mastercard, PayPal, Sara Palin, Amazon.com and the Swedish prosecutor’s office. The cyberattacks by “Anonymous” quickly drew a response from a patriotic hacker called The Jester, who clogged up WIkiLeaks’ servers. Even more ominously, files described as “Windows executable and debug binaries” hinted at a poison pill with even more damaging information that would be automatically released if anything happens to Assange.
Don’t Take the Money—and Run
A would-be robber was unclear on the concept at a Palo Alto 7-Eleven this November. The suspect had a gun (check); the suspect demanded money (check). But when the clerk offered him the money, the suspect lost track of his to-do list. He grabbed an innocent bystander and again demanded money. Again the clerk tried to give him money. The suspect finally left with nothing—not even a Slurpee.
Silence of the Demon Sheep
Despite having a name that was almost a perfect anagram of “California,” despite having the cancer-fighting vote, despite bombing the airwaves with images of herself staring down voters like a starving red-tail eyeing a ground squirrel…despite this and that and the other thing, Carly Fiorina had to concede defeat, and was last seen melting and shrieking, “My beautiful wickedness!”
She had the money. She had the ornery electorate seeking the complete-absence of political experience. How did it happen? Was it the Demon Sheep “FCINO” viral ad? Was it June’s live-camera slip, also known as “Hairgate?” (The unedited feed of this is a treat; Her Highness pecking at her Blackberry in mid conversation with aides, and deriding her employees for stuffing their faces with burgers the night before.) Was it Carly’s less than ringing website “FailedSenator.com”? Was it all or a part of the 50,000 employees she laid off, who neither forgave nor forgot?
Whereabouts Unknown
After unceremoniously dumping Mark Hurd, HP tapped Léo Apotheker to be the new man in charge of the company that inflicted Carly Fiorina upon the dumbfounded voters of California. Apotheker proved to be an elusive catch, since his previous position with SAP made him a subpoena target in Larry Ellison’s hissy-fit suit against the company for trade infringements. Moving around the globe faster than Phileas Fogg, Apotheker managed to stay one step ahead of the process servers. Oracle went ahead and rested its case without Apotheker’s testimony—and walked away with more than a billion dollars in damages.
Escape from Milpitas
Milpitas firemen had to extricate a woman stuck in the mud in Coyote Creek. According to the fire department, another 45 minutes and the woman, an employee of the Santa Clara Valley Water District doing survey work, would have been in danger of drowning in the rising tide. The seven firefighters and four policemen on the scene all refrained from making the “What’s that giant sucking sound?” joke.
The Mark of Z
Here’s a chance to see how the rich, famous and socially arrested live. The Palo Alto house occupied for the last couple of years by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg (current whereabouts unknown) is on the market as a rental. The remodeled four-bed, three-bath property near Stanford is listed at an affordable (if you’re Mark Z.) $7,800 a month. Anyone who does move in might want to consider knocking down all the interior walls—that way the place would have the same amount of privacy as Facebook itself.
Rats Abandon L.A.
As if we didn’t have enough irritable, twitching, bulging eyed, photophobic mammals in the high-tech industry, an 18-wheeler chock full of rats arrived in our valley from Los Angeles this November. In their defense, these were hundreds of celebrity rats, who had starred in an episode of A & E’s Hoarders, in which they infested (and ate half of) some deranged unfortunate’s house.
The rodents got a new home at Andy’s Pet Shop, where they were tended by large-hearted and very unsqueamish volunteers. “There’s blues, minks, champagnes and cinnamons,” exclaimed “Anna,” one ratophile on a Yahoo group devoted to caring for an animal that some would prefer to care for with a Victor trap and a dollop of peanut butter. Previously known for its landmark macaw neon sign on The Alameda, Andy’s (newly on Notre Dame) is now famous for its compassion.
Money: That’s What I Want
In November, Steve Jobs scored his ultimate coup—finally burying the apple of logo discord and making the full Beatles catalog available on iTunes. Demand for digitized versions of the nearly-50-year-old pop hits of the mop-tops was so great that 450,000 albums and 2 million songs were download in a week’s time. In related news, Paul McCartney’s ex Heather Mills stepped forever to take the credit. “iTunes? I organized it all with Steve Jobs. But there’s no way I’m going back to court for more money. It was all settled at the time and that’s it,” Mills told the Daily Mail of Britain.
Because there’s no ‘bye’ in ‘team’
Nearly everyone says Team San Jose has failed in its mission to generate significant interest in the local entertainment and convention industry. But for the record, that is not true. The group has brought tons of attention to Team San Jose itself. Grand juries certainly can’t get enough of them—for the second time in three years, a civil grand jury accused TSJ of financial mismanagement and slammed the city’s continued financial investment in the group.
Finally, the city announced that even though it still doesn’t don’t agree with the grand jury’s findings, they had independently discovered that Team San Jose can’t master basic math. Now officially frenemies with critics of the group, the city accused the labor, municipal and business coalition of overspending to the tune of $750,000. Though it claims to have restricted TSJ’s access to public money, it stopped short of invalidating the five-year contract it signed in 2007, even after finding the group failed to meet its targets. Meanwhile, chief executive Dan Fenton, correctly reading the room, announced his resignation on Dec. 17.
Fields of Schemes
June 9: the day Santa Clara voters indicated their willingness to go into great hock to build a football stadium for the ‘Niners (who are currently 5 and 10) if they can only yoink them away from SF. In the meantime, a new election waits on the nebulous threat of Cisco Field in downtown San Jose—which already has a downtown baseball stadium, Municipal Park, home to the constant champs of the California league San Jose Giants. There, only recently, you could have seen Tim Lincecum pitching and Buster Posey catching as well as the Smash for Cash and beers that didn’t cost a second mortgage on your house. The new stadium location Cisco has in mind, pitched for 2015, may be more viable in the sense that there is public transit and foot traffic. It’s more possible than the earlier Fremont site, close to one of the most crowded traffic corridors in the solar system. If the A’s arrive, it’ll take much finessing from Major League Baseball. That is the question: are San Jose fans pro-Giants or what? After 2010’s season the answer is clearly not “what.”
Lawyered Up
The murder case against Palo Alto hookah-joint owner Bulos Zumot for offing his girlfriend and torching their apartment in 2009 dragged on into 2010. After having been twice denied bail, Zumot unleashed his latest legal weapon: celebrity barrister Mark Geragos.
Famous for dropping infamous client Scott Peterson and being dropped by even-more-famous client Michael Jackson, Geragos petitioned one Judge Philip Pennypacker a third time to set bail. After that tactic failed, Geragos went moved to Plan B: impugning the integrity of police accelerant-sniffing dog Rosie. The trial proper begins Jan. 3. Let the best dog win.
Vietnamese War Ends
Madison Nguyen, the first Vietnamese American to serve on the San Jose City Council or in any other elected office in Northern California, finally beat back a bitter recall effort. Her opponents included Ly Tong, a rabid anti-communist activist who staged a hunger strike that brought national attention to the demand that an Eastside neighborhood be officially called “Little Saigon” instead of “Saigon Business District.” The issue made perfect sense to the recall activists and to nobody else. Nguyen defeated the recall easily.
In July, Ly Tong was arrested for attacking singer Dam Vinh Hung with pepper spray onstage at a concert in Santa Clara. Reason? “He’s a communist!”
Railroaded
In the last throes of its stimulus splurge before donning the hair-suit of budgetary austerity, the feds have indicated their willingness to shovel $2.2 bill our way for construction of a high-speed railway to connect Northern and Southern California.
Not just willing to look this gift iron horse in the mouth, the burghers of Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton, Belmont and Burlingame want to kick the nag to the ground and thrash it soundly. The upscale town object to the notion of elevated tracks through their privileged environs and want to the rail authority to build tunnels for the bullet trains instead—adding a billion to the ultimate cost of the project. According to rumors, a Mr. K.C. Jones has been called in to mediate.
Chamber Made Small Gains but no Brass Ring
The San Jose Chamber of Commerce rode the coattails of Mayor Chuck Reed’s popularity and scored a big victory for municipal fiscal responsibility with the passage of Measures V and W. The two ballot propositions put the city back in the driver’s seat by limiting the power of outside arbitrators and reducing pension benefits for new hires.
Chamber executives Pat Dando and Pat Sausedo, both former councilmembers, couldn’t capture a majority of the city council seats, however. The chamber failed to either endorse or distance itself from ultraconservative anti-gay activist Larry Pegram, while Don Rocha sailed to victory. It blew its political capital in flip-flopping on Madison Nguyen, endorsing her tongue-tied opponent, Minh Duong, the year after it had gone all-out to keep Maddy from being recalled in a March 2009 special election. And the Chamber couldn’t deliver District 5 for its most viable candidate, Magdalena Carrasco, relying on the postal service to carry its message to a part of the city where community engagment gets voters to the polls on Election Day.
Following the election, Chamber CEO Dando stepped down after six years. Dando rebuilt the Chamber into a player, though not quite a match for the South Bay Labor Council’s political team, which is funded through the largess of foundations that contribute funds to labor-aligned Working Partnerships.
What’s a License Among Friends?
In her pursuit of a coveted seat on the Monte Sereno City Council, Toni Gouveia Yamamoto decided that indiscretion was the better part of valor. Yamamoto got herself listed on the ballet as a Business Owner/CPA. Sounds good? Too bad it wasn’t exactly, precisely, remotely the truth. Yamamoto’s license to be a CPA was canceled six years ago and not renewed. Yamamoto blamed the problem on the people who didn’t raise the issue sooner.
Cougar Attacks HP Exec
HP CEO Mark Hurd faced sexual-harassment allegations after he developed a crush on contractor Jodie Fisher. Though barely lurid by Julian Assange condom-ripping standards, the presence of feminist superlawyer Gloria Allred concerned HP’s twitchy board.
An audit of his expenses unearthed some minor misreports, and Hurd was squeezed out and given a $40 million severance package. He hardly missed a beat, but HP did. The board wound up looking like a bunch of losers when Hurd landed on his feet at Oracle, and HP lost a quarter of the $40 billion in value that Hurd had created as CEO.
Nailed It
Liquid Agency’s dramatic modernist facade in the SoFA District was honored with a Golden Nail award for renovation and beautification of a historic structure. Creative director Alfredo Muccino thought they were talking about something else and painted his nails gold to commemorate the occasion.
Fake Steve Jobs Ninja Attacks
Steve Jobs inherited a little undeserved street cred after a report circulating on the internet reported that the Apple CEO tried to smuggle some ninja stars onto his private jet at a Japanese airport. Apple called the story “pure fiction,” but that didn’t stop an animation company from making a parody of the nonevent. In the video, Jobs is amazed to find he can’t take weapons on a plane, morphs into a black-clad ninja and attacks a security guard as though the guy just lost the prototype of the iPhone4 at a bar.
Going Gaga
As one could say of our soon-to-be First Female President: brilliant idiot or idiotic genius? Lady Gaga and her flame-throwing dog-juggler turned up with the Monster’s Ball tour Aug. 16 at HP Pavilion. She faced a crowd that at last had a more upscale place to wear their underwear on the outside than the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” midnight matinee.
Some Gaga words from 2010: “If you can’t get to know somebody, you shouldn’t be having sex with them.” (Because the message you get from a Lady Gaga show is True Love Waits.) “I have this weird thing that if I sleep with someone they’re going to take my creativity from me through my vagina.”
When W Met Z
What’s the quickest way to improve your image after receiving some bad publicity? Sit down next to George W. Bush and look clever by comparison. Which is exactly what Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg did after his unflattering portrayal in the film The Social Network The highlight from the pair’s conversation to plug Bush’s new book was the former president pontificating on how WikiLeaks has ruined Obama’s and America’s foreign-relations reputation.
