Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald recently covered the MTV Awards and Australia Fashion Week, which caused millions of famous people to descend on the smallest continent. Most of the first half of the article talks annoyingly about entourages and which rappers had the biggest posse following them around. 50 Cent had 20 people with him, for example. But here’s what the article had to say about paw-print-tattooed rapper Eve:
Female rapper Eve appears to be on a budget, opting to travel here with only her manager, her bodyguard and personal assistant, a small posse she refers to as her “family.”
Um, really, guys? It seems you’re missing the point. We should be commending celebrities who don’t need a well-paid army of soothsayers to shield them from the world at all times, not snarking on them for paying uneccessary money for friends. It’s great that Eve a) might be choosing to spend her fortune on more practical things and b) is reducing the size of her herd. Maybe she’ll be able to someday go out in public alone, thus setting a precedent for all rappers. We can only dream of this future, and the last thing we need is the Sydney Morning Herald doing its part to set back the cause of the un-posse.
One of the best or worst things (depending who you ask, and if they’re on a diet) about working in an office is the abundance of free food. The overwhelming majority of the time, said free food is of the “junk” persuasion: cupcakes for someone’s birthday, the chick in accounting’s latest cookie recipe, etc. What’s an assistant to do when the call of office snacks is irresistible, but their health (and possibly their waistband) is telling them no?
The Our Lady of Weight Loss blog offers some interesting suggestions for how to handle office junk food. While some of them are a little extreme (printing out a manifesto/flyer proclaiming a junk-free zone), some are very useful. Witness:
- Drink more water
- If you do want to partake in snacks, make an effort to be more active (go to the gym during lunch, take a walk around the office, etc)
- Bring your own healthier snack alternatives
- Make friends with a fellow health-conscious coworker
- Take more breaks–the more productive you are, the less tired you feel, and the less tired you feel the less likely you are to crave sugar
Dina Lohan, who lied about being a Rockette and is only famous for being Lindsay Lohan’s enabler–I mean, mother, was spotted bitching out her assistant at baggage claim at New York’s JFK airport. TMZ reports:
TMZ spies caught Lindsay’s mommie dearest going ballistic on her assistant at JFK baggage claim last week. Our source tells us Dina — who was flying back from LAX with her middle-aged teen daughter Ali — was screaming at the assistant for forgetting her bag and yelled, “You must have left your brain on the flight. You’re my assistant and that’s my bag. You should know this!” It’s safe to say you won’t be seeing that on “White Oprah’s” reality show.
The real question here, folks, is not “why is Dina Lohan such a miserable excuse for a human being?” but “why does Dina Lohan have an assistant?” Did Lindsay’s assistant-related experiences teach her nothing?
Does the name James Frey ring a bell to you? Bestselling “memoirist” of A Million Little Pieces, chosen for Oprah’s Book Club, got caught lying about stuff he said was true in the book, got taken down by Oprah on her show? Yeah, that guy. Well, he’s back. He’s wisely decided to stick with actual fiction and has a novel called Bright Shiny Morning coming out in June. And although he isn’t worthy of having an assistant, he thinks it’s perfectly OK to torment other peoples’ assistants. Witness this quite, from Vanity Fair via Fishbowl NY:
Sometimes [Frey] pretends to be in an emergency, as he did the other day when he phoned his editor’s assistant: “Allison, fuck, Allison, I need your help now! I’m on the corner of 56th and Fifth Avenue and a fucking bus just drove by and drenched me! I have two more meetings and I need you to go buy me some underwear and buy me some pants.
We have two things to say to this.
1. Are you fucking kidding?
2. FREE ALLISON.
Two stories have come across our desks lately that relate to assistants testifying in trials related to their bosses.
First up is Uma Thurman’s former PA, Lisa Grondin. She, as well as a wardrobe assistant named Joseph La Corte from Thurman’s movie Super Ex-Girlfriend, testified today in a trial against a man accused of stalking the actress. Jack Jordan, who sent Thurman letters and even tried to barge into her trailer on a film set, is on trial in New York City. Grondin testified that Thurman became so stressed out about her stalker that she “began smoking again” after he sent her a series of creepy postcards.
The second story is the ongoing Anthony Pellicano case in Los Angeles. Pellicano allegedly worked as a PI to the stars, tapping phone lines and taking part in other criminal activity to get the dirt his celebrity clients wanted. Comedian Garry Shandling testified that Pellicano dug up personal information on him while Shandling was in a dispute with TV executive Brad Grey. Mariana Grant, Shandling’s personal assistant, also testified that Pellicano dug up dirt on her, even though the case had nothing to do with her.
And no one believes us when we say it’s dangerous to be an assistant.
Gallup (the same people who do the Gallup poll) apparently gives out annual awards for great workplaces. And this year’s big winner is… Country Inns and Suites.
Since we hadn’t heard of them either, we did some searching around on their site. Here’s what we learned about them: their website is phenomenally boring. If you want to look into career opportunities, click here. Regardless, boring website or not, kudos on being crowned America’s Best Workplace.
Ivanka Trump seems to be trying to establish herself as a good celebrity boss… the anti-Campbell, perhaps. First she claims she never made her assistant paint the nails of the Ivanka wax statue at Mme Tussaud’s, and now there’s an entire feature in Glamour dedicated to Ivanka redecorating her assistant’s apartment.
After designing her new jewelry store and her New York City apartment, Ivanka Trump, 26, was revved up for another home project. So when she found out that her assistant at the time, Darcy McNutt, 26, had a one-bedroom apartment in scary shape, she decided to help. “I’d seen the pictures, and it wasn’t pretty,” jokes Ivanka. “I really wanted to make her home glamorous.” Your boss, Ivanka Trump, offering to do over your place: How often does that happen?
OK, we may not believe that Ivanka is the world’s hottest boss, but we will acknowledge she has a really crack PR team. And a pretty happy assistant.
If you type the words “personal assistant” into Google, what’s the first image that comes up? No, not Naomi Campbell in a prison jumpsuit, this:
It is the logo from an annoying, uneccessarily-perky website called Leave it to Lara! The image, if you hadn’t guessed, is “Lara,” who is basically the Aunt Jemima of the virtual/remote assistant world. Here’s their mission statement:
Need a hand with the grocery shopping or picking up the dry-cleaning? Leave it to Lara! will be your personal assistant, ready at the drop of a hat to meet the cable guy or shop for and wrap that present for your child’s friend’s birthday party this Saturday.Let Leave it to Lara! do all the mundane things that need to be accomplished so you can spend more time with your family and friends!
Wouldn’t it be great to have just a few extra hours in your week to work out, take that new yoga class, spend quality time with your spouse and children, or have coffee with a friend?
Call or email today for a free estimate!
Um, no thanks, Lara. Maybe if we can find the phone after we’re done barfing.
You may not recognize Anne Robinson’s name, but you definitely know who she is. The Brit TV show host became famous for hosting The Weakest Link and uttering her famously curt catchphrase, “You are the weakest link. Goodbye.”
Robinson has had an interesting couple of years since becoming a household name, and apparently spent a lot of her fortune on cosmetic surgery. Despite the surgery, she’s still recognizable and a favorite target of the British tabloids. So what’s a poor celebrity to do? Call her assistant to the rescue, of course. The Daily News reports:
[Pictured: Anne Robinson, before and after. Also, she's blonde now.]
So her horror can only be imagined when she popped out to the newsagent’s in an old grey tracksuit, without make-up, only to find a photographer waiting for her as she came out of the shop.
Miss Robinson dived back inside and called her personal assistant on her mobile phone. Moments later, the assistant arrived carrying a coat, baseball cap and oversized sunglasses. And duly covered up, the 63-year-old Weakest Link inquisitor emerged to walk back to her West London home with a smirk of triumph.
Assistants. Is there anything they can’t do?
We love Amy Winehouse’s music (especially “‘Valerie’), so we’re thrilled to hear she may have dumped deadbeat husband Blake in favor of Alex Haines. How did they meet? Alex is Amy’s manager’s assistant.
We think dating an assistant is a great way to get one’s life on track, as Dan Wheldon can tell you. Hey, come to think of it, Dan Wheldon’s assistant-cum-wife made him get his teeth fixed…we think she’s onto something.
