So, I spent part of the day getting rid of old magazines. Mostly design, fashion, travel. And Vanity Fair. Looking through the six issues I had lying around, it struck me that VF is not the cutting edge commentator it used to be.
Now that small Bush is out of business; Graydon Carter (VF Ed.) has become infatuated with the good ole boys and bad bankers of Wall Street. With Tim Geithner coming in for particularly sticky-fingered attention. Plenty, plenty wordage on all of that. Most of it incomprehensible to financial lightweights like me.
Then there are endless incursions into the lives of arbitrary royal or monied families who have behaved like asses towards each other. And go-nowhere homages to people like Grace Kelly. I mean, really - Grace Kelly? Plus an eight-pager on the girl who plays Hermione in Harry Potter. Oh, and a 10 page story about state dinners at the White House.
Seriously Graydon - am I missing something here?
We also had A.A. Gil explaining football to us idiot readers. Excuse me - I mean soccer - A.A. (so small minded they named him twice) insists we are not allowed to call it football. He said why but, frankly, I lost interest three paragraphs in and started looking at the photos of all these young guys who earn a bloody fortune. Annie Leibovitz did a sterling job. The fellas look like they're worth every penny.
My favourite is one of Christiano Ronaldo. Leibovitz has shot him against a studio backdrop. Poised to kick a ball. Shirt off, body sculpted - concentrating hard. The boy is built like a god.
But that's not why I like the photograph. Dolores Aveiro, Christiano's mum, is in the studio doorway watching. She is a tiny woman; dwarfed by the warehouse. She stands alone, looking up at her son. Her hand covers her mouth, as if in disbelief that she could have played a part in creating this man. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
VF apparently pays Annie a $1million retainer every year. She's also worth every cent.
But the celeb who has come in for the mostest and bestest special attention from Graydon is Tiger Woods. Three separate issues. Long, long articles. First cover portrays Tiger as a delicious thug. All brooding and dangerous. Black beanie pulled low over his forehead. Trademark scowl. Eyes hard to camera. Ms Leibovitz saw something that day most of us had missed for decades.
In case we missed it again - Graydon and his folks brought us: "The Mystery of a Sports Superstar We Thought We Knew". Inside; more moody pictures of Tiger accompanied a sensationalist skinning of golf's once-favourite cat.
But that's not all folks. Two more issues featured arty shots of the mistresses. All women who look like his wife. Well - who look like hyper-drive-sexed-up-boobylicious-versions of Elin. Mark Seliger certainly didn't hold back. His pics include one of an Adult-Film star relaxing alongside a pool with a tiger loping along in the background.
The writer tells us the girls all thought Tiger was in love with them. What? They are all either stupid or complicit or ... stupid. Tiger is a great athlete. Some say the best ever. But he is a guy with an insatiable appetite to succeed. To conquer. What did you expect?
Elin undoubtedly had her expectations - but then that's her business. Vanity Fair made it ours. They brought us every graphic detail - anal sex and all. Reading the stories again, back-to-back, left me feeling cheap and ashamed.
What to do? I have a subscription to VF that has another seven months to run. Non-refundable. This month's issue has the regulation hagiography of some hedge-fund genius in one article. John Paulson is name-dropped in another. And Christopher Hitchens makes the bizarre case that jihadic suicide bombers are actually repressed teenagers who kill themselves, and many other people, so that they can get laid in heaven. If only he'd told little Bush this information before he started the multi-trillion dollar hunt for Osama. We could have just rounded up Tiger's exes and pressed them into national service.
But, VF599 also has a great article on Sean Penn's efforts in Haiti. Nancy Griffin delivers excellent copy on The Making of The Thriller video. And Charlie Rose does the Proust. So, the good outweighs the preposterous.
In the interests of fair play, I have decided to give Graydon another chance. But with fair warning. One more dalliance with a vampire actress, one more Treasury blow job, and baby, this love affair is over.
I know you have been in love with VF for many years and for mostly good reasons (my New Yorker doesn't have pics but I swear it's better if less titillating). I just have a problem with G. Carter - he might be a brilliant and intelligent man but I always found him to be too self absorbed and it reflects in the magazine. Even Hitchens, whom I like by and large, I feel has started writing for the sake of provocation alone. But I loved your post and think you should e-mail it to VF
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