Exhibit A (images may be NSFW)

Oh, Gawker, this is why I can't quit you.

DramaRama!
I wonder if he is the father of Padma's mysterious child after all...

Oh, c'mon, don't we all carry around a large radioactive bucket of stress?

OMG, so THAT'S who Pia Glenn is. I was at a wedding over the summer -- oh, this is so damn L.A. -- where I got to sit next to the delightful Tracey Ullmann and her equally delightful husband, and while I was completely over the moon about TRACEY ULLMANN being there, half of everyone else seemed to be all agog about the statuesque Pia Glenn, who was also there, and who seemed to spend most of the evening leaning languidly against things and looking bored and vaguely hostile. (As opposed to the AWESOME Miss Ullmann, who danced and laughed most of the night.) And while everyone was all "OMG PIA GLENN" I was all "Who? And furthermore, TRACEY." So now I know. Ha!

Since there seems to be a population of attractive women who make a point of bedding noted, or powerful men, just to do it, I imagine that Rushdie could have his pick of the litter, with the fatwa and everything.

I like it when Scody tells stories.

Since there seems to be a population of attractive women who make a point of bedding noted, or powerful men, just to do it,

A few years ago I got a bit of insight into this. Some friends-of-friends of mine take an annual vacation in a resort town. They let loose, have a good time, drink more than usual, stay up late, dance, talk, and play music and generally have a great time. At the time this occurred, most people in the group were in their late 30s-early 50s.

As it happened, one year a former SNL actor who I'll call Duane Arkroyd also happened to be vacationing at the resort at the same time. He and his pals crossed paths with the group and they all had a rollicking evening together, having drinks at a bar, listening to some great blues music, dancing and having a raucous time.

At the end of the night, Duane Arkroyd had started making overtures to one of the women in the group. At the end of the night, as everyone was getting ready to move on and the bar was closing, he asked her 'would you like to come back to my place, jump in the hot tub?'

And she went. Now, this is not someone you would characterize as a woman who makes a practice of, or would even ever have considered, bedding famous guys.

But, as she told her friends the next day, "I figured, hey. It's Duane Arkroyd. This is a really unusual incident. When will I ever be in this position again? It's almost ridiculous! Me, hanging out with a famous guy back at his house. I can't not do it."

I'm not really defending her decision here. But it was hearing about her chain of thought in this situation that made me realize how profoundly easy it must be for famous people to just hook up. Sure, there will be some percentage of people who will just throw themselves at the famous person - probably those we think of as already okay with behaving in a sort of slutty way. But there is another, and perhaps even larger, set of people who would never have put themselves out there in that way, but who, faced with the choice, say "Hey, why not?"

So famous people can get some really easy...not always because they're truly awesome or sexy in their own right, or because there are fans who will lust after them no matter what -- but just because even regular people will on many occasions end up hanging with them for novelty's sake. Just to have, in their personal life history, the story "I once [whatevered] with Duane Arkroyd."

Oh, and I think Rushdie was completely within his rights to clear the record on the details of their relationship. There's a certain delicious irony in Gawker's feigned bemoaning that we're all in eigth grade...

Miko, I can see a real downside to that, though. I'd guess that eventually you start doubting that anyone is really interested in you and just wants to hang out because you're [famous person]. You'd worry every time you have sex that your partner is thinking, "wow, I'm really banging [famous person]!"

Miko, I can see a real downside to that, though

Absolutely. And to be clear, I didn't really see any big upside for anybody here. Just relaying an interaction that showed me how easily this kind of thing can happen, for reasons you might not expect. It is kind of a star-biography trope that eventually people who have enough fame to make this work get jaded and depressed and bored with how easy it is to make conquests, and how flimsy relationships that stat that way can end up being.

I hope Duane Arkroyd wasn't cheating on his wife Deena Daxon.

Eh, I'd still cut him some slack. The man did write Goost Boosters, after all.

And he was great in Clues Mothers.