Welcome back to the Weekend Press! Today, Suzy Weiss has two drinks with Lloyd Blankfein, who wasn’t bothered when a shooter interrupted the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. A polyglot bachelor who’s been to 803 restaurants in NYC is looking for love. Kat Rosenfield loves the new Michael Jackson biopic. And more!
But first: Will Rahn reviews New York City’s first-ever casino.
“It’s like watching a slow-motion mugging,” my friend Dale observed, as we walked past the tables at Resorts World New York City. This ugly little stump of a building, squashed in the hinterland around JFK Airport, is host to the first-ever casino in New York City. I visited on Thursday, two days after its grand opening, and was horrified by what I found.
All across America, casinos are spreading like weeds in an unkempt garden. Few who study the issue think they’re a good idea—casinos and their advocates have a habit of under-delivering when it comes to the new jobs and tax revenues politicians always promise the casinos will create. And then of course there are the social costs like addiction, or the savings accounts and college tuitions frittered away at the tables.
For a long time, New York resisted this creep. New Yorkers keen on trying their luck at the roulette wheel had plenty of options in the neighboring states of New Jersey or Connecticut. But thanks in part to then-governor Andrew Cuomo’s commitment to taking the path of least resistance, the legal path was laid for the gambling industry to suck the financial capital of the world dry.
I left New York’s first casino richer, but sadder, and with questions: What will the new casino do to the neat little neighborhood it’s sprung up in? What will it do to everyday New Yorkers? Is it worth it? — Will Rahn
When shots rang out at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last weekend, former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein wasn’t scared. Instead, he asked his tablemate if he was going to finish his salad. “People joked about it at the firm: ‘Lloyd’s good in a crisis, and if there wasn’t one, he’d cause it,’ ” he told Suzy Weiss when they met for coffee. They chatted about dieting, the price of gold, and his very honest new memoir, “Streetwise: Getting to and Through Goldman Sachs”—in which he includes a performance review from 2002 in which he was advised to work on his “willingness to occasionally lose a debate or argument.”
Critics have panned the new Michael Jackson biopic as “disingenuously airbrushed,” because it doesn’t mention any of the allegations leveled at the deceased pop star. But the box office tells a very different story: In its opening weekend, the film took $96 million, more than any other musical biopic upon opening—and moviegoers are raving about it. Kat Rosenfield loved the film, and in her latest essay argues that the reason it’s popular is that it captures what we’ve loved about MJ, throughout all his trials in the court of public opinion: his magnificent showmanship.
It would be nice to believe that the 31-year-old computer science graduate who allegedly attempted to assassinate the president of the United States last Saturday was unusual. But unfortunately, if the charges against him are true, he’s part of an emerging class of highly educated and credentialed young men who grow up to do the previously unthinkable. How did we get here? In this week’s Things Worth Remembering, the University of Austin’s former provost Jacob Howland reflects on the wisdom of Plato’s Cave, which somehow explains everything that’s gone wrong with education today.
SECOND THOUGHT
Spencer Pratt—once a reality television star, now a candidate for LA mayor—went viral this week with a video comparing the current mayor’s mansion to the burned-out plot that was once his home. “He knew what would be good TV,” says his former producer, Sophia Rivka Rossi, who joined Suzy Weiss on the latest episode of Second Thought. They talked about the secrets of her former colleague Ryan Murphy, who gave America Love Story; Rossi’s return to God; and, yes, acupuncture.
Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts, or watch the YouTube vid below. And if you want to keep up to date with everything Suzy does, don’t miss her newsletter!
Knock Knock, It’s Cupid!
A new batch of ads from single Free Pressers is live on our site! Click here to meet a polyglot bachelor who’s been to 803 restaurants in NYC; a music teacher in Ames, Iowa; or a dog-mom to yellow lab Winnie in Philly.
Your special someone could be just one email away! If you’d like to take a chance at Free Press love, write a paragraph that defines you, your age, where you live, and what you’re looking for, and send it over to Cupid@TheFP.com.
It was our absolute pleasure to welcome not one, but two fantastic new writers to our ranks this week, Caitlin Flanagan and Freya India. You’ll see their names appearing in The Weekend Press, but until then—catch up on their inaugural columns, and a couple of other treats. . .
How should you spend your weekend? We asked our reporter River Page for his recommendations…
🥩 Eat . . . Nothing from an expensive restaurant. I’ve never had an entrée that was worth more than $50 and neither have you. Yes, I have! No, you haven’t—you had a good time that was completely tangential to the $95 steak you ordered, probably because you were with people you like. Invite them to a Chili’s, order the most mediocre thing there (the app platter), and tell me you still didn’t have a great time.
🥃 Drink . . . Licor 43. It’s a perfect gold-colored vanilla-citrus liqueur that pairs wonderfully with ginger ale. If you’re having a party you can use it to make delightful little “mini beers”—just pour the 43 in a shot glass and top it with heavy cream. People have been sleeping on Licor 43 for years, and not just as a homage to the napping Spaniards who invented it. When I bring it up, and I often do, most people have no idea what I’m talking about—that needs to change. Take a sip, change your life, and spread the good news as I have.
📺 Watch . . . The films of Ralph Bakshi, one of the great animators of the 20th century. His style is distinctive, grimy, and drawn by hand—a far cry from the hideous, bloated, Fisher-Price style of computer animation we see so often today. It is not suitable for kids. Start with Fritz the Cat and work your way through the filmography—you may be scandalized, but you won’t be disappointed. True, his adaptation of Lord of the Rings is bafflingly bad, but what Bakshi’s best and worst have in common is that they all look cool as hell, and none of them could be made today, for both political correctness reasons and creative cowardice on a technical level.
That’s all, folks! Have a great weekend.
"Critics have panned the new Michael Jackson biopic as “disingenuously airbrushed,” because it doesn’t mention any of the allegations leveled at the deceased pop star. But the box office tells a very different story:"
The two are not mutually exclusive. It's almost a rule for biopics to be 'disingenuously airbrushed' and the audience does not care for accuracy, only enjoyment.
Gambling is a blight, pure and simple.