It’s a telling piece of information, the first way a person earned money. That starter job undoubtedly shapes attitudes about work from then on, and how one describes their first paying gig reflects their level of respect for a hard day’s labor.

What does it mean, then, that so many celebs we talked to this week have been fired, or quit after just a few days on the job? Hugh Jackman, Judah Friedlander and Chaske Spencer—all of them offer excuses of varying degrees of credibility for being canned in their early days.

Cory Booker on the other hand, rather unsurprisingly, was a self-starter and young businessman. Both Tavi Gevinson and Miss Universe surmise that they currently occupy their first jobs (respectively, editor and… Miss Universe). And can you guess which two stars worked at Burger King and quit almost immediately?

Click through for more enlightening answers. Read More

Despite it being the definition of banal conversation, we couldn’t help ourselves this week. It was hot.

But the response to this week’s heat wave has been strangely optimistic. Perhaps when winter is no more than a chilly fall (Didn’t it only snow twice in New York this winter? Absurd.) it’s not a shock to the system. In fact, most of our celebrity cohorts welcomed the season change with a warm, sticky hug, all of them ready for three-day weekends and cold drinks with salted rims.

Answers to the question, “How are you coping with this weather?,” ranged from the practical (Ira Glass, noting anything is better than a Chicago winter), to the helpful (Jackie Joyner-Kersee, reminding you not to leave home without sunscreen), to the bizarre (Sarah Polley, singing the cooling praises of breastfeeding). Now, let’s see how Meredith Vieira, Arden Wohl, Greta Gerwig and others are dealing. Read More

The most American of all traditions: sending your child away to summer camp.

This week, we asked our friends on the party circuit that had been party to their parents’ brief period of summer freedom–Tinsley Mortimer, comedian Reggie Watts, philanthropist Jean Shafiroff and a couple of Broadway’s best, to name a few–about their childhood experiences in the great outdoors. Despite the bug bites, terrible food and the seemingly inevitable murderous rampage (a la Friday the 13th), what is your fondest memory of summer camp?

Click through to the slideshow for a few of our favorite answers. Read More

How can one possibly have a genuine moviegoing experience without a waxy, sweating cup filled with 64 oz. of Coca-Cola in hand? If Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed ban on sugary drinks larger than 16 oz. becomes a reality, the gallons of soda we chug in theaters and at Mets games will be nothing but a faint, sticky memory.

For the past seven days we’ve been asking our famous friends about it. Has the Bloomberg sugary beverage ban gone too far? Replies predictably ranged from “No, people are too fat!” to “Yes, we can’t live in a nanny state!” but contained in the above slideshow for much more colorful reactions from the likes of Rob Thomas, Chace Crawford, Liz Smith (“I don’t drink that shit! I drink wine and water.”), and more. N0t to mention, the T-Mobile Girl and a Real Housewife. Read More