The other day, one of you lovely and doting Planespotting devotees—“Bad Boy” to be exact—left the following comment, in reference to Tuesday’s post, Planespotting: John Thain, Maple Syrup, Sprinkles: The Decided Lack Thereof:
“If I had my way, I’d never work. I’d just stay home all day, watch Scarface 50 times, eat a turkey sandwich, and have sex all fucking day. Then I’d dress up like a clown, and surprise kids at schools…that’s funny to me. Then I’d paint, and read, and play violin. I’d climb the mountains, and sing the songs that I like to sing. But I don’t got that kinda time.”
And that got us thinking; are there other people out there—you know, celebrities, like us—who live in fear of someone jumping out from behind a parked car when they leave their building and being beaten to death with a well-worn nine-iron (and knowing that afterwards, their names will be crossed off a list—in blood—and red lipstick will be smeared on the lips of the attacker, who, oddly enough, strongly resembles Steve Buscemi)? Surely there must be. Case in point: today’s Planespotees. Ted Turner, Vanessa Minnillo, Paris Hilton, William Clay “Bill” Ford, Jr. All have good reasons to watch their backs. Why they’re recklessly trotting the globe in their Cessnas and their Pipers and their fancy Piper Cherokees, we have no idea. Maybe they’ll heed our warning this time, maybe they won’t. Just don’t come crying to us when you’re staring at the business end of a snug-fitting body bag, T, V, P, F comma Dubs.

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Brad Pitt’s been looking himself in the mirror a lot lately* and saying “When in Rome.” The actor, 42 and starting to get something of a gut, who was until last year known for his love of architecture, poetry, and a glass of scotch, has been adopting the “do good” habits of his home-wrecking-there’s-a-pink-elephant-in-the-room & it’s-the-fact-that-you-used-to-wear-a-vial-of-Billy-Bob- Thorton’s-blood-around-your-neck girlfriend. Bradsky, or Whipping-boy, My Whipping-boy, as Angelina likes to call him, recently flew down to New Orleans to check in with Global Green USA, a new architectural project that is hoping to help the environment by saving energy. Namibian orphans it’s not, but the old boy’s got to walk before he can run. Hoping to prove to Angela that he’s worthy enough to pick up her kids from daycare—in a “We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!” sort of way—Brady-boy appeared on the Today Show to garner some support for the cause by discussing his findings. After making some elucidatory points—“It’s bad down there”; “It’s really wet and stuff”—Pitt went on to talk about how freaking kick-ass Shiloh Nouvel—his only tangible link to Angelina—has turned out to be. “Having kids is really the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever taken on,” the Oklahoma-native proclaimed. “Man, I got kids now. And it really changes your perspective on the world. [You got a pet, you got a responsibility. If your dog is lost you don’t look for an hour then all it quits. You get your ass out there and you find that fucking dog.]” BP, who’s thisclose to becoming a fully licensed pilot like the Jol-ster, also noted that “Man, if I can get a burp out of that [baby], that little thing, I’ll feel such a sense of accomplishment,” which is a fair enough statement if you’ve ever seen Meet Joe Black or The Mexican. We feel like it’s only logical to assume that Mr. P then said to interviewer Ann Curry, “Shoes; that’s a funny word. Shoooooes.”

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Oh, the homeless. They’re so stylish and hip and chic, what with their minimalist boxes, their Mary-Kate Olsen/boho-inspired clothing, and their private planes. Yeah, we said it; so don’t adjust your glasses, ‘cause you heard us right—it’s no longer considered “odd” or “wacky” or “not economically feasible” for a destitute individual to be the proprietor of his/her own jet. Now that we’re on the same page, let’s get down to the specifics of this totally hot, new trend, pioneered by none other than Rupert “Planes Are For Poor People—And I Mean That In A Good Way” Murdoch and his wife, Wendi “No ‘E’” Deng. M ‘n D, who were last seen piloting their PP (Private Plane) to Australia for LDU (Land Down Under) Prom King and Queen Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman’s nuptials, told The New Yorker last month, “We are homeless. We stay in hotels, whichever one gives us the cheapest rate.” While waiting renovations to be complete on their Fifth Avenue townhouse—last owned by the late Laurance “I Just Missed The Cutoff To Qualify For Food Stamps” Rockefeller—Murds and Big D had been shacking up in the Pierre Hotel. When their lease ran out, they temporarily relocated in a $90,000/month penthouse in Trump Park Avenue. As the latest hovel comes unfurnished, the Murdochs have been forced to “borrow couches and beds from model apartments in the building.” What’s more, Rupes’s wife told Australian Women’s Weekly that her guy has been wearing nine bucks-a-pop shirts bought at…Wal-Mart. As you can clearly see, street life is fucking rough, man. Which is why this new homeless-yet jet-bearing paradigm is so ingenious: when things get bad on the streets, you can always take to the skies. Start buying high and selling low now, people. You will be penniless/broke/on the skids and own a plane AND YOU WILL LIKE IT.
In other news, our inboxes continue to flood with more salacious requests made by Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, per the interior design of their new PP, to their ex-designer, Leslie Jennings. Jennings, who was fired some months back, and is embroiled in bitter suits w/ B ‘n P, naturally turned a blind eye to his signed confidentiality agreement, leaking of veritable grab-bag of titillating tidbits. We’ve got a whole bunch of the demands, but we’ve decided to dole them out in teeny, tiny, adorable bite-size batches, starting today and continuing every Tuesday/Thursday thereafter, just because we’re in the mood to make you beg. You are, after all, Planespotting devotees and, therefore, gluttons for punishment (the good, S&M kind). Enjoy them, Love Slaves, and we’ll see you next week:
~An enormous ‘G’-shaped Jacuzzi. Only instead of being filled with water, we require that you shoot Bill Gates in the neck with a blow dart, strap him down, and drain the blood out of his body. Then sterilize said blood—that guy’s got to be diseased—and heat it to precisely 99.7 degrees, nothing higher, nothing lower. We are unwavering on this point.
~Midgets. Lots and lots of midgets.
~A fleet of twenty stewardesses, each bearing a banana-split, ten for each of us, at all times. These should be classically crafted banana-splits. We’re talking vanilla, chocolate and strawberry icecream in a row over the split banana, pineapple on the vanilla, chocolate syrup on the chocolate and strawberry topping on the strawberry, crushed nuts, whipped cream and maraschino cherries. NO SPRINKLES. For every sprinkle we find, we shall kill you.

…Advises Him to “RUN FOR YOUR LIFE,” Provides Get Away Car, Gas Money and Snacks Just when you thought our relationship with Bill O’Reilly was out-the-door, done, finished, over, finito—there was an incident at a cocktail party last month, don’t really want to get into it—Papa Bear goes and does something that just reels us right back in to that big, furry, pundit o’ love embrace, hook, line and sinker. And you know what? There’s no place we’d rather be; it feels like coming home. On Tuesday, we reported that Rush Limbaugh—our Rush Limbaugh—had been detained in a Palm Beach airport, coming back from the Dominican Republic, for having a bottle of Viagra prescribed to someone else in his carry-on bag. And, boy, were we upset. No, actually, we weren’t upset—we were blood-boilingly livid.

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Rush Limbaugh is like David Geffen in that he will never freaking learn.Background info: we recently became infatuated with Rush Limbaugh; as such, we dedicate this edition of Planespotting to him, his Viagra, and an actual, real life story!* We’re not sure when it started, or why, but lately, R. Limbaugh’s all we can think about. What’s he doing, where’s he going, what’s he thinking, will he come over tonight, should we call him or should we wait for him to call us (he did say he’d call…but that was three days ago!)? To be honest, it’s time-consuming and tedious and if we could kick our habit for that big bowl of conservative radio talking love we would, but, thing of it is, we can’t. Like they say, “Kicking coke is one thing, but Rush? Oh, that’s a drug far too powerful.” So what with our hands tied conquering what some people– small minded ones, you realize– would call a “problem” with smack, getting over Rush just wasn’t in the cards, at least not for this week. So, seeing as though we were (/are) still restraining-order worthy obsessed with him, we did what you would expect anyone with such an infatuation to do and started stalking him. Like, hard-core stalking him. Like, crazy-freaking stalking him. Like breaking into his apartment and waiting for him behind the door stalking him. And naturally, we wanted to know where he was at all times, just like any good stalker (and girlfriend!) would; thus, the tracking of his private plane. But guess what?

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A few days ago, we reported that we were “pretty sure”—which is like being “basically sure” or “essentially sure,” for you wordsmiths out there—that the higher-ups at the NYSE had gone south for the Exchange’s annual summer concert series. We mused that they’d (probably) had a “simply fabulous” time, what with President and COO, Catherine R. Kinney (most likely) meeting her “absolute favorite” rocker, Garth Brooks; and CEO John A. Thain getting pulled on stage during a duet by the country singing juggernaut that is Kenny Chesney/Tim McGraw. Since that’s the story we went with then, now, we’re going to continue this little narrative of sorts that we’ve begun, and speculate as to what happened the morning after. Think of it as Planespotting: NYSE, The Sequel; it’ll be fun, really.

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Between June 17 and 19, the NYSE’s Gulfstream IV flew from Brunswick, GA to Memphis, TN, to Austin, TX. For what, pray tell? We really have no idea but how about this: ‘SE’s annual summer concert series, which kicked off this month? If that’s the case, then we’ll continue this random* speculation by saying that NYSE President and COO, Catherine R. Kinney, is (probably) Garth Brooks’s “biggest fan,” while CEO John A. Thain has to have mentioned that he “just loves that Shania Twain, ’cause it rhymes with Thain” on the trading floor, at least once or twice. In exchange for backstage passes to his show, we’re betting that Kenny Chesney will be ringing the bell, sometime in late July, early August, max.
*but entirely plausible

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We’re going to be straight with you: David Geffen is the thorn in our obsessed-with-stalking-the-planes-of-rich-and-famous people asses. So we’re going to expose what the little scallywag thought would be an elaborately difficult but successful business plan that would a. make him lots and lots of money b. louse up our plan at world domination via planespotting and c. finally make Ashlee Simpson look legit.* Ready? Okay. As you may already know, Geffen, Ron Burkle (billionaire investor), Peter Ueberroth (Commissioner of MLB and former Olympics organizer) and Eli Broad (philanthropist AKA a nobody) are interested in buying the LATimes. As you also likely know, Geffen the Gay has recently been at the forefront of a major question posed by The New York Observer,**as to the mystery inhabitant of a loft he just purchased for $10 million at 158 Mercer Street. Geffen, you see, is one of the trustees registered on the deed-transfer record, but Marci Klein, daughter of Calvin and seasoned Saturday Night Live producer, was revealed in April to be the future inhabitant of the 11th floor apartment; so that’s confusing and upsetting and off-putting. But just wait, it’ll all soon be resolved. Since you obviously have a subscription to US Weekly (excuse us, your “girlfriend does and [you] just found it lying on the coffee table”), you know that Ashlee Simpson was the recent recipient of a new face. Simpson, one of Geffen’s most gifted clients,
*While making sure to say that, although we believe this to be true, it is entirely unconfirmed (as most brilliant conspiracy theories are).
**So a minor/less-than-minor question to the rest of the world.

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Which is to say, they rub Land O’ Lakes all over their bodies in a way most (small-minded) HR deparments would likely frown upon. OR, if you’re not down for that kind of thing, “butters [them] up” in the proverbial sense, which is to say they fly their 19-21 year old minions to work on their private plane. On May 31, MS’s Gulfstream V flew from Ohio State University to New York, presumably carrying 20+ over eager underlings to begin their summer of hard labor. Goldman Sachs’ interns are reportedly livid, as all they’ve been treated to are “crappy” tee-shirts that say “I interned at Goldman Sachs and all I got was this lousy shirt”; Lehman Brothers’ peons are (rumored to be) equally as angry, because according to one whose name cannot be revealed, “LB promised me the world and all I got was this unwanted pregnancy.”

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[Editor's Note: DealBreaker intern Bess Levin takes over the Planespotting beat today, with 100 Variations on Planespotting--a comprehensive report on where everyone's favorite private planes have been today and yesterday.]
Planespotting: With Kids
Today’s Planespotting update is a heartbreaking tale of what happens when a family is torn apart by hundreds of millions of dollars. Between May 31 and June 7, Matthew Pritzker’s plane– a Gulfstream Aerospace Gulfstream IV–flew to Boca Raton; Brunswick, Georgia; Atlanta, Georgia; Savannah, Georgia; and White Plains, New York. Pritzker who, with his sister Liesel Matthews, sued his genetic-material-benefactors for $500 million from their Hyatt Hotels, TransUnion Credit Bureau, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines-built fortune, is now one of the two richest young adults in the world, his sister being the other. These kids put the Olsen twins to shame, and Lindsay Lohan’s BFF, oil heir Brandon Davis, too– and Pritzker is flying to such hum drum destinations as Boca, Georgia, and White Plains?

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According to Planespotter [but not otherwise confirmed], the IAC Bombadier (tail number N393BZ) is on the move. This time from Germany’s Bremen Neueland airport to Van Nuys in Los Angeles. Also unconfirmed: a Lear registered to Denise Rich, whose husband Marc famously recieved a lame-duck pardon from President Bill Clinton, today flew from New York’s Westchester Airport to Arkansas’s Rogers Municipal Carter Field and back again.