Graydon Carter

And Private Eye was a huge influence on both the outlook and the writing style.

They were sort of dense, fact-based, but slightly removed writing style.

So I found a partner in Kurt Anderson, and we started Spy Magazine.

And for the first time in my life, I had a huge hit on my hand.

Nice.

Yeah, it was very pleasing.

Oh, there was a million things.

People just loved the magazine, because especially the children of the rich people we picked on, they really loved the magazine.

And it was just an incredible amount of fun.

We annoyed a lot of people.

We did a story about the 10 most litigious New Yorkers, and on the list was Gore Vidal.

And we were listed in the phone book in those days, and the receptionist came back.

He said, great, and I've got Gore Vidal on the phone.

So I pick up the phone, and I say, hello, Mr. Vidal.

He says, I don't like being on this list of the 10 most litigious New Yorkers, and if you don't take me off the list, I'm going to sue you.

So I was just about to say, do you not see the irony in that?

And he hung up on me.

And so there was always... Did you feel able to print that in the following issue?

No, but one time there was a man called Larry Tisch who was a real estate person here in New York and he bought CBS, the big TV network, the Tiffany network.

And he was firing a lot of people that I knew and we did a column on Larry Tisch and we had these funny epithets for people.