Pic of the Week!!

You know, sometimes you come across a photo that is so appealing, so outrageous in its gorgeousness, that, even if the picture is of you and you must confront the possibility that people will think you're vain, you have to post it on your blog, for posterity, and for proof that at one point in your life, you looked good enough to eat.

This is how I feel about the photo below of me eating a frito pie at the Levee on Berry Street a few months ago, which my friend Sarah finally sent to me after realizing that it just wasn't right for the picture to simply reside on her hard drive with no one to love it. I invite you, my readers, to copy this photo and use it for the betterment of your communities. Also, send me any hawt photoshawps.

Wait for it....

..............

..............

.............. ta-da!

Been and Gone: Michael Jackson

So I was at work typing 'n stuff when I get the above picture message from my friend Kristen. I think to myself, "wow, that's kinda tasteless, cause isn't he in the hospital or something?" Then, within one or two seconds, I get a message from the Associate Press in my email inbox with the subject line "Michael Jackson Dies."

So my friend Kristen, a painter, scooped the AP, an official news source.

Kristen probably also knew last week that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford was "hiking the Appalachian Trail" in Buenos Aires and just didn't tell anyone.

New Republican Sex Scandal, Hooray!

Dear Lord, this is a spectacular achievement in FAIL. Mark Sanford, Republican governor of South Carolina, has just admitted that he wasn't practicing family values on the Appalachian Trail like his staff has been promising us over the past few days. He was actually in Argentina blowing off steam. And in Republican-speak, "blowing off steam" translates to "I've been unfaithful to my wife and I've developed a relationship with what started as a dear, dear friend from Argentina." He just said that at a press conference, for real.

This whole episode has unfolded as if it had been choreographed by the Keystone Cops. When he first went missing, his wife had no idea where we was but, apparently, wasn't worried because he wanted to get some writing done or whatever, who cares? Then his staff started issuing statements that of COURSE they know where he is, he's hiking or something or maybe not, but we KNOW, ok? Then there's the parked car at the Columbia airport and the parked car at the Atlanta airport and the sheepish vague denials that anything is weird, and...this story is exhausting, but so good (and horrible, of course, for the family).

What kind of dumb a**hole goes missing for a week to sleep with some Argentinian hussy on Father's Day when he's got a wife and kids at home? This is beyond Elliot Spitzer "wanting to get caught" psychodrama. Did he put a video of their Buenos Aires bedchamber of horror up on xtube yet? Jesus. (I wouldn't mind seeing that, actually, cz he's kinda hawt for a governor. Send links, pls.)

All of that said, Buenos Aires is a beautiful place to have an extramarital affair. Jimmy and I went there last year for our 10th (11th?) anniversary and had a ball. Ours is an extramarital affair, see, cause we can't get married. (Thanks, breeders.)

Gratuitous Grammar Exercise: Nonrestrictive Relative Clauses

Which of the following sentences includes a nonrestrictive relative clause?

1. Perez Hilton, who is awful, got slapped.

2. The guy who slapped Perez Hilton is an American hero.


Guess incorrectly and win a free subscription to Perez Hilton's twitter feed.

This Week in Moonlighting

Isn't it awesome when you're hanging out at a party with your two best friends in the news business--journalism's #1 tranny Andrea Mitchell and the guy who combs Chuck Todd's goatee--and you realize that there is a star bartender in your midst? It's so great. It's fun to see someone famous for doing one thing try their hand at something else. Reminds me of the time I was at that art opening in the Lower East Side with Ted Koppel's wife and I watched George Stephanopolous perform a DJ set. (He played a bunch of Moby, though, ick.)

Anyway, the after-party I went to last weekend following the Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner in the magestic slum of Washington, DC was made all the more magical by the appearance of Ms. Rachel Maddow behind the bar, looking like a Hardy Boy or something.

Ok, fine, I'm lying. I wasn't even INVITED to this party. But I know someone (hi, Hilary!) who has penetrated the well-guarded repository of digital snapshots from the evening (a bank vault-like monstrosity known as Flickr) and so I'm bestowing upon my dear readers the fruits of my insideriness: the above photo. You're welcome.

Anyone Else Kind of Tired of Seeing Edie Falco and Her Trusty Syringe All Over the Dang Place?

We all love Edie Falco. Even if she were a sh*tty actress, her name alone would demand our respect. And the first time we saw her in those advertisements for the new Nurse Jackie series on Showtime with that "Deal with it" expression on her face, we felt happy that she was going to be on teevee again. That was last month, though, and in the mean time, Edie's mug/syringe combo pic has spread like an STD throughout Manhattan and the five boroughs. It's freaking everywhere: on the subway, street billboards, fruit stand umbrellas, the sides of buses, children's temporary face tattoos, you name it. I even saw it on a discarded coffee cup that had been trampled upon and was lying face up in the street. (That's no way to treat Edie. After all she's done for you.)

I know Showtime followed the same "saturate the market" approach with Dexter, but it's somehow different this time. It's not the syringe. God knows I have no fear of them bitches--I've been using them to inject myself with insulin for 20 years now.

Maybe it's the haircut? No, it's not the haircut. The haircut is awesome. Must be the rubber gloves.

In any case, Showtime, we get the message now: Edie's back on teevee and she looks kinda pissed.

See below for two more hastily snapped and criminally bad-quality pictures of Nurse Jackie.


There are actually three Nurse Jackies in this one. Click on the pic and look on down the road.


You get a free 1/2 cc syringe with every purchase of a Grannie Smith at this fruit stand.

Finally, an Exciting Alternative to the L Train

My friend Kristen thinks hot dudes look good in pink.

There are many things to hate about the L train. It's slow and full of unhappy people. It's too bright. It stops under the East River interminably and make you wonder if you'll ever see the sun and sky again. And, worst of all, it has no pictures of naked men anywhere. And even if it does, there's usually some woman next to him, and who wants that? No, if you're like me (which you probably are) you don't want to see a picture of one stripped 'n ripped dude staring at you with bedroom eyes; you want a whole gaggle of 'em. So I was happy to see this Playgirl van parked off of Metropolitan yesterday, which I plan on riding to work every day from now on, I don't care who's driving or how long it takes or what the dress code is.

David Letterman Has REALLY Upset 15 People Across the Nation

Holy shit, y'all. Watch this video and prepare to stare wide-eyed at the screen for two minutes. As you know David Letterman made a perfectly fine joke about Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol Palin getting knocked up by A-Rod last week at a Yankees game. (Bristol Palin is famous for two things: being Sarah Palin's daughter and getting knocked up. Wait, three things: having a hot 'n dumb baby daddy.) Unfortunately for Dave, Bristol Palin wasn't actually at that game, but her 14-year-old little sister Willow was, so Sarah Palin, always willing to use her children to win a news cycle, was OUTRAGED that Dave made a joke about raping her daughter! You betcha.

So, right-wingers across the country summoned all of their brain power and sent 15 of their best and brightest to protest outside the David Letterman Show building in Manhattan. (For real, there were 15 people there and about 30 people from the media to cover these 15 people.)

My personal favorite moment, besides when a woman calls David Letterman's wife a slut and another says that David Letterman "rapes children with his mouth" (your child could be next!), is when one of these anger bears actually starts shouting about closing the borders. Because, really, why is David Letterman letting all of these illegals into the country?!

When will Sarah Palin denounce these people as harmful to the self esteem of young girls? And young bastards? And slutty spouses?

Why Do Subway Pranksters Always Blame America First?

You subway riders know the drill: there's a nice innocuous billboard on the platform advertising some dumb program or other, and the prominent female in the picture--sometimes Heidi Klum, sometimes some other random reality show ho-bag--invariably has her face, uh, defaced with a hastily drawn cock and balls pointing to/jizzing in her mouth. This type of prank is often funny, because cartoon cocks are so adorable. But it is also sometimes sinister, like when a prankster openly expresses a favorable opinion of a lefty commie America-hater like Noam Chomsky.

Some elitist youngster has repurposed the new Snickers "snacklish" ad campaign for his own nefarious Stalinist ends. The above advertisement, at the Metropolitan stop on the G train, used to say "File for workman's CHOMPENSATION." This is the patriotic message Snickers wanted to convey, and one that every real American could salute, because who doesn't want free Snickers bars from the government? But some eggheaded street pinko hooligan decided that the intended message was not unChristian enough, so he changed it to the devil's own language, playing off Chomsky's name. In case you didn't know, "chompsky" is a Satanic word that means "f**king democracy in the ass with no lube."


This is what the billboard is supposed to say, in God's language.


Why hasn't Obama rounded up these subway pranksters and waterboarded them yet?

Sincerity Corner: This Photo is Pure Poetry

If you haven't been following the election aftermath in Iran over the weekend, you really should be. It's amazing to watch what is happening. Our last administration of Manichean retards did their best to demonize the entire country over the past eight years--the neocons are STILL disappointed we haven't bombed them yet--but the fact remains: a country's regime is not it's people, and this is especially true with the people of Iran. Yes, there are rural religious nutbags in Iran that wholeheartedly support fellow religious nutbag Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is really just Ayatollah Khamenei's performing monkey anyway. But the fact remains that, judging from the amazing demonstrations taking place, the people--and especially the younger generation--are sick to death of the bullsh*t.

So, to the above photo. The guy in the center in the green shirt is a supporter of "defeated" reformist challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi. It is these supporters who are so upset by the declaration of Ahmadinejad as the winner (laughably, by a landslide) and calling the election a fraud, which, let's be honest, it f*cking is. (Read about it here.) So, the guy in the green shirt--he is helping a riot police officer who has been injured by the green shirt guy's fellow protesters. Yes, he is tending to a guy whose job it was to put down the green protests, with violence if necessary. Words fail me.

Below, a video of protesters shouting "Death to the dictator!" Something is happening in Iran, eerily close to the anniversary of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing, China in 1989. Thankfully, the Iranian regime will be hard pressed to scrub these protests from the official record.



And more footage from what is coming to be known as the Green Revolution.

Sexy Malaysian Construction Worker of the Day

Why can't the construction guys working on the additional wing of the school behind my building in Brooklyn be this porn-worthy? And why can't they wear hats this awesome? Why, moreover, can't they work during the day like this guy does and not in the middle of the dang night, so we can get a better view, and so we can also get a decent night's sleep? This is unfair. Greenpoint is never this sexy. Jimmy and I are moving to Kuala Lumpur forthwith. Who's coming with us?

Best Chat Line Commercial in All of U.S. History

You remember when you used to stay up late watching teevee rather than trolling the internet for sex robots? I miss those days. Well, the above video should really take you back. It is the best phone sex commercial ever produced. Not only can these girls dance and seductively flick their hair, they can also sing! You know, like Cindy Crawford could sing with Little Richard backing her up in that awesome Charlie perfume commercial from 1993.

Just try to watch this video and NOT spend the rest of the day atonally screaming "Pick up the phone!"

My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Jazz-Age Lawn Party, Governor's Island

On Sunday my friend Sarah and I strapped skis and angel's wings to our bikes and slid across the river to Governor's Island to get some Trinidadian oxtail and crash the Jazz-Era party thingie being held there. We really had no business being there because we weren't dressed up and had always thought the Charleston was a Prohibition-era illegal sexual position involving South Carolinians, but there was a lot of booze, so we consoled ourselves with that. Here are pictures!


Dancing, awkwardly.


Suzanne and Sarah (different Sarah)


Her boobz were so awesome my camera phone demanded another photo.


My favorite costume of the day. So authentic.


Sittin' and strummin'


I let her borrow my favorite blouse, and dammit, she didn't give it back.


Umbrellas



This bartender got more attractive with every drink he served me, and I think he appreciated me telling him so, repeatedly.


Garden parties are exhausting.


I discovered to my amazement that the Lindy Hop--which was the name of a brothel I used to work at--was also the name of a popular dance craze in the '20s.


These young daddies put their wiggle on and got the gams moving as they hit on all sixes with their hotsy-totsy, ducky beeswax, and how. Or something.

Well This is Just Awful

Awful. Horrific. Grim. And sad. David Carradine, dead in Bangkok. When I went to Bangkok I got a blissful yet excruciatingly painful Thai massage and had to spend the rest of the evening in the hotel bar recovering. When David Carradine went to Bangkok he ended up dead and naked in a hotel closet with rope tied around his junk. (What different lives people lead.)

Now, we really don't know what happened to Mr. Carradine. But all signs point to that whole auto-erotic death jerk-off that Oprah warned us about back in the early 90s. And that's just a shame, because, let's face it: anyone who dies of auto-erotic asphyxiation is going to be remembered for that first. Or maybe second. Whenever "Don't Change" or "Johnson's Aeroplane" by INXS pops up on my iPod, my first thought is: I love this song. My second thought? It's such a shame Michael Hutchins masturbated himself to death.

God knows, we all love to spank it. It's fun! Personally, I would never go in for the whole tying a rope around my neck and such for extra pleasure because I'm far too much of a klutz, and it's pretty much a scientific certainty that I would die and, eventually, my cat Stella would eat my face. But yes, masturbation is fun and a totally normal activity. Nobody wants to be found dead after indulging, though. I would be horrified to discover that my dead body was found naked, underwear on my head, half-eaten Little Debbie snack cake in my hand, back arched over a yoga balance ball, bare feet soaking in a bowl of Canola oil. That would be so embarrassing! And it would end up being the second thing I was remembered for.

To conclude, I really hope there's a perfectly good alternative explanation for why the dead body of David Carradine—Kung Fu legend, remember that first!—was found in such a state that we just haven't thought of yet.

My Cat Stella Not So Into Thomas Paine

My cat Stella has always preferred Dan Brown to Balzac, Nicholas Sparks to William Shakespeare, and Entertainment Weekly to The Economist. In fact, the other day I came home and caught her stuffing an issue of Woman's World under the couch cushions. Shameful, I know, but she's my cat and I love her, even if she still thinks Obama is a Muslim.

Stella is 15 years old now and, like most senior citizens, she gets pissed off easily. And when she does, she has taken to pissing on whatever is irritating her, be it the bathroom rug, my gym bag, or a pile of laundry just back from the laundrymat. This is understandable--those things can be pretty annoying. But yesterday I was shocked to find out not just that Stella hates my gym bag, but that she specifically hates my copy of Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason. I never realized that she had such a passionate dislike for books that called into question the very idea of organized religion and the divinity of scripture, but leave it to Stella to surprise me even at the ripe-old-age of whatever she is in human years!


If you look closely you can see Stella's displeasure with my choice of reading material.

I was on the L train against my better judgment and I had just pulled my book out of my bag for the long days’ journey into Manhattan when I realized that the person right beside me smelled like piss. I gave this person—a dirty hipster, don’t you know—a friendly yet irritated glance that told him, “I know you haven’t showered in five days, but I still like your shoes” and then opened my book. It only took a few minutes for it to dawn on me that the smell was actually coming from my book—the pages were stained and curling up. Stella had obviously visited my man-bag the previous night intent on letting me know that she doesn’t care for Paine’s blasphemous blathering.

Lesser men would have tossed the book. But I’m not one of those, so I continued reading because I’m not about to let the terrorist (in this case, Stella) win.

Stella also thinks torture works and that Sonia Sotomayor is a racist. And she voted for Palin. (Not McCain-Palin, just Palin.) Thankfully, though, she is pro-gay marriage, but that's not unusual for a cat.

My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Book Expo 2009

This banner says "Harlequin celebrates 60 years of pure reading pleasure." Gross.


The annual debauched bakesale known as Book Expo--or BEA, for those needing to save time--took place this past weekend at New York's original den of sin, the Javits Center on 11th and 34th, where Andy Warhol used to hold his quiche-eating contests. The Javits Center, y'all, is depraved enough to charge $2.25 for a banana at one of their snack kiosks--the same snack kiosks where they sell chocolate crack to children--so you just know they're not gonna scrimp on the crazy. Sponge Bob was there giving lap dances = proof.



Just like at Studio 54 during olden times, the stars were out and ready to party, trolling the various booths of the Center looking for pills and poppers. I saw Julie Andrews being interviewed by C-SPAN and she was so strung out I'm surprised she was able to even sit up. Witness it:



She is simply dying to snort some blow off of that woman's breasts. It is so obvious.

There were also aliens:



I availed myself of one of those free probes while thumbing through Johns Hopkins University Press's Fall 2009 catalogue. And shivering.

Naturally, up next was my date with destiny: Bob McGrath, the main pimp from Sesame Street, out promoting some awful kids sing-along CD. I bought five, which I'll be giving to my future children, if my boyfriend Jimmy ever has the decency to get pregnant.




Oh, and you just KNOW there were scantily clad dancers and drums. Someone had to break the sexual tension.



In conclusion, at BEA this year I learned that the future of publishing is coming soon.