Uncle Tim Introduces His Nephews to Chelsea, Gets Upstaged by His Pan-Am Bag

"Remember, boys, if you're going to wear a tank top in Chelsea, make sure it's by 2(x)ist. And don't forget that any baseball hats you wear should be cocked to the side and pointed slightly skyward so that you can look at least 10 years younger."

Smackdown: Kirk Cameron vs. Romanian Spitfire

Well it's official, I have a new secret girlfriend (sorry, Rachel Maddow!). And a new favorite foreign lady (sorry, new First Lady of Japan!).

As you may know, former teen star and current tedious evangelical dingbat Kirk Cameron has a new project he's really excited about which will officially debunk Darwin's theory of evolution by using a new edition of the book itself to "prove" his point ("the call is coming from inside the house" approach) If you've even seen one of Kirk Cameron's dumb youtubes, you know that he needs to be slapped and hard. Here's a notable one in which Cameron passes over the Crazy Reins to Ray Comfort (porn name?) so that he can explain how the banana proves that God wanted us all to suck cock real good is a perfect food made by God for humans. Witness the airtight logic! Marvel at Ray Comfort's DSL! Stop laughing, this is scientific fact!

Anyway, this woman Christina in Romania is having none of Kirk Cameron's foolishness about the whole evolution thing, and she really deserves to win "Romania's Got Talent" for this 5-minute video she made of Kirk being a dumbass. At the very least she needs to be declared the new first lady of something (bananas?). There are lots of videos on her youtube channel that I will spend the weekend watching while sunbathing naked and flipping through the latest issue of Charles Darwin Unzipped.

Movie Poster Critique: The Whore's Son

There is almost nothing to complain about with this movie poster. It has everything. A tortured choirboy. His mother the whore, who couldn't even be bothered to get dressed for the photo shoot. A blond wig, styled in a bob. And the tagline: "In spite of everything, she's still your mom." (But why isn't "still" in italics?!) How did this movie not set the world ablaze with its breathless and writhing family politics of a sexual nature? Please tell me this didn't go straight to DVD, because if a Hollywood studio can't find an audience for this smut then someone is not doing his job.

The bottom line is, America needs to see this movie. It will heal so many wounds.

And I'm not even going to go into what I was Googling when I came upon this photo. It would reflect badly on me.

Shootin' It: In Which Jimmy and Tim Discuss Jimmy's Plans for His Day Off

Tim: So what are you gonna do on your day off tomorrow?

Jimmy: [moves right hand in the universal hand signal for 'jerk off']

Tim: I see. And what will you do after that?

Jimmy: [sensuously moves index and middle finger in a graceful, back-and-forth motion and twists his wrists slightly, performing the universal hand signal for 'double digit penetration']

Tim: Hmm. Ok, and after that?

Jimmy: [takes the same index and middle finger and wipes them both on his shorts once, twice, three times]

Have fun, Jimmy! (Wash your hands.)

Happy Anniversary, Ma and Pa!

Even though my mom and dad don't read this blog--in fact, they've never been told it exists because it would lower their opinion of me beyond all repair--that shouldn't stop me from sending them greetings and much love on this, their 46th 47th wedding anniversary. (I will also call them and post this on mom's Facebook to make sure I remain their favorite.)

Aren't they freaking adorable?

RIP Grandma Ruby, 1918–2009

Editorial: The End of Civility

Folks, I can't keep my mouth shut anymore about how the Internet and the hip hop and the Congress have destroyed our manners. Case in point, Kanye.

Gays Night Out: 'A Thousand Flawless Sabrinas' at Sugarland

You know, sometimes you've just got to go somewhere and be gay. Am I right? You've just got to do it. No matter how immersed you are in the straight world in your everyday life--working fully clothed? No Siouxsie or Madonna in the office? No bumps in the bathroom at brunch? No brunch?!--in the after-hours time period, it is occasionally necessary to go out somewhere in your neighborhood and just be a f*cking fag, you know what I mean?

Sure, not every gay has it in him to do this kind of thing day in day out. It's exhausting. But make no mistake, every gay has it in him to fag out at least once a month. It's why Kanye West freaks out at award shows (he may or may not be gay, but he's a total fag) or why Elton John suddenly wants to adopt a Ukranian baby, or why conservative columnist/blogger/author Andrew Sullivan posts Pet Shop Boys videos on his blog in between high-minded diatribes about cap and trade and deficit spending. He can't help it, because he's a big old fag. It's also why someone like me goes out one day and just stone cold joins a gym in Chelsea that features a live DJ who spins under the name Honey Dijon. These things sometimes happen when you're gay, y'all.

So it was in this spirit of gay necessity that Jimmy and I twirled on down to Sugarland, Brooklyn's second gay bar (there are two now), where they were having a birthday party for an 80-something-year-old drag queen ("Grandma"), hosted by our friend Brian, aka Lady Electrify. On a Sunday night, no less. I brought my real camera, because I knew my camera phone wouldn't be able to withstand the onslaught.

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This photo should win a Pulitzer for cultural commentary. That Hitler stache is powerful. It's too bad Michael hadn't put on his red armband featuring a wire hanger. That could have qualified us for a Peabody, for the journalism.


Jimmy trying to butch it up with help from a Brooklyn lager.


Backup dancers backing it up.


This pic for some reason reminds me of the haunted house ride at the NC State Fair.


Jimmy getting Electrified.


I was kind of offended that Brian didn't ask me to be one of his backup dancers, but on reflection I realized my awesome nipples might be too distracting.

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But you know what's really gay? When you try to capture a short video of your friend doing a drag number and your camera starts all of a sudden shrieking about low batteries. This is what happened to me, folks, and it is nothing short of a tragedy, because Lady Electrify was doing "Walk Like an Egyptian." I was able to capture a few nuggets (below), and these short videos will one day be archived at the Library of Congress.

Runway Report: New York Fashion Week

As you all know, New York Fashion Week is a special week in New York that takes place every week in New York. It is dedicated to the visionary presentation of new blouses, trousers, accessories, and tarantula-like hats that everyone will be going apeshit over at the Target 2 or 3 years from now, once these weird new designs filter down to the mass market.



I'm gay, so I'm automatically into fashion, duh, even if I dress like a hobo. And even though I have no idea what A-lines, balaclavas, gussets, bishop sleeves, havelocks, minaudieres, peplams, or empire waists are--and, worse, I've never understood the existence of clutches--my friend Susanne invited me to a fun show at Saint Mark's Church to take in a new line of goth street urchin clothes for men by designer Odyn Vovk and accessories by designer Black Sheep & Prodigal Sons. An adorable gaggle of young goths and their friends gathered to witness the awesome and frightening parade of sinewy, boney, hallow-cheeked, and zombie-eyed young vampires sprinting down the runway in their borrowed clothes. In a church! Is that even allowed, by Sarah Palin?


Susanne and a cute designer named Corey, who I would probably know if I knew anything about fashion and clutches.



Me crouching behind Susanne, terrified that someone will find out my favorite shop is H and M.




There was much revelry and comparing of eyeliner before the show. I told one tall black leggy devastatingly gorgeous young woman that I just loved her hoop earrings and she asked me if I was "taking the piss." Priding myself on my knowledge of English slang, I told her that, no, I wasn't "taking the piss," I was "taking the mick." There's a difference. But seriously, I did love her hoop earrings.




Anyway, these undead hotties walked down the catwalk so fast that my camera phone couldn't keep up, and since I didn't have a real camera with me, these shots are my only proof that this event even happened. But whatever, Susanne will send me some shots, I'm sure (Susanne?), and anyway, there'll be another Fashion Week next week, so someone buy me an iPhone.








UPDATE!: Susanne has delivered unto me some (slightly) better pics of the show, so I've added those below. The most important one, obviously, is the last one, which features identifiable manflesh.

9/11 Editorial Winner

Gawker sums it up.

The End of a (Very Short) Era: 9 to 5 Closes on Broadway

As you all no doubt have already heard (if not dealt with), Dolly Parton's 9 to 5: The Musical closed this past weekend after only about 5 months on Broadway. This is just appalling, obviously. Mama Mia, after all, is still on, relentlessly, night after dreary night, after how many grim years of blanding its audiences to death? Of course, I shouldn't expect the world to understand or appreciate such a brilliant, campy, tacky '80s boob odyssey as 9 to 5, which Dolly wrote each and every song for. After all, the world loved Cats, and that thing was awful and Satanic, was it not?

Well, I wasn't going to take this horrible news lying down, no no no. On Friday night my friend Sarah and I headed straight to the Marquis Theater to show our support for this office musical of our times. I just don't understand why negative critical reception and poor ticket sales have to sink a Broadway production. What about pizzazz, chutzpah, and moxie? Do these things count for nothing in the dog-eat-dog devil's daycare popularly known as Broadway? (Moxie is expensive.) Huh? The curtain was made of curled phone chords, for God's sake. What else do you people want?
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Sarah and I are smiling because we've just realized we're the skinniest people in the audience.
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Well, Sarah and I arrived at the show prepared to see an unmitigated disaster along the lines of Lestat or Titanic, the Musical. Sarah was wearing her smartest officewear in solidarity with the three women we would soon see on stage gagging their boss with a handkerchief; and I was wearing Superman Underoos under my H and M slim-leg slacks, in solidarity with what I used to wear when I watched the movie over and over on HBO as a child.

The show was nothing like Titanic. It was fun, in addition to being stupid, and it had Allison Janney playing the Lily Tomlin role. There's really not much more you can ask for. Its closing is a crying shame. But, much like the electric typewriter, this show will not soon be forgotten.



Beverages are much more delicious in an official 9 to 5: The Musical sippy cup.


Outside the Marquis in front of a pole advertising the show, a pole that, sadly, will probably soon be advertising the next piece of Disney trash they roll off the assembly line.

Happy Birthday, Jimmy!

They Made This?: Cougar Town on ABC

This looks god-awful. Cougar Town? Ick. Come on, Courtney Cox. Do you really need to work that bad? Actual cougars from San Diego Zoo turned this role down.

Glenn Greenwald and His Friends Make Me Tired, Irritable

Ok, I'm about to get a little "inside baseball," sorry. And it's long. (Sarah, might as well stop reading now.) Glenn Greenwald is a journalist at Salon. He's a constitutional lawyer and a really smart guy. He does great work and is good at needling establishment journalists. See a great post he recently did on nepotism in American media and politics here. Glenn Greenwald (hereafter GG) relentlessly tries to hold public officials' feet to the fire and, you know, more power to him. He is also really great at updating his blog posts constantly, giving his readers the opportunity to do nothing all day but READ F**KING GLENN GREENWALD. (I imagine hanging out with GG is exhausting. "Ok, update, you guys," he says every five minutes before heading to the bar and sending constant text updates after ordering a drink. "update: w8tng 4 wsky sr." "update viii: "wsky sr almst re-D." "update xvi: jst xd 4 xtra chry.")

Glenn Greenwald is also, sadly, a tiresome, needlessly bitchy queerbag sometimes. I can say this because my boyfriend Jimmy is also often needlessly bitchy and queer.

One of GG's hobby horses (and rightly so) is the whole torture thing. GG is a true believer; he thinks that investigations of and prosecutions for torture should happen and should target anyone involved, top to bottom. And that would be so great if it were possible. If only we all lived in a vacuum, where there were no political realities and the former vice president hadn't successfully started turning torture into just another partisan issue that the right and the left can fight over. A few months ago, GG took issue with NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd (full disclosure: I'm a big fan of the Chuck) asserting in an interview on Morning Joe that the topic of torture investigations was "cable catnip" and that what Obama really wants to focus on is getting the public's trust on the economy and health care.

In my humble opinion, that's not a controversial statement. Chuck was simply letting everyone know, perhaps inartfully, where the president's priorities are. And remember, this has never really been in doubt--how many times has Obama said he wants to look forward? But leave it to GG to take Chuck's words and blow them up into something they did not mean. Sayethed Glenn in response:

Our media class literally believes that high executive branch officials have the right to break the law. For that reason, they cannot even recognize illegality as an issue worth anyone's attention. Thus, all this "torture" and "lying to Congress" and violating oversight laws is just "cable catnip," political posturing that obscures what truly matters. So sayeth NBC News' White House correspondent.

Yes! That exactly what Chuck was saying. It's so clear and not ginned up at all. Good God, Glenn, calm the f*ck down. In response to this brouhaha (GG's readers are pretty much in lockstep with him, kind of like Rush's dittoheads), which was picked up by HuffPo and all the other usual suspects, Chuck, who seems like an eminently decent guy, agreed to talk to Glenn on a podcast to be uploaded to Salon's site. They had a good discussion, and it was great to hear them both argue their points, which can be simplified down to INVESTIGATE AND PROSECUTE GODDAMMIT vs. WELL, THAT'S JUST NOT POLITICALLY REALISTIC. I agreed with both of them, because I'm a Libra. But one thing was certain: You would be hard pressed to take from that interview any feeling that Chuck believes the executive branch is allowed to break the law and that he doesn't take the issue seriously. That was a hyperbolic and useless charge to fling at Chuck, and Glenn knows it.

But it didn't end there. Do you guys know Jeremy Scahill? He's the guy that wrote that book on Blackwater, a self-described "rebel reporter" (what is this, middle school?) who's hobby horse is, duh, Blackwater (an uber-creepy Christian mercenary army devoted to wiping out Muslims and that is also a contractor in the War on Terror, yikes), but also torture (again, rightly so). Again, Scahill is a smart guy, he's got balls of steel, and, like Glenn, he is relentless in pressing his points. (Full disclosure: he's also hawt, so he's obviously worth listening to.) Anyway, another one of Scahill's hobby horses is the awfulness of the mainstream media; he appeared on Bill Maher a few weeks ago on a panel that also included the Chuck, and he went after Chuck, as the lone representative of the mainstream media, for being unwilling to investigate and report on the awful acts perpetrated by Blackwater (acts that include murder). He again brought up the "cable catnip" comment as proof that Chuck is a gutless reporter.

Ok, yes, the media needs to grow a pair and press our leaders (even Obama!) about this organization and what they are doing in Afghanistan and why their contracts keep getting renewed. Sure. But Chuck shouldn't have to answer for the entirety of the mainstream media. (The mainstream media includes CNN's "Just Sayin'" girl, for God's sake.) And Chuck was sandbagged. Scahill went on that show with the intent to go after Chuck, it was dead obvious. It almost made one think, hmmm, I wonder if Scahill is friends with Glenn Greenwald.

Ta-da! Two days later Glenn embeds a video of the Scahill-Todd exchange with a few bitchy comments (ex: "While Todd was fiddling around with pretty colored maps and fun polling games, Scahill was courageously investigating one of the most corrupt, dangerous and lethal private corporations in the world"). Then he publishes verbatim an email he got from Scahill detailing a backstage exchange Scahill had with Chuck that made Chuck look kind of bad (and, surprise! It made Scahill look good.)

Cut to: this week. Glenn Greenwald is now in a slapping contest with Time's Joe Klein, who is pissed at GG for publishing disparaging comments Klein had made about GG on a private listserv for journalists called Journolist. GG was called out by Mediaite.com's Tommy Christopher (I love guys with two first names) for doing that, saying that it broke a rule of journalism ethics (in the same article, Christopher took Klein to task for some of his ethical lapses--i.e., printing private email exchanges with the emailer's info clearly visible). GG responded:

Speaking of “journalistic ethics,” you just wrote a piece accusing me of violating journalistic ethics. Have you ever heard of the ethical rule about including the side of the story of the person you’re accusing? I have a long, detailed post today responding to this accusation that you not only failed to link to, but even failed to summarize or acknowledge at all — to say nothing of your failure to seek my comment. That’s what is called a failure of journalistic ethics.

Wow. Ok, three words for GG: pot, kettle, black. As my friend and fellow chuck maniac Hilary commented at the Media-ite site,

Oh, really, GG? Like when you credulously published the email Scahill sent you about his private conversation with Chuck Todd? I take it you worked day and night to track down Todd’s version of that conversation, yes?

Zing! And that is why Glenn Greenwald and his friends make me tired and irritable.

By the way, Hilary has an interesting theory about some lefty media folks' reflexive tendency to freak out, and I think this theory deserves a wider audience, so I'm sharing it with all three of my readers, with Hilary's permission:

New theory I'm working on, see what you think. When soldiers are on the battlefield, they tend to kind of keep their heads down and just push forward... The trouble usually starts when they get back home to safety... THEN they freak the fuck out, reacting in ways that are totally out of line with their current reality. Remind you of anyone?

Does the leftie media have post-traumatic stress disorder?

Exhibit A: Greenwald, Scahill, Jason Linkins, Cenk Ugyur etc have all gone bananas at one time or another over this idea that Chuck doesn't think torture is "worth" prosecuting--it's even been extended, since the Bill Maher appearance, to saying he doesn't think Blackwater is worth investigating, which is completely mental. None of it has anything to do with Chuck's original argument. BUT. The phrase "torture investigations" is a PTSD trigger... after all those years of the Orwellian stylings of Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo and so on, they hear that phrase and the red mist descends and they can't think straight.

I totally agree. But I would need to do a thorough physical examination of Jeremy Scahill (cupping his balls as he turns and coughs, for example) in order to prove this theory.

Laydeez I Love: New Japanese First Lady Miyuki Hatoyama

There are many reasons to love new Japanese First Lady Miyuki Hatoyama (aka Miyuki-chan): she has eyeballs the size (and explosive power) of grenades; she has long wispy locks of hair that you could use to field dress a moose (suck on that, Palin); and, best of all, she has visited the planet Venus. Witness this excerpt from an actual published book of hers (actual title: Very Strange Things I've Encountered) from last year:

While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus. It was a very beautiful place and it was really green.

This story is awesome and so important. Hopefully, the new administration headed by Miyuki-chan's husband will usher in a refreshing new era of openness and transparency regarding alien abductions. Was the triangular-shaped UFO equilateral? Obtuse? Acute? Scalene?! ISOSCELES?! (Please say it was isosceles.) Miyuki-chan must answer this and many more questions, because her public will want to know. (The shape of alien spacecraft is a very important public policy issue in Japan.) And she will in her next book Earthlings Are So Curious!

Who the F**k is This Dr. Oz A**hole?

My job doesn't provide me with decent access to daytime teevee, so I'm a little slow on the uptake when it comes to new daytime television celebrities. I know Ellen, I know The View, I know Regis. God knows, we all know Oprah. (She's the one with the magazine.) But who is this goddamn Dr. Oz douchebag who can't ever wear normal civilian clothes? Did they take away his entire wardrobe once he became a surgeon?

I myself don't trust a man wearing OR scrubs on daytime television unless they are open to the navel. Because then you know that you're watching Days of Our Lives and that you are about to escape into the sylvan paradise of Dr. Mike Horton's manchest. (Is he still on that show? Haven't watched since the '80s.)

Dr. Oz, if you're going to try to sell me drugs, a lifestyle, a talk show, an exercise regimen, a raw-food diet, or whatever, you better at least have the decency to take that top off. Otherwise, I'm not listening.