Every Sunday this month New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority ran a train of vintage subway cars on the V line. I finally found the time to catch one, and had an amazing time.



In one car, people dressed in period style danced to old songs. Yes, that's a man on the right with a ukulele. Apparently this was considered entertainment before oxycodon came along.



The cars dated from the thirties to the seventies. My fellow trainspotters came in every shape and size.



Some people really got into the spirit of the thing.



It was hard to tell whether some people were in costume or not.



The cars all had the original advertising. How cool it must have been back then. Hard to believe subway cars were ever empty.



Or you could smack fat people with your bag.



Actually, I'm thinking any outward manifestation of masculinity would have helped this dude.



I guess people used to be better at graffiti. For a second, I actually thought a quick rest gave this guy that hot magician goatee.



I miss those days when you could advise somebody to go buy some oil and then find themselves a sailor.



Of course, some things never change. If he's got the good health, I've got the protection.



In the end, the jaunt left me slightly weepy about simpler times when Peter Pain was a name and not something I felt the day after a hot date.

The TV producer accused of blackmailing David Letterman about affairs with staffers is drawing on the Tiger Woods sex scandal to bolster his defense.

In court papers filed Tuesday, Joe Halderman's lawyer noted that Tiger Woods had apparently paid mistresses millions to stay silent, and it was perfectly legal. ''Evidence of celebrity misdeeds has a significant fair market value,'' the lawyer declared, and keeping quiet for cash is "routine" business in a celebrity-obsessed world.

In unrelated news, Jon Gosselin is in a coma after being pelted by a hundred thousand dimes.

An Ohio teacher burned the image of a cross onto unwitting students' arms with a high-frequency generator while preaching about Christ during his eighth-grade science class.

John Freshwater denied the charges, and when shown completed questionnaires he'd given his students quizzing them on their religious beliefs, he said they must have found them in his office.

Well, that's kids, huh? I can just picture them rifling through his stuff: "Oh, man! We hit the gold mine! BLANK QUESTIONNAIRES!"

A Chinese man says his pet snake saved his family by raising the alarm when their house was on fire.

Yu Feng found the snake outside his home and nursed it back to health. He tried to set the snake free but it refused to leave, so he adopted it and named it Long Long.

Then one night, he says, "I was asleep when suddenly I felt something cold on my face. I opened my eyes and it was Long Long. . . . [He] grabbed my clothes with his teeth and whipped the bed with his tail. . . . I woke up then and smelled something burning, and saw my mother's electric blanket was on fire so I leapt up and turned it off."

So, there you have it. When Long Long face-whips you, sit up and take notice.

If it's Medium Small, just roll over and go back to sleep.

I don't get a lot of stereotypical "gay" things. I don't buy designer clothes, I don't decorate, and I don't like divas. In fact, I'll go even further than that: I don't like people who like divas.

Obviously I understand the motivations behind these things. We buy designer clothes because we want to fit in, and look attractive. We decorate to create nice environments, and impress our friends. And we love divas because they've hit some odd level of fame where suddenly they can call all the shots. Considering we live in a world ruled by people who think Adam Lambert is outrageous, this is pretty much heaven for gays.

It takes very special circumstances to turn a performer into a diva. See, whereas us ordinary people are like cars or trucks, performers are like aircraft. They aren't stuck on solid ground. Some of them are helicopters, some of them are planes. They fly around from place to place, alighting occasionally but mostly staying high above the hoi polloi.

Sometimes, though, these aircraft fly so high and so fast they achieve what's called "escape velocity": they break through gravity and shoot into space, where they float in their own special atmosphere. They never, ever come back to earth.

With aircraft like the Space Shuttle, this special atmosphere means weightlessness and sub-zero temperatures. With entertainers, this means never having to wear socks twice, or eat brown M&Ms.

Oddly, some people adore divas, and I can't figure out why. Without the super-talent, they're just bitches with crazy demands. Nobody laughs when Mariah Carey says she has to be showered with pink, butterfly-shaped confetti upon exiting her limo, but that same demand would get Jim Belushi sent to the psycho ward.

And these demands get pretty ridiculous. Lady GaGa travels with a tarot reader, and needs a selection of non-smelling cheese on ice waiting in her dressing room. Jennifer Lopez supposedly requires eight dozen white lilies, three varieties of Coke and a constant room temperature of 77 degrees. Madonna's dressing room needs a new toilet seat, as well as endless cases of bottled Kabbalah water. Mariah Carey must be provided with twenty white kittens, and when she ventures into public one hundred white doves should be released.

When people say they admire divas, then, this is what I hear: I envy super-talented people, because they can act as ridiculous as they want and people have to bow to their demands. In fact, if I had any talent, buddy, you'd be ironing my jockstrap right now.

Of course, all of this springs out of sour grapes. I just broke up with a diva because of his demands. He couldn't eat food that touched other food. He needed every square inch of my closet space. He couldn't shower without his $27 soap.

The dealbreaker, though, he copied from Eminem. There was absolutely no way he could perform unless his entire backstage area was bleached, front to back, top to bottom.

And girlfriend, if you think I'm talking about cleaning up a theater, you don't know divas.

Like I hinted the other day, I'm a little pissed off about that incident at the Vatican the other day. I can't help but picture the poor, frail thing being slammed to the cold, hard ground. All because she tried to tackle the Pope.

See, I used to believe the Vatican. It wasn't logical. It was like being married to Charlie Sheen and believing him when he came home at four in the morning saying he fell into the perfume display at Bloomingdale's again. Every time somebody questioned the Pope, or argued with them, or God forbid tried to touch them, the same words were trotted out. "Mentally unbalanced," everybody screamed.

In the Christmas Eve case, the announcement that Susanna Maiolo was off her rocker came even before pontiff hit marble. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi scurried toward TV cameras, hat askew, Gucci scuffs slipping, robe fluttering in the wind, and declared, "A mentally-unbalanced woman has just attacked the Pope."

Minutes later, four thousand news anchors repeated those exact same words.

Oddly, the media avoids this kind of judgment about all the other newsmakers. The man who lost his house when his adjustable mortgage was adjusted isn't called unstable. The folks looking for Zhu Zhu hamsters at Toys R Us on Christmas Eve aren't called clinically insane. Heck, some guy even emails photos of his penis to Ashanti's MOTHER for two years and you know how they describe him? He's a fitness trainer. He's a fan. He's an "Indiana man." Yeah, like that explains it. Like in the future we'll know: give your email address to some dude from Indianapolis and you deserve what you freakin' get.

Let me repeat that: Devar Hurd "relentlessly emailed" Ashanti's MOTHER pictures of his penis. He thought she'd see the meaty thing and think, "My, that's a fine looking penis! I just love the length and girth, and the kooky way it curves to the left. I think I'll pass it along to my gorgeous millionaire daughter so she can hook up with this dude." And the dirty jokes that accompany the photos will really win her over. "Ashanti's been single too long," Mom will think, "and besides, I'm still laughing about that vagina that echoed."

Nobody called this guy crazy.

You'd think we'd have learned by now. Any time anything threatens the Vatican, they trot out the same old smears, and nobody questions it. A thousand years ago they said the same thing about Galileo. If he were alive today, on The View Whoopi Goldberg would say we should imprison him, and Elizabeth Hasselbeck would insist we cut off his head and put it on a spike outside the Mall of America.

The media blindly parrots the Vatican's announcements. OF course, they don't have any proof. Nobody says, "Here's the name of her psychiatrist," or "Here's the mental hospital where she lives." They don't offer the slightest bit of evidence, other than the fact that she attacked the Pope. She doesn't have forty cats. She hasn't written rambling letters to the Enquirer. She didn't look for a reasonably-priced apartment in New York City.

She just wasn't thrilled with a questionable world leader and decided to take it to the mat.

I'm sorry, but this doesn't necessarily mean you're crazy. Maybe you have anger management issues, maybe you shouldn't resort to violence, but there are motivations other than insanity. You watch the Pope on TV, and the adulation is totally removed from reality. The newscasters breathlessly report on his every move, like he's a German Jon Gosselin, and you wait for equal time that never comes. He's given free hour-long informercials with no dissenting opinion. After midnight mass the reporters don't head outside and interview some dude who says, "I think the Pope sucks!"

Sadly, there are some pretty good reasons for wanting to smack him. He's homophobic. He's obnoxious. He's continually spouting hateful remarks. There are a lot of people who'd love to wallop Eminem, and his Prada mules aren't paid for by their grandma's Social Security.

So sorry, I'm not going to believe the Vatican even if Brian Williams does. I want evidence. And when this same thing happens next year, I'll want evidence again. And the year after that, and the year after that. And maybe one day the rest of the world will wise up, and one day I'll pick up the newspaper and read a headline like this:

POPE KNEECAPPED BY PERFECTLY SENSIBLE MOTHER OF EIGHT WHO JUST WANTED TO USE FREAKIN' BIRTH CONTROL

And I for one am not going to see it until they put Alec Baldwin's chest hair back.

Christmas Eve mass at the Vatican was briefly interrupted when an unidentified woman knocked over Pope Benedict XVI as he walked down the aisle at St. Peter's Basilica.

A Vatican spokesman has reported that the woman is mentally unstable, but there's one piece of evidence that indicates otherwise:

SHE KNOCKED OVER THE POPE.

A Holiday Message From Me To You

Okay. Fascinating. I'm not actually going to take them off the menu, though, until they start squealing and gushing blood after a farmer stabs them.

Sigh. Music videos were so much cooler before we had to worry about Jews and shit.

Highlights from a Twenty-Three Minute Online Chat with eBay

11:11:51 AM EST System
Thank you for contacting eBay Live Help!

11:13:51 AM EST System
Tabatha has joined this session!

11:15:51 AM EST System
Connected with Tabatha

11:16:51 AM EST Tabatha
Hello, thanks for waiting and welcome to eBay Live Help! My name is Tabatha. How may I help you?

11:18:52 AM EST RomanHans
I've been trying to find an actual human to speak to regarding a complaint. eBay ended my auction incorrectly, and it took two days to get an explanation that addressed the care and feeding of chickens more than the actual facts.

11:19:12 AM EST Tabatha
For the fastest way to reach us, use the "Contact us" option located at the top of our home page. After clicking the link, enter your question or the problem you're having. Then on the right side of the page, you'll see an option for phone support if it's available for your specific issue. If it isn't, you'll have the option to email us from that page.

11:19:38 AM EST Tabatha
You can also go directly to this link to contact us : https://cschatlb-na.corp.ebay.com/chat.asp?profile=15

11:20:04 AM EST RomanHans
I typed in my problem, but wasn't offered a FAQ topic close to "Ebay ended my auction incorrectly and then sent me an email that showed they didn't even READ my complaint." And there was no option for phone support.

11:22:10 AM EST Tabatha
If you are not able to see phone super then that means that your concern doesn't offer phone support.

11:22:31 AM EST RomanHans
Okay. New question: why is your Customer Service a recording that directs people to a nonexistent link?

11:24:17 AM EST Tabatha
I餠like to make sure that I鶥 fully understood your question/concern. Could you please elaborate on your last message?

11:25:17 AM EST RomanHans
Call eBay at 800-322-9266, and press 2 for customer support. The recording will say "Go to the main eBay page and click on 'Live Chat' in the top right corner'," and then hang up on you. Uh, there's no "Live Chat" button on the main eBay page.

11:26:50 AM EST Tabatha
Since you are no longer able to see the "Live Help" button in the eBay home page, then you can go directly the link I provided above.

11:27:14 AM EST RomanHans
*I* am no longer able to see the button? You mean YOU can?

11:28:16 AM EST Tabatha
the "Live Help" button has been removed on the eBay Home page. To get in touch with us, please go through the "Contact Us" link.

11:29:17 AM EST RomanHans
The "Contact Us" link just makes me type in my complaint again. Which you couldn't answer the first time around. So, no phone support: just recordings. Which direct you to a chat button that doesn't exist.

11:30:16 AM EST Tabatha
I am sorry for the inconvenience. To contact us , please go to this link directly: https://cschatlb-na.corp.ebay.com/chat.asp?profile=15

11:32:01 AM EST RomanHans
So a person has to Google to find eBay Live Chat, who will then offer a link to themselves. I'm going to post this conversation on my blog. Is that okay?

11:33:15 AM EST Tabatha
I do respect that.

11:33:28 AM EST RomanHans
Great. Thanks!

11:34:01 AM EST Tabatha
At this point, would there be anything else I can help you with?

11:34:39 AM EST RomanHans
Have you helped me with anything YET?

I just opened a checking account at Citibank and immediately started getting email. It was crazy: I'd get four or five emails a day, all about useless crap. Then last weekend they totally flooded my inbox, so I had to put a stop to it.

I went to their website, where they made me create an online account to change my email preferences. I had to pick an eight-character user name with at least one letter and one number, and it had to be a palindrome. The password had to have three letters, two numbers and a symbol, and had to be a homonym for something related to square-dancing.

Then they had me answer eight security questions, including "What variety of fruit does your grandma think she resembles?" and "If you bought a Chia pet, what kind would you get?" It took me three weeks of research to answer all of them, including five long hours of telling a 300-pound woman there's no banana on earth that looks like her.

Eventually, though, I got the account set up, and I clicked on the "Change Communications" tab. I could not believe the email they signed me up for! They listed all these categories, below, and the checkbox next to every single one was checked.

YES! I'd like to be informed whenever you open a new branch in America.

YES! I want to be informed whenever an East Coast Regional Operations Manager is promoted to Assistant Vice President of Divisional Implementations.

YES! Please send me photos of the staff at various branches decorating for holidays with secular mylar displays.

YES! I want to receive hysterical warnings about my finances every time I write a check on a balance that's less than the GNP.

YES! I want to get holiday newsletters that show Citibank executives with geek tans at the beach.

YES! I need to be reminded every half hour to be suspicious of emails that say King Chilifries of the Congo died and left me four hundred million rual.

YES! I want to see any old black-and-white photos you find of white dudes in suits using something called a "drive-thru window."

YES! I'd love to be notified whenever somebody drops another can of pinto beans in the Holiday Food Drive bin.

YES! Please send me photos whenever school groups visit Citibank branches to watch a film about a squirrel who, addicted to Home Shopping Network and tanning salons, runs up $14,000 in credit card debt.

The Wall Street Journal: When In Doubt, Lie

Peggy Noonan has an impeccable resume. She's written eight books on religion and morality, served as special assistant to Ronald Reagan, and now writes for numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal. When she writes, people listen.

What does Peggy think is the greatest threat facing America today? Take a wild guess:

(1) The economy
(2) Global warming
(3) Terrorism
(4) Adam Lambert

Well, it sounded hard before I wrote it down.

Peggy invents something called "The Adam Lambert Problem." And it's not what you'd think it is: putting on mascara while wearing a bondage jacket.

Sure, Americans are worried about long-term debt and endless deficits. We're worried about taxes and the burden we're bequeathing to our children, and their children.

But we are concerned about other things, too, and there are often signs in various polls that those things may dwarf economic concerns. Americans are worried about the core and character of the American nation, and about our culture.

I must know a ton of homeless people whose primary complaint is that clerks in stores today say "No problem!" instead of "You're welcome."

It is one thing to grouse that dreadful people who don't care about us control our economy, but another, and in a way more personal, thing to say that people who don't care about us control our culture. In 2009 this was perhaps most vividly expressed in the Adam Lambert Problem.

Sadly, Peggy didn't initiate a series a few years back:

2008: The George W. Bush/Dick Cheney Problem
2007: The George W. Bush/Dick Cheney Problem
2006: The George W. Bush/Dick Cheney Problem
2005: The George W. Bush/Dick Cheney Problem
2004: The George W. Bush/Dick Cheney Problem
2003: The George W. Bush/Dick Cheney Problem
2002: The George W. Bush/Dick Cheney Problem
2001: The George W. Bush/Dick Cheney Problem

[T]he big broadcast networks are for everyone. . . . The whole family's watching. Higher, stricter standards must maintain. . . . This was behind the resentment at the Adam Lambert incident on ABC in November. The compromise was breached. It was a broadcast network, it was prime time, it was the American Music Awards featuring singers your 11-year-old wants to see, and your 8-year-old. And Mr. Lambert came on and -- again, in front of your children, in the living room, in the middle of your peaceful evening -- uncorked an act in which he . . . performed "faux oral sex" featuring "S&M play," "bondage gear," "same-sex makeouts" and "walking a man and woman around the stage on a leash."

The Adam Lambert Problem fades next to the Peggy Noonan one: lying. Since when is 10:55 p.m. "prime time"? And unless that 8-year-old is still partying at 3 a.m., it's not the "middle" of her evening.

People were offended, and they complained. Mr. Lambert seemed surprised and puzzled. With an idiot's logic that was nonetheless logic, he suggested he was the focus of bigotry: They let women act perverse on TV all the time, so why can't a gay man do it? Fifteen hundred callers didn't see it as he did and complained to ABC, which was negligent but in the end responsive: They changed the West Coast feed and apparently kept Mr. Lambert off "Good Morning America."

"Apparently"? What, did you run to the bathroom while it was on and suspect that secretly he might have turned up? That, class, is how the right wing uses bullshit words when they don't have actual arguments.

Needless to say, Ms. Noonan doesn't address Mr. Lambert's question, and doesn't explain why it took a gay male to get her to write this up. As for idiot's logic, I don't see how people complaining affects a fact. I know half a million women who hate gravity but my furniture hasn't started flying yet.

Mr. Lambert's act left viewers feeling not just offended but assaulted. Again, "we don't care what you do in New York," but don't include us in it, don't bring it into our homes. Our children are here.

And you can't stop them from watching a music awards program at eleven at night? See if you can convince them to tune into Super Nanny for a week or two.

[I]ncreasingly people feel at the mercy of the Adam Lamberts, who of course view themselves, when criticized, as victims of prudery and closed-mindedness. America is not prudish or closed-minded, it is exhausted. It cannot be exaggerated, how much Americans feel besieged by the culture of their own country, and to what lengths they have to go to protect their children from it.

Why, sometimes they have to reach over to the remote and actually hit a button.

And "the" Adam Lamberts? How many, exactly, have there been? On the other hand, I can name eighty Pinks.

It's things like this, every bit as much as taxes and spending, that leave people feeling jarred and dismayed, and worried about the future of their country. . . . I'd like to see a poll on this. Yes or no: Have we become a more vulgar country? . . . Do you sense, as you look around you, that each year we have less or more of the glue that holds a great nation together?

Do you think our government torturing people who weren't convicted of any crime played a part in this?

Is there something called the American Character, and do you think it has, the past half-century, improved or degenerated?

If the latter, do you think George W. and his cronies make Adam Lambert look Bush league?

Do you think standards of public behavior are rising or falling?

Did Ronald and Nancy Reagan's daughter being born exactly 7 1/2 months after their wedding affect this opinion at all?

So much always roils us in America, and so much always will. But maybe as 2010 begins and the '00s recede, we should think more about the noneconomic issues that leave us uneasy, and that need our attention. Not everything in America comes down to money.

Okay, babe. You convinced me.

Let's talk about marriage, and equal rights.

Alex Witchel's New York Times piece about the closing of Café des Artistes is a tour de force of gorgeous writing, but occasionally a trifle confusing. Lest the casual reader abandon the piece prematurely, let me expound on what I believe this brilliant prose is trying to say.

IT'S been a sad year for restaurant lovers in New York. All those birthdays, anniversaries and promotions commemorated at the now-shuttered Chanterelle, Fiamma, Lever House and La Goulue, to name only a few, consigned to bittersweet memory.

The bithdays, anniversaries and promotions commemorated at other restaurants? They made it into either semi-sweet or milk memory.

The restaurant I will miss most is Café des Artistes, the Old World grande dame that was a stone's throw from Lincoln Center until it closed in August.

And then suddenly it was thirteen miles away!

What intoxicated me there was the air of nostalgia among its older customers, the post World War II immigrants, who like the restaurant's fabled Hungarian owner, George Lang, came to New York to begin again.

Poor old people stink of desperation, but rich old people float on a heady air of nostalgia. It's either the Oil of Olay or fur.

If I had more space, I'd share a few of the fables with you. In one, George argued with a fox about grapes.

In the late 1980s I met a blind date there for a drink before the ballet. We sat at the bar and after some perfunctory conversation, he sniffed in my general direction before proclaiming, "I'm allergic to perfume." I was more amused than offended because my perfume was the least significant fragrance in the place.

So I laughed in his face and said, "Hey, buddy, this place smells stronger than I do, so you need to keep your fat yap shut."

Before us were the flutes of Champagne he had ordered, their fizzy scent of celebration insistent in the face of our mutual disappointment.

Complain as I might, the bubbly beverage absolutely refused to desist.

And that was nothing compared to the heady aromas in the main room of the restaurant, whose centerpiece was a long table jammed with desserts -- tortes, strudels, cakes, crystal bowls heaped with whipped cream, strawberries fat as toddlers' fists.

From the blog of LN Kitchen: "[S]trawberries should not be the size of a child's fist, unless you hate the flavor of strawberries."

My hapless date might just as well have confessed, "I'm allergic to pleasure."

Oddly, I've dated men who were allergic to pleasure, and for some reason they didn't even sneeze around me. This dude later said he was also allergic to peanuts, but I just laughed and rubbed a Snickerdoodle into his skin.

I once watched a young man bark orders to a manager about when a certain course should be served, the one that would accompany [a marriage proposal]. The manager nodded silently, placidly, at this amateur show of nerves, as if burping a baby.

And, so typical of the aristocracy, he remained silent even after the young man spit up all over his coat.

That was the pleasure that kept Café des Artistes alive so happily for so long. It was a meeting place for occasion, brimming with the echoes of doting mothers and dashing fathers, side by side with the customers' young best selves -- the ones whose dearest dreams, whether formed in the Old World or the New, were gilded by the wonders of snowflakes and ballerinas and schlag.

My dreams are actually haunted by powerful, gilding ballerinas, who really would make great villains in a James Bond film. Because in small doses they're magical, but stick them in the bar of a classy restaurant and now you've got split-legged jetées kicking insistent champagne onto your halter top.

Such precious elements, each so powerful in the instant, that fade so quickly.

Disappearing, vaporizing, leaving behind barely a trace of what was.

And that, I should have told Mr. Pansy-Nosed Asshole, is why I douse myself in so much fuckin' perfume.

Imagined Meeting Between the Jackson Brothers and A&E Executives June 27, 2009

JERMAINE: Well, maybe they'll care about us now that Michael's dead.

Disney has announced plans to cancel production on a new comedy called "Wedding Banned," starring Diane Keaton and Robin Williams, reported PerezHilton.com.

The reasons Disney cited? Diane Keaton and Robin Williams.

Last night I slept with a blind man who was a real screamer in bed. All night long it was like, "MARCO?" "Polo!" "MARCO?" "Polo!"

A Christmas Miracle

I've been listening to holiday music for the last week or so, mostly the Ultimate Motown Christmas Collection. My favorite tunes are "Christmas Here With You" by the Four Tops, and "Children's Christmas Song" by the Supremes. In that second one, Diana Ross nags a passle of kids to sing along with her and you can seriously hear in her voice that she's trying hard not to wallop them whenever they go off-key.

The Temptations' version of "Little Drummer Boy" isn't bad, but I'm a little shaken by the words:

Little baby
pa rum pum pum pum
I am a poor boy too
pa rum pum pum pum
I have no gift to bring
pa rum pum pum pum
That's fit to give the King
pa rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,
Shall I play for you
pa rum pum pum pum
On my drum?

Mary nodded
pa rum pum pum pum
The ox and lamb kept time

Now, I don't often mention this, but I grew up on a farm just forty miles outside of New York City. My parents actually own oxen and lamb, and before I moved away I used to take care of them. And in all the years I fed them, bathed them, sheared them, and shoveled their poop, never once did I see either species get particularly funky.

When I listen to this song, then, I start wondering. I hop in my pickup and drive right back to the old homestead to check it out for myself.

I get out this enormous kettle that Ma uses to make chicken and dumplings for the ranch hands on Sunday nights, remembering that it always hit the stove with a funky-fresh sound, and I grab a couple wooden spoons to use as drumsticks. I head out to the barn and set it up right next to the oxen and sheep. I start off slow to let the livestock warm up, because, you know, you don't go from squat to droppin' it like it's hot. I crack a single stroke roll with alternating sticking, then slide to a single stroke four.

Nothing. They all stare at me like I got Barry Manilow's ass.

I figure maybe it's the pot that isn't cutting it, so I bring in the gas can that Pa fills the tractor with. Pretty soon I'm shifting back and forth between that and the kettle. I'm shooting the can with a single stroke seven, slapping the kettle with a double stroke roll, then sliding up to a multiple bounce roll. Still nothing. One of the sheep eyes me like it's thinking about busting a move, but instead it just poops and eats hay.

They're still not feeling it. Maybe you've really got to throw the beat down to get Bos taurus in the groove, I think, so I crank the speed up to twelve. I'm slamming the pads like Funkadelic's in the house, swinging my sleeves like a ho with weaves. I throw down a seven stroke roll followed by a flam paradiddle-diddle, and bookend that patch with a string of triple ratamacues and pataflaflas. A chicken shoots me the eye and I think sister's gonna shake her meat to a funky beat, but instead she just clucks and waddles off. I'm pushing it in the bush, grinding it like a skateboard, shaking it like a Polaroid picture. The sweat's pouring down my face and my shirt's soaking through and I'm thinking, man, I ain't getting shit out of these mopes.

I keep thrashing for probably another ten minutes. My ears are ringing, the tractor's bouncing, the hay looks like it's about to catch fire from sheer funkitude. But the animals aren't feeling it. They aren't bumping briskets. They aren't wagging withers. They aren't joining loins, yanking flanks or spanking shanks.

If they aren't hitting it by now, I'm thinking, they aren't gonna hit it at all. I mean, at no point do any of those critters display anything that could be considered funkiness.

So, I drive back to NYC, cursing the whole way, thinking that song is bullshit. I mean, if some punk-ass kid can get sheep to keep time, an accomplished musician like me could fuckin' get a pig to breakdance. I got mad drumming skills, and unless that kid is John Bonham Jr. he ain't beating Yours Truly on the skins.

That night, though, I think long and hard about it, and suddenly it hits me. I bet it was a Christmas miracle. That's just like Our Lord, getting down with the sounds and making our animal friends feel truly poppin' fresh. And man, I'd have loved to have been there. Because I swear to you, brother: you just ain't gonna see lamb move like that unless God's involved, or it's in a pan braising over high heat.

A Message From Our Advertisers

Yes, if you order by midnight tonight, your neo-Nazi friends can unwrap "The White Race Will Prevail" or "Fuck You" on Christmas day!

I know Obama is getting a lot of bad press these days, but I for one have to stand up and support him. He's come through on one of his major campaign promises: CHANGE.

CHANGE.

I mean, ask yourself: before he took office, did anybody -- in any public forum -- discuss killing homosexuals?

See? There you go.

Obama's refusal to kowtow to the demands of the homosexual agenda has emboldened free speech in this country, and finally we conservatives feel like it's okay to discuss a topic that before him might have raised some eyebrows. Back when Bush was president, for example, we'd have thought twice about broaching the subject. Sure, we bragged about freedom and liberty and blah blah blah, but we knew deep down we'd get some heat if we talked about shooting homos, so we kept those thoughts to ourselves. But now with this wonderful new breath of fresh air in Washington we're taking the silence of our leader as permission to bring up a question that's long dogging us:

Is it okay if we rape and kill all the fags?

I mean, they're going to start doing it in Uganda, apparently. That's when we first started to guess Obama's change might really take place, because he could have said, "Goddammit, you guys, don't even think about it! We give you half a billion dollars a year, but if you're going to kill homosexuals we aren't giving you a penny!"

Instead he wrote them, like, a little note on pink paper that said, "You shouldn't. No. Don't! Please don't kill the homosexuals." And in Uganda they read it and they were all like, "Oh, okay. We won't." Wink!

The BBC, proud journalists that they are, picked up on this burgeoning movement. "Should homosexuals face execution?" they asked in a poll on their website.

I didn't answer the poll, because being a thoughtful, intelligent man, I realized there could be extenuating circumstances. It should be multiple choice. If a homosexual landscaped my garden, or cut my wife's hair, should he face execution? I don't mind going out on a limb and saying no. But if he said I looked really fit, or touched my knee? Well, of course.

The black metal band Evil Incarnate explores the question with a bit more depth in their song "Killer of Faggots," which they'll be performing Saturday night at Chicago's White Star club. That catchy little ditty offers a selection of homosexual execution methods ranging from shooting them in the head to this fanciful bit of fluff:

Luftwaffa nazi arial [sic] assault
Pounding from air never to halt
Flak 88's and panzer divisions
Bombing the faggots into oblivion.
Obviously this requires serious thought, because if we're talking bombs, then there's probably going to be civilian casualties as well. But I'm thinking maybe somebody could come up with a really tiny bomb that, like, instead of being heat-seeking, just targets dudes wearing cologne. This topic is definitely worth some discussion, and I'll be tuning into Charlie Rose tonight just in case.

Sadly, though, every new freedom seems to have its side effects. Now even the homosexuals are feeling like they can speak up. They've been begging for tolerance for years, and now, in a stunning display of hypocrisy, they're asking us to stop talking about killing them! Can you imagine that? I mean, talk about gall. As their first casualty, in fact, they've knee-capped the career of reggae artist Buju Banton just because of a fun little song he wrote about punching them until they're dead. Now promoters have actually bowed to their extremist demands and cancelled his tour.

It's almost enough to make us patriots reconsider. I mean, we knew free speech wasn't really free, but we didn't realize it'd drive up the price of cocaine.

Real Estate Miracle!

Apartment transforms from 600 to 800 square feet!

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Chilean Olympic weightlifter Elizabeth Poblete gave birth to a baby boy, not knowing she was pregnant, while lifting weights at a local gym.

You know what pisses me off? She didn't even wipe down the bench afterwards.

"Good Morning America" Hosts Think On Their Feet

George Stephanapoulos tells co-anchor Robin Roberts that surveys show women view Tiger Woods less favorably than men.

STEPHANAPOULOS: Well that's a shocker, huh?

ROBERTS: We're learning something new every day!

The Washington DC city councilmembers were very brave approving gay marriage yesterday. They knew they'd piss off a lot of conservatives, and also force at least one religious institution to give up their charitable efforts.

Before the vote, the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington D.C. declared that it would be "forced" to abandon its taxpayer-funded adoption and homeless programs if marriage legislation went through, because it would make the church treat same-sex couples the same way they treat opposite-sex couples. Which, of course, would be a betrayal of everything Jesus stood for.

Sadly, the ultimatum didn't work. It just pissed off the councilmembers, who said they wouldn't give into its demands. They approved gay marriage, and today Archdiocese spokeswoman Susan Gibbs read this statement:

The Archdiocese of Washington and Catholic Charities are deeply committed to serving those in need, regardless of race, creed, gender, ethnic origin or sexual orientation. This commitment is integral to our Catholic faith and will remain unchanged into the future.
Wait: what? "Unchanged"? You mean you guys were lying to us?

Well, get ready for the hoohaw! Shit is going to hit fans! The right-wing media is going to have a field day, jumping on the Catholics like they jumped on Alec Baldwin when he said he'd move to Europe if Bush was elected president.

As for Susan Gibbs, I'm guessing she'd probably in confession right now.

Just as an aside, Sue, you don't actually get extra Jesus points if you agree to sit on the priest's lap.

News flash from Qdoba, the faux-Chipotle burrito hut:


I know: it doesn't sound like such a great deal, but I'll spring for the regular entrée if somebody else buys the accompanying adult.

Kris Allen: Safe Enough for ABC

Kris Allen's first kiss wasn't as pleasant as he would have liked. At age 13, the "American Idol" winner went in for a smooch with a gal at a skating rink, and got a mouthful of . . . pickle, which his kissing partner had just been eating.

It is a fact, universally acknowledged, that the better you are to your body, the worse it is to you. Eat total crap and you can eat anywhere you want. Suck down those fries. Gulp down those Big Macs. Your stomach is fine. It's seen all this shit before.

Eat a macrobiotic diet for a month or two, though, then try downing anything at Outback Steakhouse. You won't even have time to run to the restroom. "Unidentified substance approaching, captain!" screams your stomach's version of Scotty as part of a Bloomin' Onion slides by. "I've never seen anything like this before!"

"Calm down, Mr. Scott," the intestinal Captain Kirk will reply. "Flood all passages with acid and then shoot that bastard out the back hatch."

I don't understand it, and it's really pissing me off. I don't eat meat. I eat broccoli and brussel sprouts literally every day. Why can't my body show me a little gratitude? "Roman, my man, you've been so good we'll let that glazed donut slide by." Instead, I eat so much as a french fry and five seconds later it spits out the other side, like a warning from internal hijackers. I half-expect to see a tiny little note attached reading, "Try something like that again and next time we blow this shit up."

It doesn't make any sense at all. Every other guy in America goes to a carnival and chows down. He starts with a sausage and pepper sandwich, followed by a corn dog, a funnel cake, a beer and a milk shake. His body now contains more fat cells than human tissue, but he's fine because he's got his stomach trained. It buckles down to the task: "Okay, dudes, we've all dealt with fuckin' Cheez Wiz and Hot Pockets, for God's sake, so we can handle a few pounds of pulled pork and some goddamn sugary fried dough."

My stomach? Not a chance. "HOLY FUCKIN' JESUS!" it hollers at the sight of a nacho. "IS THIS PART OF A RACCOON?" It's been sissyfied. It does the internal-organ equivalent of jumping onto a chair and screaming until the food moves on.

I'm planning on eventually taking a vacation, which means I may have to eat at a restaurant that doesn't have "Rainbow" in the name. So, little by little I've been introducing my stomach to junk food. Yesterday I had a Pringle, and last night I took a bite of a frozen taquito.

The bad news is, now I've got fat seeping out of every pore on my body. The good news is, I can ice-skate on linoleum. I did a triple lutz on my way to the bathroom this morning, and let's see some Russian vegetarian beat that.

How to Get the Attention of a Man's Man: Tea and Blinis

Robert Downey Jr., on Sherlock Holmes:

We'd call a story meeting, and Susan (Downey's wife and a "Holmes" producer) and I would just launch into the myriad subjects we need to attack to make the script better and we'd look up at [director] Guy [Ritchie] and his British buddies or department heads. They'd kind of look at us as though they didn't want to make us feel bad but were mildly disgusted with how uncivilized we were about just launching right into work. So I was like, "Susan, why don't we get a cheese plate and a little of that low- to mid-grade caviar . . . maybe somebody wants a blini. It's tea time isn't it? Well, let's see if they want some tea." And no sooner did we start opening our sessions with an offer of a beverage or some food -- as soon as we civilized ourselves -- the floodgates of goodwill opened.

The ABC boycott is still barrelling along at full speed. Since they screwed Adam Lambert with their homophobia -- blurring out his man-on-man kiss, kicking him off Good Morning America like he was going to fellate some dude while Iowa housewives were drinking their wake-up Scotch -- I stopped watching their stupid little channel. Adios Cougar Town! Adios Extreme Makeover: Home Edition! Sure, I didn't watch them in the first place, but it's the thought that counts.

Some of my fellow protesters went even further, though. They emailed ABC advertisers to express their displeasure. I'll let the new Facebook group "Boycott ConAgra Foods Until They Change Their Homophobic Ways" tell you what happened next.

One of ABC's sponsors is Healthy Choice, which is a brand of the megacorp ConAgra Foods. While running my campaign encouraging ABC viewers to contact sponsors of ABC about the boycott for what that network did to Adam Lambert, I began getting reports that they could not e-mail my form letter to Healthy Choice/ConAgra because my letter contained profanity. After some research and investigation, it was discovered that ConAgra is blocking all messages with the word "homosexual" in them, with a message that instructs the user to "Please refrain from using profane or insulting language in this form."

Being gay or homosexual is not insulting or profane. ConAgra's policy of attempting to ignore people writing about its decision to run advertising on a homophobic network such as ABC is homophobic in and of itself. Therefore, I am now encouraging an immediate boycott of all ConAgra Foods brands until they resolve the matter and issue a public apology for their actions.
Those bastards! I thought. Right then and there I decided: From now on I wasn't eating Healthy Choice foods as a political act rather than a sensible one. With steam shooting out of my ears, I went to ConAgra's website and I typed out a furious little note sharing exactly what I thought about them.


Oh. Looks like they don't like any sexuals.

I think we better keep this to ourselves.

Woke up this morning and saw a little queen smiling and waving at me.



Wait -- what did you think?

"One morning Mariah Carey wakes up, glances at the empty part of the bed where Nick is supposed to be, and scowls. 'Goddammit,' she swears, as white lip gunk stretches across her pale lips. 'I'm cutting back on his allowance.' She rings a tiny porcelain bell summoning a cadre of maids to the side of her sleigh-style Louis XIV bed. 'Fetch me a glass of fresh-squeezed lychee juice, a Belgian waffle measuring exactly 12"x8"x4" with a scattering of multicolored fruits des bois on it, and a copy of Star magazine,' she tells the maids.

"The maids curtsey and slowly back out, returning minutes later with the requested items. 'I wonder what Star has me doing this week,' she asks aloud. She flips through the glossy pages to the Double Takes section, which compares stars wearing identical outfits and decide who 'Rocked It.' 'Oh, look!' she exclaims. 'There's Candis Cayne wearing the exact same dress as -- '

"'AIEEEEEEEEEE!'

"'I'll . . . SUE!' she screams as lychee juice goes flying onto 8,000 thread count Pratesi sheets. 'I swear to God! I'll sue them for defamation. And by God, those bastards'll never interview me again!'

"And that," concludes Star's Editor in Chief Joe Dolce, "is why we spend $40,000 a month on Photoshop."

Fixing Up Somebody Else's Joke

Chelsea Peretti:

Some people talk during sex. I like to be dead silent. Except sometimes I will say, "Thank you for dinner."

Our rewrite:

Some people talk during sex. I like to be dead silent. Except sometimes I will say, "No, we're not quite ready to order."

Don't have time to read all the idiocy out there? Here's a quick summary of Christopher Muther's Boston Globe op-ed about Adam Lambert.

I can keep quiet no longer. Adam Lambert looks ridiculous. He's ruining the reputation of gays, who look much better when they're in the closet like in A Single Man.

Lambert claims his act is so controversial because people are used to the media portraying gays with certain clichés.

Gay clichés? Ha! I give the TV my "side eye."

Like Lambert's shocking out rocker isn't a cliché! Why, Freddie Mercury did that just thirty years ago, except for the "out" part! Plus, Lambert needs to apologize to Depeche Mode, because only one gay act can wear nail polish at a time.

Lambert is such a gay cliché that now he's making me roll my eyes.

He needs to give up the theatrics that people like in rock and just stand around and sing.

At the very least, it'd give my eyes a rest.


(Via Joe.My.God.)

This is "Pauly D," from MTV's Jersey Shore. He's brash and outspoken and loud.

He also wants to pose for Playgirl.


Me, I'm not interested. Dude tries too hard. I'll bet we see Cadillac when he take off his shirt, but Saab when he drops his shorts.

I love scientific studies about sex and gender. Problem is, if you examine the details, too often they sound like bullshit. Such is the case with a recent study that said people can guess, with some degree of accuracy, whether a person is gay after seeing them for just 50 milliseconds.

Ambady and Rule swipe photographs of men from dating websites, carefully choosing only headshots that don't feature "facial hair, jewelry, glasses, or other accessories."

You know, I'm no scientist, but already I'm finding this surprising. I mean, I'd never have guessed there are ninety dudes on ManHunt.com who don't have eyebrows.

Half the photos are self-identified gay men, and half are straight men. Result? The test subjects correctly guess sexual orientation between 57 percent and 70 percent, depending on viewing time.

Even Ambady and Rule admit there are problems. The photos they use are taken by the men themselves, and they suggest that maybe hetero men try to look extra-hetero in their dating-website photos, while gay men try to look extra-gay. I'll agree with the former, but not the latter. I mean, I've cruised SmokinGayDudez.com before and have yet to see someone try to look hotter by holding up a Streisand CD.

At this point I realize I'm lost. Why were "facial hair, jewelry, glasses, or other accessories" excluded? My guess is because, say, a pearl choker might tip somebody off that a subject is gay. But then why did they allow hairstyles? Call me crazy, but I don't think the world needs a study called "Does a Mullet Make a Guy Look Hetero?"

Ambady and Rule catch on too, so they repeat the study. The second time around they steal casual photos of dudes from Facebook. Because, you know, gay guys won't have that extra-gay look when they're at a party, hammered and slipping singles into the jockstraps of go-go boys. This time around they cut out the hairstyles too.

And the accuracy rate drops. It's still better than chance, at 54%, but that's a significant drop.

Their conclusion?

People can accurately judge sexual orientation, and very quickly. It comes in handy. "Women need to be able to rule out unsuitable mates, while men need to determine who their potential competition is."

A reviewer calls the success at quick identification "impressive."

Me, yawn. I can't help but notice that up to 20% of their accuracy was lost with the hairstyles. I realize this study tried to prove that relatively accurate judgments are made very quickly, but I don't understand why they care. Do you really need to stare at a guy to decide that his perm makes him look straight? Do you need to sit there and ruminate on whether that eyeliner makes him look gay?

Plus, this study would be rendered entirely meaningless with the disclosure that 4% of the subjects pluck their eyebrows. Because, c'mon, heteros never know when to stop.

Coke has some quirky little online tool where you upload a photo of yourself and they'll search Facebook for your twin. I've always wanted to meet other dudes who look like me, so naturally I jumped at the chance.

Five minutes later I'm thinking, dudes, this is the stupidest idea since Cheetos. The odds are probably fifty-fifty they're going to match you up with somebody who's not as attractive as you, and then you're just going to be pissed.

Naturally I got the bottom of the barrel. I got a totally NSFW picture of some douchebag along with the words, "Hey, look! This guy looks exactly like you!"

I mean, sure, I didn't take it completely seriously, but they didn't need to insult me.

After Using Two Euphemisms for Erections, the New York Times Blows Its Load

From a story about a surfing competition:


This has been Poppa Chubbie reporting from Hawaii.

How Could "Humpday" Be Better? Blow Up The Stars Twenty Seconds In.

Humpday. Shitty Movie, Full Spoilers.

Idiot Free Spirit claims he's an artist, but he's never finished a project. His first, he decides, will be a film called "Two Straight Guys Have Gay Butt Sex."

Because, you know, without the word "Butt" it would be just another night at Scout Camp.

His friend, Idiot Married Dude, quickly signs on. He's semi-curious about gay sex, and he believes that marriage doesn't have to strangle a man's growth.

Yeah! You expect to see unicorn pictures and The Chronicles of Narnia on his nightstand.

Just so folks in Iowa aren't pissed off about Idiot Married Dude looking stupider than Idiot Free Spirit, Idiot Writer/Director Lynn Shelton inserts a telling scene. Idiot Free Spirit goes to bed with two lesbians, then freaks out when they bring out rubber dicks. "Why don't we use my equipment?" he asks. "Because we always use these," one replies.

Prompting everyone in the audience to scream, "THEN WHY THE FUCK DID YOU BRING THE GUY TO BED? Is he just there to provide running commentary, or fetch snacks?" It's insulting. Everybody knows when you have guests over for dinner, you don't whip out the same old Tupperware.

Of course, the scene exists solely so Idiot Free Spirit can storm off petulantly, thus proving he's just as screwed up as Idiot Married Dude and reassuring Sid and Randii Cornhusker in Bag O'Pretzels, Wyoming that only morons try to be sexually adventurous.

And it's at this point you realize this film couldn't be any stupider if the two Idiots whipped out Bibles and started reading aloud.

Eventually the two Idiots end up in a hotel room to make their film. In their hetero panic, though, they can't even strip down past boxer shorts, and after hugging once they just stand there and nervously slap their own body parts. You know, like hetero guys do. You can almost hear Lynn Shelton aching to make somebody say, "Hey, how about those Mets?"

And then the two semi-naked heterosexuals who decided to have sex lay in bed at arm's length and discuss how stupid it would be for two heterosexuals to get naked and have sex. Then they put on their clothes and go home.

Who needs to explore? Everything's just swell within those little picket fences! Gosh, how silly they were.

Humpday is just exactly as stupid as it sounds. It's insulting fake crap aimed at a Red State audience masquerading as indie fun, and it'll make you long for the emotional honesty of a Robin Williams film.

Lynn Shelton's next film? Climbday: two guys plan to conquer Everest, then at the base of the mountain call off their expedition because one of their Sherpas ate the granola bar.

Yesterday it snowed for the first time this year. Really, there's nothing like Christmas here, with frost in the air, snow on the ground, drunk panhandlers in Santa costumes begging everyone for change, and nonsectarian carolers going door to door crooning, "Oy Vey, Maria."

Fixing Up Somebody Else's Joke

Billy Eichner:

Conservatives say gay marriage could lead to people marrying animals But that's crazy. I don't want to marry my horse. If I did, he'd never have sex with me again.

Our rewrite:

Conservatives say gay marriage could lead to people marrying animals But that's crazy. I don't want to marry my horse. If I did, my cat would never fuck me again.

Note from ABC/Disney

Dear Mr. Hans:

On Friday I announced that Adam Lambert was banished from ABC because his performance at the AMAs differed substantially from the rehearsals, marking him as a loose cannon in our books. I announced that as responsible broadcasters we need to be aware that some of our viewers don't like gays, and we have to be sensitive to their desire not to see dudes do stuff that God intended for chicks.

As Mr. Lambert's record hit #3 on the charts, though, we decided to rethink this decision. As of today we will allow Mr. Lambert to perform on ABC, but only in pre-taped segments. We originally considered tape delay, but decided we couldn't thoroughly inspect Mr. Lambert's performance and certify it as safe for the viewing public in less than twelve to fourteen weeks.

First, the tape will be shown to an auditorium consisting of local Neighborhood Watch groups, as well as the old ladies on every block who stand outside in their nightgowns and scream at everyone in Italian. These people will closely watch Mr. Lambert to ensure that he doesn't touch any erogenous zones, thus violating Hollywood's Unwritten Rules of Gay Acceptability as determined by Paul Lynde circa 1975.

Second, a quorum of rabbis, priests and rectors will ensure that the performance doesn't violate the standards of a just and decent God-fearing society. This step can be bypassed if Mr. Lambert agrees to be exorcised.

Lastly, the footage will be shown to a roomful of body language experts, to make sure Mr. Lambert isn't expressing unseemly desires through nonverbal communications or spelling out filthy words in American Sign Language.

Please be assured, Mr. Hans, that ABC is not bowing to religious pressure in applying different standards to Mr. Lambert. We have many fine homosexuals working here at Disney, and we don't complain when they bring partners named "Butch" or "Rooster" to company picnics, dragging along children who read books like "I Love My Fourteen Custodial Units." But we're thinking life might be better for unruly gays like Mr. Lambert if they occasionally bowed to their Higher Power by asking themselves:

What Would Tinkerbell Do?

Sincerely,
Anne Sweeney
President, Disney/ABC Television Group

We Americans have been lied to so often it's no wonder we're cynical. Steroids don't work, the government declared. But then when every ballplayer was taking them, that claim looked a little dumb. Oops! Maybe they do. Animals are heterosexual and monogamous, we were told. Until gay penguins started fucking in our zoos. Oops! Okay, maybe we need to look into that.

Now some of us are questioning a new advertising campaign designed to stop counterfeiting. Here in New York, counterfeit merchandise is everywhere. All over the streets there are people selling bootleg DVDs, fake designer handbags, ersatz designer jeans. The police occasionally catch some of these people, but ten more spring up to fill in the gap, so it's pretty much a permanent New York fixture. Perhaps realizing the futility of their efforts the city government has decided to fight the battle on a different front, by convincing the public not to buy counterfeit goods.

Their first argument is designed to appeal to our consciences. "Counterfeit handbags cost manufacturers $1.7 billion dollars per year," they proclaim. I'm still waiting for an explanation as to why this should bother me. I should worry that Coco Chanel Jr. will have to sell her maid's Segway? Jean-Pierre Prada will have to cancel his Shih Tzu's yoga class?

Plus, you know this is Stupid Math. Like when the cops proclaim they've seized eight million dollars worth of marijuana and then show a shoebox full. "Well," they say upon requests for elucidation, "if you sold individual hits for five bucks each, it might get somewhere near."

Right, anybody with a brain thinks. Robert Downey Jr. on a desert island wouldn't give you more than six thou for that sad little bag of stems and seeds.

With the handbags, they're assuming that if $10 fakes weren't available, all the folks who want them would be forced to buy real $700 Gucci bags.

News flash: Dudes, we're poor, not stupid. We can't just run to Biff and Muffy to borrow that extra $690. If the $10 fakes weren't available, 99% of the women in the Bronx would now be carrying their cash and makeup in ziploc bags with interlocking Gs written in marker across them.

When pleas to our consciences fail, the advertisers claim national security. "The profits from counterfeiting go to terrorists!" Yes, that's right: they're actually trying to convince us that Abdul and Mohammad, in their jihad to punish the West for crimes against Allah, have turned to manufacturing high-end women's accessories. That's one conversation I'd love to hear.

ABDUL: Allah wants us to continue with our plan, so to finance it I believe we should rob a bank.

MOHAMMAD: Here's an idea. We're handy with our hands. Why don't we knock off that kicky Hermes Birkin bag?

Frankly, this raises more questions than it answers. So, somebody can make an exact duplicate of a Louis Vuitton bag, sell it for $10, and have enough left over to bring down a foreign government? Wow. That's ingenuity. That's productivity. That's ambition.

Oops. On second thought, that is not what America stands for.

Today in the New York Times

I'll let you know when he gets to my question: how do you get a john to finish quick when you got dudes waiting on you?

So, ABC has now cancelled Adam Lambert's scheduled appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

You know. The one that airs at MIDNIGHT.

Disney/ABC Television Group president Anne Sweeney made her reasoning crystal clear. "We certainly don't want to suppress artistry at any level, but we also have to be very cognizant of who our audience is."

Meaning:

1. Jimmy Kimmel is a corporate tool pretending to be counterculture;
2. ABC wants to make sure their programs are safe for homophobes to watch; and
3. When you pretend you're gay-fucking somebody, better make it Ben Affleck.

Once again, complaints here. And email to anne.sweeney@disney.com seems to work.

Some Roman Catholic churchmen, meanwhile, have said that the words "hokey pokey" derive from "hocus pocus" -- the Oxford English Dictionary concurs -- and that the song was written by 18th-century Puritans to mock the language of the Latin Mass. Last year the Catholic Church in Scotland, concerned that some soccer fans were using the song as a taunt, raised the possibility that singing it should be prosecuted as a hate crime.

Got that? You so much as tell me to put my right hand in and you're going to hear from my solicitor.

Rubén Díaz Sr. Is An Idiot, Example #83

But State Senator Rubén Díaz Sr. of the Bronx made an impassioned argument against same-sex marriage, describing his continued opposition as reflecting the broad consensus that marriage should be limited to a union between a man and woman. "Not only the evangelicals, not only the Jews, not only the Muslims, not only the Catholics, but also the people oppose it," he said.