Friday, January 29, 2010

I don't know why men who lose their hair get so upset about it. I mean, there are worse things that can happen to you.

Like, you can accidentally take your gorgeous, full head of hair into a Supercuts.

Don't believe me? See if you can tell which of these men have had the Bosley Hair Replacement procedure, and which are models on the Supercuts website.



























ANSWERS:1, 3, and 5 are Bosley hair replacements. 2, 4, and 6 are Supercuts.


Thursday, January 28, 2010

I really have to commend Chris Matthews for his coverage of President Obama's State of the Union address last night. Mr. Matthews was so good, in fact, for an hour I actually forgot he was Irish.

Now, if I hadn't seen it for myself, I wouldn't have believed it. If I'd read him in the newspaper or heard him on the radio, it never would have occurred to me he was born under a shamrock. But instead I was, like, watching him there on MSNBC with his neatly-coiffed hair and his expensive suit, and it was like rubbing my stomach while patting my head. My brain was saying, "Wow, this is really good commentary," but my eyes were scanning all that massive pinkness and going, "Bloody hell, that's an Irish dude!" It was like seeing a squirrel win the Boston Marathon.

I know my critics are going to take this out of context, so let's make this perfectly clear. This is a total compliment. Chris Matthews did a great job: no ifs, ands, or buts. And I know his proud countrymen will be toasting this unbelievable achievement this morning over a bowl of Lucky Charms.

Barack follows the meandering brick walkway up to the colonial-style two-story house. He feels cheered by the fluttering ficus trees, and the rich red door flanked by clumps of vibrant daisies.

Michelle answers the bell with a short smile that barely masks her irritation. "Good morning," she says coldly. "You're two hours late. The girls will be right down."

"Good," Barack says, plucking a bit of lint off the lapel of his Ferragamo jacket. "You're certainly looking lovely."

"Thank you. I'm . . . holding it together." Michelle wipes her hands on a soiled apron. "I still haven't found a job, though, so I can really use that child support check."

"Of course," Barack says, nodding sagely. "I will definitely confer with my advisors to determine the best strategy to be taken, and the optimal time to act."

"Good morning, daddy!" yells a high-pitched voice as it scurries across the rust-colored carpet toward the door. "I can't find my other shoe!"

"Did you look under the bed?" Barack calls.

"That's where I found the first one!" Malia replies, running off.

"The girls need clothes, and school books," Michelle snaps. "Can't you just write me a check?"

"'Act in haste and repent slowly,' my beloved Granny Sarah used to say. Rest assured, though, at some point this year I will double-check my finances and determine what will be the optimal distribution of our limited funds for everyone involved."

Michelle shoots out a sigh. "Barack, you've got money, right?" He nods. "And you've got a check, and a pen?" He nods again. "Just write me a check and cut all the BS."

The two girls appear and smile at their father on the doorstep. "Don't you two look beautiful!" Barack says, crouching to their level. One after another they race outside and give him a hug.

Malia is wearing red shorts and a t-shirt. "We want to go to the park!" she cries.

Sascha looks cute in a linen blouse decorated with butterflies and prewashed jeans from Target. "No, we want to go to the mall!" she insists.

"Either place would be fine," Michelle instructs Barack. She glances out toward the street. "Hey, where's your car?"

He raises his shoulders and focuses his gaze on his ex-wife. "My automobile is currently suffering, as many of us do, from differently-abled mobility. As we speak, however, an expert in car care is debating the optimal path we might take so that the vehicle may once again regain operation and rejoin the other fine cars on the road."

"It broke down? Is that what you're saying? You took it to Mr. Goodwrench?"

"That man may be a part of the restorative process, though I believe in an effort to reach across the aisle I may ask the Pep Boys to get involved."

Michelle crosses her arms across her chest. "So how are you going to take the girls ANYWHERE?"

Barack casts wide eyes toward the trash cans on the curb like they're the Temple of Cheops. "We may not have every tool in the toolbox, but I believe if we use the tools we have wisely, we can surprise ourselves."

"'Tools'?" Michelle repeats. "Are you talking about your FEET?"

Barack casts her a thoughtful look. "As Granny Sarah told me years ago, the longest journey begins with a single step."

A hummingbird zips from the daisies to the doorway, peeks inside, then darts off. "Barack, we're thirty miles from anything. You're not getting anywhere."

Barack puts his arms around his daughters and they turn toward the road. "That's what my detractors like to claim," he calls over his shoulder. "But believe you me: what I lack in propulsion, I more than make up in momentum."

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

I got tired of Los Angeles after twenty-something years, and New York's high energy started calling me. I confided with a friend at work, and it turned out she knew a guy who owned a business in Manhattan. I talked to him on the phone a couple times, then he flew me out for an interview.

I should have been suspicious that my immediate supervisor, Eric, "just happened" to be out, but I was excited to be there. Everybody was smart, the job paid well, and my office was sixteen floors above Wall Street. I flew home and packed everything I owned.

And one minute into my new workday I realized I'd made a horrible mistake. Turns out "my" office was really Eric's office, and I'd work in a corner. Eric wasn't thrilled about this, but he desperately needed an assistant, and there wasn't any other place to put me.

Still, there was a bright side. If I kept my computer monitor pointed in his direction, he could watch what I was doing every minute of the day.

"What's that for?" he'd ask every time I brought up a new window. "What are you typing?" he'd ask every time I'd tap the keyboard twice in a row.

After a couple hours I scurried to the coffee room to quiz other employees: was Eric really insane, or was he punking me? And five minutes later, when I got back, Eric asked me where the hell I'd been.

Eventually lunchtime arrived, and I went to a corner deli and ordered a sandwich, which the cashier informed me cost $14. I brought my culture shock straight to Eric. "Fourteen dollars?" I said incredulously. "For two pieces of bread, some chicken and lettuce? Idiots. I don't mind if some greedy asshole wants to get rich, but does it have to be today, off me?"

He shot me an irritated glare. "My brother-in-law owns that deli," he said.

"Oh," I said. Pause. "Well, it was certainly tasty food."

We sat in silence for the next couple hours, interrupted only occasionally by "What are you typing?" and "What's that window for?" Around three, I figured I'd try to lighten the mood. "You know what's funny?" I said. "Bagel slicers. What, like we should encourage people who are too stupid to slice round bread without hurting themselves?"

He stopped typing and stared at me open-mouthed. "My wife nearly lost a finger slicing a bagel," he declared.

I backpedaled as best I could, saying I was cranky because I hadn't slept. "All night long," I said, "trucks kept backing up past my apartment. All night long, BEEP BEEP BEEP, back and forth, BEEP BEEP BEEP. I mean, if you're too dumb to hear an eight-ton truck coming at you, you deserve to die."

Eric's face went crimson and he slammed his desk with his fist. "Goddammit!" he yelled. "My mother was almost KILLED by a truck backing up!"

I thought, "No way." And I said, "No way."

He nodded. He didn't say "Way."

And I packed all my stuff back into a bag and left.

As I walked through the rain down Wall Street, in a new city and newly unemployed, I realized I'd made a horrible mistake. Why had I been so quick to give up? I hadn't even gotten through a full day. Would it have been so hard to tough it out another couple hours?

I mean, I didn't even get a chance to tell Eric that people who put sticks up their asses are complete muttonheads, and his reply could have explained a whole lot.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

So, last week on her show, Martha Stewart learns stripper moves and pole dancing. While wearing spandex. Because it's good exercise, you see.

You know what? This won't be ridiculously sexist right around the time Matt Lauer does the Chippendale's Workout wearing leather pants, cuffs and a bow tie.

In White Pants and Black Underwear, Brett Favre is the Skanky Neighborhood Girl of Football

I got exactly one good thing out of two hours spent watching Julie & Julia: an idea for a great new book. Every other wannabe novelist, it seemed, was following this gimmick where they'd try something for a year while writing about it, so why didn't I give it a shot? In fact, I devised a kind of meta theory that'd beat them all:

Every day for a year I'd read a book where the author did something every day for a year, and I'd do something that they did. I scoured Amazon and came up with all the books I needed for my first week:

Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell

Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man by Norah Vincent

Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages by Ammon Shea

Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A. J. Jacobs

Living Oprah: My One-Year Experiment to Walk the Walk of the Queen of Talk by Robyn Okrant

The Year of Living like Jesus: My Journey of Discovering What Jesus Would Really Do by Edward G. Dobson and A. J. Jacobs

For Day One, I started at the top. I burned an omelette and then laid on my bed as my self-esteem died. For Day Two I dressed as a woman in tights, skirt, blouse, earrings and sensible flats. Which didn't exactly thrill me, but at least my UPS man finally noticed I'm alive.

Buying the Oxford English Dictionary for Day Three was way out of my budget, so instead I just looked up a word in Merriam-Webster. I went for the word "adamant," mostly because it sounded like my first teenage crush.

I spent most of my No-Shopping day literally starving to death. Luckily I found a pizza restaurant near my home that agreed to work on the barter system, but I soon ran out of things that make cheese. By Day Five my brain hurt from all the reading, and then I had to pore over the Bible too. Three hundred pages, and something like fifty thousand rules. I couldn't masturbate. I couldn't eat pizza, since it mixed dairy with meat. I couldn't lie with a man, or covet my neighbor's goods, or wear polyester clothes. Which, you know, pretty much confined me to watching Glee reruns in my boxer shorts while eating Dippin' Dots.

The next book nearly made me crack under mental fatigue. How on earth was I going to live like our Saviour? How was I going to be a spiritual role model for billions, to perform miracles for the masses on an almost-daily basis?

So, I went with the Jesus book instead. Not exactly a rip-roaring success. Something tells me Mary never threatened to slap the smug out of Our Lord.

And on the Seventh Day, I said fuck this shit.

Though my story -- provocatively dubbed My Week of Doing Stuff Other People Did Considerably Longer -- is only twelve pages long, I think it would be a splendid publication, and I urge any publishing houses to consider printing it. Because what I discovered will provoke you, inspire you, and make you think, at the very least, "Wow, I'll bet he's killed that stupid genre once and for all," and I am adamant about that.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Mel Gibson on Jesus:

Here's a guy that was killed in public and then thousands of people saw him come back from the dead. Um, I'm sorry, that one is hard to deny.

Thousands of people allegedly saw it . . . but only three people wrote about it. Which means on the Believability Scale it's somewhere between George Clooney having a tattoo of Cher on his thigh and Bat Boy fathering Sarah Palin's children.

After seven months and an unprecedented civil war with Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien has left in pretty much the same way he appeared.

With all of us shaking our heads and thinking, "Wait, is this supposed to be funny?"

Chris March was tossed off Project Runway, then went on to lose their all-star season, but he's bouncing back with a vengeance. His book I [Heart] Chris March is about to be released, and he celebrated at Greenhouse last night with the best party I've been to in years. It was amazing: one minute the place was half-empty and the DJ spinning those tired Verve Remixed tunes, and literally a minute later there was a drag queen flailing on every banquette and a bass-heavy Ting Tings remix making the walls shake. I realized something on a great New Year's Eve in Paris: when there are people dancing places other than the floor, you are at a good party.

Last night there was dancing on every horizontal surface, from the tables to the chairs to the bar. In fact, if you stood up for more than two seconds your seat would probably be usurped by a hairy-chested dude in a woman's bikini gyrating crazily and punching holes in the vinyl with his stilettos.

The crowd was almost entirely male, and I'd guess there were more Pat Robertson fans than people in gender-appropriate clothing. There were men dressed as women dressed as men dressed as kitchen appliances. There were three men dressed as Victorian ladies but with makeup straight out of Blade Runner. Berlin's version of Mary Poppins came complete with parasol, corset, and gaping holes in her stockings. There was Wilma Flintstone on a drug bender, with sallow eyes and one-shouldered dress, glassy-eyed and absent-mindedly chewing on her giant pearls. Balancing all that estrogen was a nice selection of male drag, including a lumberjack who danced totally in character and a guy who looked like Ashton Kutcher in shirtless French sailor drag.

Today my head is spinning and my ears are ringing, but I had to send a shout-out to Chris to thank him. The book is absolutely terrific, and if you've ever wondered how to work giant pretzels or Chinese take-out containers into your wardrobe, it's the first place to go.

Three Things You Can Definitely Believe From Taco Bell

1. You know our commercial where this guy says he's surprised there's a layer of nacho cheese in his burrito, and his girlfriend Claudia says something like, "Here's another surprise: I used to be a dude named Claudio!" and the guy gets really grossed out? Well, now we realize how offensive it is, and we'll never broadcast it again.

2. Honestly, everything you ordered is in the bag.

3. There haven't been any rats around here in weeks.



Put on this t-shirt, aim your webcam at your chest, then go to the company's website. You'll see yourself sitting there. And then a fist will burst out of your chest that wants to play Rock Paper Scissors.

Or play a little joke on mom and dad and get those Lladro figurines and oversized Florsheim shoes while you're still young enough to enjoy them.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Bristol Palin, who just started her own public relations firm, and whose mom has a best-selling book for which she was paid a $5 million advance, is going after her unemployed ex-boyfriend for the cash he made posing naked.

Bristol's lawyer believes her ex, Levi Johnston, made more than $105,000 last year from nude modeling, and she would like $1,750 a month in child support.


For the future, Bristol's lawyers are adamant: every time Levi pulls his dick out of his pants, she should get half.



Neil Young, from his forthcoming album After the Gold Tooth Rush.

Really, dahlings, you have to spread those bombs around or it totally fucks your feng shui.
A method actor collapsed on stage while drinking real vodka to give a convincing portrayal of a Russian drunk.

Marc Schulze, appearing in the play "Moscow/Petushki" by Russian satirist Venedict Yerofeyev, downed shot after shot, but the audience didn't realize something was wrong until he started missing his lines and staring blankly at other actors.

One audience member said, "I was amazed at how good his drunken staggering was and how he was slurring his words."


That's some compliment, coming from a Russian. That's like Catherine Zeta-Jones telling you your tits look good.

A systemwide problem caused every computer in every office of California's Department of Motor Vehicles to fail. Due to a router error, the computers couldn't connect with the network for most of Thursday.

The outage confounded DMV employees. "We have computers?" they asked.

Cosmetics Ad Gives Demi Moore a Waddlectomy

Jean Paul Gaultier showed his new collection at Men's Fashion Week in Paris, featuring boxing as a theme. Big, bruiser models strutted on a catwalk around a boxing ring sporting gloves and faux lacerations on their chiseled faces.

The designer even got into the act with his own beaten up face, courtesy of makeup artists, and after the show he was swarmed by famous fans like Chris Brown.


Just out of habit Brown offered Gaultier a Swiss villa and a tennis bracelet before he realized it was makeup.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Repeat Thursday: Stripping Grammer Naked

Once in a while, somebody will ask me where I learned to write. Sometimes I tell them about the year I spent under John Rechy at Princeton. Sometimes I tell them about the short-story classes I took with Edmund White, or the sabbatical at that writer's colony off the woodsy coast of Nantucket.

And sometimes I tell them the truth. That I learned everything I know from sitting naked in front of my computer and reading lots and lots of godawful porn.

Experts know the best way to learn what's good is to study what's bad. For instance, I learned how not to cook Mexican food from Taco Bell, what not to wear from Wal-Mart, and how not to have sex with ex-husbands 1, 2 and 4. Desperate to find the very worst in writing, I cruised the sleaziest internet porn sites, searched Google for every four-letter word, and scrutinized every fan-fiction site where Spock and Sulu ever touched.

To save you time, though, and from discovering your belongings heaped on the doorstep by an intolerant boyfriend who knows about Internet Explorer's "History" file, I've compiled the most miserable writing I've found in many hard years of study. If we take a moment to examine these examples and see what mistakes were made, we can use that knowledge to write up some rules that we can use to improve our own work.

(1) "He had nice thick chest hair that covered his entire body."

The first thing we learn is, never eat breakfast while surfing porn sites. Because while chest hair can be reasonably fetching on, say, a chest, when it creeps over to the forehead or the elbows it can make Jim Belushi spew up his Sugar Pops. It doesn't take an expert to realize chest hair is best confined to the upper torso, in much the same manner that toenails should remain in the vicinity of the feet.

(2) "Jim grabbed his ass through his tight shorts and said, ‘I want you bad.'"

From this awkward construction we learn that if there are two or more males in your story, avoid using the word "his." Your dramatic scene will turn farcical if the reader thinks your hero is grabbing his own body parts and expressing his feelings of desire. Similar examples include the following:

-- The stranger wrapped his hungry mouth around his mushroom head.
-- Standing at the side of the bed, Gustavo grabbed his ankles and lifted them high into the air.
-- Slowly Maury worked his lips down to his stomach.

(3) All night long Carl slept, sprawled naked across the bed, and Max approached with anticipation.

What we learn here is, modifiers in the first half of your sentence also apply to the second. We’ve got a scene that’s probably eight hours long, which means Max moves about as slowly as gay rights.

(4) "Brad's endowment was throbbing so hard Joshua thought it'd explode."

The problem here is painfully obvious: Don't frighten your reader with images from Japanese horror movies. You've spent hours conjuring up the perfect picture, then you go and spoil the mood:

-- Chuck's erection grew so hard it could have knocked over Hitler.
-- I'd never seen an ass pounded so relentlessly, and I watch Bill O'Reilly.
-- His equipment, trapped in those thin white shorts, looked like my grandma in her bra.

(5) Max took out Walter's penis and played with it.

Watch out for the words “took out.” While you may assume it’s equivalent to “bared" or "uncovered,” the reader may opt for another meaning, like “to remove from a box.”

(6) I really wanted to have sex with him. After I finished my coffee, I slid over next to him and brought it up.

Here we've got a confusing pronoun -- in this case, the word "it." The writer is hoping he can refer all the way back to his previous sentence, but instead the reader stops at the closest noun, which just happens to be "coffee."

Other regrettable examples are:

-- My wife and I made love on the deck of our pristine white yacht, then I tied her to the pier and went home.
-- Cooper and I took the dog for a walk. I couldn't resist the way his ass swayed back and forth, so I dragged him behind a bush and took him from behind.

(7) "He grabbed hold of his meat and pulled out a condom."

This sentence shows that sometimes there's a weird synergy between different parts of your sentence. Either half of this line is fine by itself, but put the two together and it sounds like a magic trick.

Similar missteps include:

-- I squeezed the bartender's nipple and he refilled my empty glass.
-- Wayne rubbed Raoul's butt until Barbara Eden appeared.

(8) "On my knees, Stephen grabbed my head and guided it toward his groin."

This is what's called a "dangling modifier," because the writer has misplaced a clause. Rather than being turned on, the reader pictures a Cirque du Soleil-style attraction. Re-read your articles searching for sentences like:

-- Covered with mayonnaise, Roger took a bite of his sandwich.
-- Engrossed in the newspaper, his penis lay there quietly.
-- Nearly at orgasm, Puddles the dog trotted in.

Well, we've just barely scratched the surface, but today's lesson has to come to an end. Remember, there are serious side effects to reading too much porn. You start to feel inadequate by constantly comparing yourself to these perfect, unreal images, and your self esteem can suffer as a result.

Honestly, though, I swear to you: usually I can go on for hours.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Call me crazy, but I'm absolutely thrilled this Scott Brown guy has been elected senator. I mean, we gave change a try. We let Democrats rule. And after a year they couldn't decide if they wanted muffins or donuts served at break time, so I'm more than ready to say, "Hey, get those bitch-asses out of town and let's put some men in charge!"

I know a lot of gay people disagree. They see disaster on the horizon. They say now the Republicans will filibuster when ENDA comes up, or when DADT repeal comes up, or when DOMA repeal comes up, and we won't make any progress on equal rights.

But I say, uh, have you listened to Obama? Reagan used the word "gay" more often, though usually he was describing a cheery song, or bonnet. Obama had our rights scheduled for his fifth term, right after mandating August 14 as National Artichoke Day. Sorry, no time! He's got golfing, and then he's going to lean against a wall near the high school and look at girls while he smokes. In sitcom terms, our issues were going to be addressed right after Fonzie surfboarded over the great white shark.

Now, I'm not saying we should be ashamed we voted for Obama. He talked a good game, and we bought it. He was like a Cosmo centerfold. He was laying there, one hand modestly shielding his equipment and the other holding a Camel, and that look in his eyes said, "Hey, babe, I got just what you need."

Whenever anybody got near him, though, he'd jump up and say, "Hey, it's cold in here!" and he'd scurry for his clothes.

We tried, but he couldn't deliver the goods. And now we're sliding back to a time when we settled for the best we could get. When we voted for the asshole who at least looked good.

I was twelve when Cosmo printed that picture of Scott, and I loved my copy more than my sousaphone. I mooned over it for months, and then when the Burt Reynolds issue came out, I carefully cut out Scott and set him on top of Burt. Burt was coy and funny. Scott wouldn't take no for an answer. They'd start off talking about the Smokey and the Bandit films, then Scott would force his desires on the easygoing actor. Burt would protest, saying, "Hey, buddy, let's take this slow!" but Scott was merciless. He'd just guffaw whenever Burt's Stetson fell off.

It's weird. The Republicans were absolutely convinced of Obama's prowess. They were sure he'd force his bizarre agenda on us like my imaginary Scott did on Burt. "He'll make gay marriage MANDATORY!" they screamed. "He'll kill all the old people! He'll put pornographic films on primetime TV!" Naturally all us Democrats were, like, YEAH! That would be sooo cool.

Instead he said he was too busy. We turned on the TV and got a drink.

Despite what people say, there's a difference between our two political parties. Democrats proclaim all the change they're going to make, but after they take office they just lay there. Republicans are the opposite: they say they're not going to do anything drastic, and once they're in power all hell breaks loose. They take charge. They assume control. They hang on tight and won't even let the Constitution stop them from fulfilling their wants and desires.

That's cool with me. We tried Hope. We tried Change. We'll settle for Action. I'm sliding Paper Scott onto Paper Barack as we speak.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Julie & Julia (Plenty of Spoilers)

I was really startled by how annoying Julie & Julia was. I'd read a couple reviews, but nobody mentioned the obvious:

If they'd cut out all the scenes where somebody talked with their mouth full, it would have been two minutes long.

I'll admit it: I'm a little squeamish about seeing -- and listening to -- people who talk when they eat. I think it's disgusting. You know how Chekhov said if you show a gun in the beginning, somebody's got to fire it by the end? Well, every time they showed Julie's husband he was chomping on something and talking. Food was flying. You could watch entire three-course dinners spin around his mouth like it was a little glass-windowed Whirlpool dryer.

He's just sickening, the sensitive viewer thinks, and that feeling is confirmed when, while Julie slaves over a hot stove, he's shown drinking wine, laying around, and sweating. According to Chekhov, this has to end with her dumping this loser and finding a dude who doesn't just shove his entrée into his cheek before he speaks.

Instead, he leaves her, in a scene that goes something like this:

JULIE'S HUBBY (gnawing a hamhock in one hand and holding a suitcase in the other): It'th alwayth about YOU! YOU YOU YOU! You have to be the thenter of the univerth. You go to work, you come home, you do the laundry, you cook dinner. YOU YOU YOU!

He grabs an emergency serving of pot roast and then storms out.

Needless to say, Julie is distraught. Suddenly she realizes how selfish she's been, working eight-hour days and then coming home and making food. She calls Hubby and apologizes. He agrees to come home, possibly because he finished that pot roast eight minutes ago and now his teeth are feeling cold. He's back and unpacking when Julie gets a phone call.

JULIE: What? Huh? She said THAT?

She hangs up the phone and rolls around on the bed sobbing for the forthieth time that day.

JULIE'S HUBBY (gnawing on a sausage): What? Who thaid what?

JULIE: Julia Child! She heard about my blog and she hates me.

JULIE'S HUBBY: Doeth thee hate you becauthe thee's read your blog or becauthe you're uthing her?

JULIE: She didn't say. WAAAAAH!

And then, believe it or not, the movie ends. We don't find out why Julia hated Julie. (We're guessing the words "whiny doormat" were batted around.) We're left wondering if movies about food have to be disgusting, because if nobody talks while they're eating they'd be eight hours long. It closes with that crawl that's attached to all movies that weren't written right.

Paul Child died in 1993 at age 91.

Julia Child died in 2004 at age 92.

Julie's book was made into a film.


Which, you know, is a little self-referential for my taste. It's like Kim Kardashian saying she must be famous because she's always on TV. Still, we're relieved this little piffle is over. We're happy we got to see Meryl as an incandescent Julia, but we thank our lucky stars that better filmmakers didn't take the easy way out. I mean, imagine if The Diary of Anne Frank ended this way:

Anne died believing that people were basically good at heart.

Her book was published to wild acclaim.

And then this movie was made about her and it grossed $17,729,824 on opening weekend in limited release! WOOHOO!


For would-be sugar daddies perusing SeekingMillionaire.com -- "the meeting place for wealthy and beautiful singles" -- there was much to like about profile #160127. "Bree" identified herself as a 23-year-old model from Newport Beach, and the accompanying photos showed an emerald-eyed beauty with a mane of silky brown hair and a wraparound smile that seemed both sexy and sweet.

"Just looking for Mr. Right," her brief self-description read. If the pictures -- one in a backless dress at a party, another in a clingy halter top -- seemed somehow familiar, a quick Internet search offered an explanation: Bree Condon, 23, of Newport Beach was a successful model and aspiring actress who'd done a Guess jeans campaign and posed for Maxim magazine's swimsuit issue.

The profile beckoned on the site for nearly two years, and some who responded soon believed they had embarked on a romantic relationship with Condon. There were no face-to-face dates, but there were intimate phone conversations, nude photos and the enticing possibility of a future with a gorgeous cover girl.

None of it was true, a fact that came to light last month when police officers, prodded by a private investigator hired by the real Condon, knocked on the door of a budget motel room in Austin, Texas. Inside, according to police, they found an iPhone that had been a gift from one suitor, a small dog paid for by another and a 24-year-old man with a very high-pitched voice.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Glen W. Bell Jr., founder of the Taco Bell fast-food chain, has died at the age of 86.

Bell died yesterday at his home in Rancho Santa Fe, according to a statement posted on the Taco Bell Web site.


Services are planned for this Thursday. The hearse will drive his coffin slowly past the cemetery and then chuck the box out the window.

Dr. James Dobson saw a need: parents weren't sure how to raise their kids. And so he founded Focus on the Family. And thank God, because otherwise people might have compromised on their values and stopped smacking those brats.

Forty-something years later, though, Dr. Dobson has announced he's leaving Focus on the Family to form a competing organization. Needless to say, it's causing an uproar among the homeschooling scrapbooker set. It's not fair! It's not nice! It isn't Christian! It's like the founder of Doctors Without Borders starting a group called Way Better Physicians Who'll Even Fly Delta. With the recession, Focus on the Family has already seen a huge dropoff in charitable contributions, and now they've got a competitor. Adios job security for homophobes!

Dr. Dobson didn't offer an motive, which has America's nacho-eating quilters bubbling over with guesses. The most popular concerns Dr. Dobson's son Ryan, who markets himself as a hip preacher to teens by adding references to surfing and tattoos to his lectures and by titling his books 2 Die 4 and 2 Live 4, making young people think maybe they were co-written by Prince. Apparently an anonymous Focus board member said that because Ryan Dobson has been divorced, it would be contrary to their beliefs for him to head Focus, a group that tells people how to have a successful Christian marriage.

Yes, Ryan's divorced, though his bio somehow omits the fact. In 2001, at the age of 31. I'm thinking the last thing his ex-wife told him may have been along these lines: "Ryan, you're THIRTY-ONE. Could you please stop describing everything as rad?"

So, Dr. Dobson's dynasty is quashed, which means he's leaving an organization he founded because they're steadfastedly sticking to his beliefs. Well, that's okay: Ryan and Dad still have a couple principles left. They're still anti-abortion and anti-gay. Considering Dr. Dobson broke this news via Facebook, I'm thinking he's probably also rad.

Despite the forthcoming hit to their pocketbook, Focus on the Family is steadfastly moving forward. They're forking out $2.7 million -- roughly enough to support everyone in Haiti for a year -- on a commercial to air during the Superbowl. Its message will surely hit mid-America where it counts.

Tim Tebow is allegedly a famous football player. When his mother Pam was spreading God's word in the Philippines, she simultaneously got pregnant and contracted amoebic dysentery. Her doctor told her that the medicine she was taking would hurt the fetus, and he suggested she abort it. She refused, and twenty years later that same fetus went back to the Philippines and punched that doctor in the chops!

Well, that's what'll happen when it becomes a Sandra Bullock film.

No, that fetus grew up to throw pig parts across expansive grassy surfaces. Which we know, in our heart of hearts, is really what counts. I mean, just think: if she'd aborted that kid, Florida State would have a shot at the title! A different cranky white coach would get doused in Gatorade! And rather than marrying up, some buxom young cheerleader would have to ask her dad for plastic surgery money!

No, Pam saved a great football player. Just that one little Christian act, and now she's got a gingham American Express card just for stuff she buys on the Home Shopping Club.

Sigh. If that doesn't make you want to have sex with a missionary, nothing will.

Coincidentally, on the cover of this week's People magazine, there's Sarah Palin blaring, "I'M SURE GLAD I SAVED OUR LITTLE DOWN-SYNDROME KID!"

Coincidentally. Yes, two white women saying exactly the same thing at the exact same time.

I hope Americans are smart enough to ignore this entitled pair, despite the fact they're also football fans. Yes, maybe these women made decisions that were right for them . . . but they also probably own fur-lined boots with a kicky tomahawk motif. And what makes them think these decisions will work for everyone? I mean, you don't see me saying, "Hey, I found a really hot boyfriend, and you can too!" because I respect other people, and I respect our differences.

Because not everyone is handsome. Not everyone is charming. And not everyone can hide in a bush in a crouched position until nearly three a.m.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Hasbians are different from lesbians, we're told by Details magazine, because they are no longer attracted to other women. We're also told there's a particular appeal, among heterosexual men, to date these hasbians, or at least "that the reason modern men are more ably attracting hasbians is that modern men are, quite simply, offering these women something close to what they had before."

Don't tell me; let me guess. A whole lotta chocolate and cats?

Rewriting a New York Times Advice Column

Rather than deal with the indecipherable mysteries of the actual Social Q's column, read an actual person's responses here.

A good friend broke up last year with her longtime boyfriend. While they were dating, she learned the password to his e-mail account and occasionally checked his messages. Now she reads his entire inbox. As a result, she can’t get over him. I know she won’t stop until he changes his password. Is there any way to discreetly tell him to do so?

Anonymous


The 1990s called and they want their Romantic Comedies back. I'm wise to you, Ms. Ephron. Write your own freakin' scripts.

I went out of town and asked a neighbor to feed my cat. When I returned I found a note telling me she had used my extra-virgin olive oil and other ingredients. She couldn’t find my brands, so she replaced them with others. She asked if this was O.K., but her replacements are of much lower quality. Should I tell her no?

Matt, Cincinnati


Definitely tell her no! Tell her your delicate palate is traumatized when so much as a dribble of non-virginal olive oil touches it. Tell her you projectile vomit when you eat regular mushrooms instead of grilled shiitakes. And tell her in the future she's not getting anywhere near you or your cat, Lady GaGrowl.

For my genealogy research, I asked my sister for basic information about her former and current husbands. She told me she didn’t want her abusive ex to appear on our family tree. I said that would be like lying because they were, in fact, married. She became hysterical, so I promised not to look into the matter. Only then would she stop screaming and crying. I’m afraid she’ll cut off contact with me if I include the information, but I feel wrong omitting it. What should I do?

Sarah, Kentucky


You have to include her. I mean, you don't fuck with history.

Meanwhile, here's a weird coincidence. I'm writing up a list of Major Bitches that I'm going to insert into the public record:

SARAH IN KENTUCKY

Really, I'd leave you off, but that'd just confuse the grandkids, right?

We were recently guests in a freezing house on one of the coldest nights of the year. After an hour and a half of discomfort, three of us put on our coats and snow boots to keep warm. The host seemed oblivious. Finally, one guest asked for more heat, and we were told it was not possible. We stayed a polite period of time in our coats. What should we have done?

Anonymous


Let me get this straight. You're at a party. All the guests are laughing and dancing and dipping Ritz crackers into cheese balls. And then suddenly you all decide you're cold, and you scurry to the hall closet and put your coats and snow boots back on.

And your host doesn't notice? Doesn't notice that the sparkly evening gowns have been replaced by puffy black First Down coats and mukluks?

Girlfriend, I notice if two of my guests disappear for five minutes and then reappear looking slightly flustered.

Obviously your host has mental problems. What do you do when you're at a party hosted by someone with mental problems?

Drink. Steal their jewelry. Stay away from the gray hors d'oeuvres.

Apparently Jesse McCartney, star of ABC's Greek, has an angry ex. Photographs are making the grounds showing the hunky star lying in bed wearing nothing but a g-string made of candy.

I saw the photo but didn't realize it was candy. I guess that explains the tiny Mounds.

From Cindy Adams:

Why this fascinated me, who knows. "Juno" director Jason Reitman, who with dad Ivan was up for best picture for co-producing "Up in the Air" -- his skinny pants puddled at the bottom.

The world's oldest gossip columnist identifies with puddles at the bottom. I guess some things are destined to remain mysteries.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

The world is chock full of challenges today. First, the Valleywag blog is offering big money for sneak previews of Apple's new "Tablet." I'm thinking it's a Ten Commandments kind of tablet rather than a Contac kind, though frankly if Apple went with the latter I know I'd buy it more than all that wirey, boot-up, downloady kind of stuff.

They've actually written up a price list based on the information you give them, like $10,000 for a picture of the thing. (I'm exploiting the fact they didn't use the word "photo" and sketching my guess in charcoal right now. I'm leaving the details vague but the shading is remarkable.) $20,000 for video of one in action.

And at this point we start to think, aren't electronics people strange? Frankly, I wouldn't pay $20,000 for video of Batman in action.

$50,000 for pictures or video of Steve Jobs holding one. (This one seems a little snippy. Would I get less with other celebs? If I find a picture of Gary Coleman holding one, should I even bother sending it in? Do I get more if he's wearing a plaid shirt or eating a taco?)

Last but not least, $100,000 to provide them with the real thing for one hour.

Men being men, Valleywag has gotten several salacious comments from guys offering more fleshy playthings for considerably less money, but I'm thinking this new Tablet thing doesn't take six hours to reboot.

For people who couldn't find a nerd at a Star Trek convention, here's a challenge thrown down by the New York Times. Did you know there are people who never lock their front doors? Someone named Matt, for instance, who withholds his last name for security. He has three big-screen TVs. He lives on a "busy main street" in San Diego with two other guys and he's Hawaiian.

And right now there's forty people in San Diego going, "OH! Hawaiian Matt!" (If you don't know how white San Diego is, Matt might as well walk around wearing a lei.)

Last challenge? Get on the National No-Fly List by the time you're eight, like Michael Hicks of Clifton, New Jersey.

Good luck on that last one, though. You don't reach those heights just by nagging flight attendants for extra cookies. No, legend has it his diapers smelled worse than Delta's Codfish Fricassee.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

I know a woman named Sharon who's a karmavore. In fact, I coined the word just for her. She devours the good intentions, good wishes, and kindness of other people, leaving them dry as bone. She grabs hold of any objects that wander within the reach of her gravity and sucks them clean of all good feelings. She's a black hole for niceness. She converts altruism into money that goes straight into her designer handbag.

Her business is designed around this model, so it doesn't require employees. She uses interns to do all the grunt work, and she finds unemployed professionals to do the rest. "Right now we're just trying things out," she tells them. "We're testing to see if this could be a profitable venture. We're trying you out in the job. Once everything gets going, we'll put you on the payroll."

Naturally, it never "gets going." It continues blithely along until the unpaid professional wises up and quits in disgust, and then she finds another one. It's not hard. There's no shortage of unemployed professionals who'll give it a try, fingers crossed.

Making Sharon look like an amateur, however, is Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel magazine. A friend told me about a feature they run monthly where they reward the best travel story with a once-in-a-lifetime trip, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I wrote up a quick little blurb, reinforced it with a photo, and sent it in. A month or so later, I got an email saying they were using it. They just wanted a little clarification. A little edit. A tweak.

Excitedly I complied, and yesterday I got an advance copy of the magazine in the mail. My story was prominently featured. With extra-large print and my photograph it took up the top-third of a page.

I scanned the note from Thomas Berger, the "Copy Chief." It said, basically, "Thanks!"

I emailed him, thinking I was confused. To his credit he telephoned me back, and he confirmed that I was confused. The "True Stories" column solicits stories from its readers, and prints the best. Only one is rewarded. I get nothing but the satisfaction of seeing my story in print.

He insisted that the system worked fine and that I was the only contributor who'd ever felt disgruntled. He hung up acting like the matter was resolved, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd gotten the shaft.

See, here's how essay contests work. You pick out the winner, you reward them, and you can use their entry as you want. The losers? Well, if you didn't reward them, you can't use their work. It wouldn't be right for newspapers to fill their pages with unpaid editorial. Especially in a bigger font, leading off, and taking twice the space of the "winner," I think.

That's when it hit me: Budget Travel magazine is a karmavore. Free writing! Donated prizes! And an endless supply of rubes. It's the holy grail for a struggling magazine with absolutely no scruples.

Still, the future is clear, and I'm on board. The karmavores are coming. Gone are the days when dinosaurs ruled the earth and people were paid for the work they did. Now I'm actually rooting for this scrappy, ethics-be-damned little rag. In fact, I'm going to write Mr. Berger back and suggest they solicit entire travel articles from their readers. They can print the best, filling the magazine from front to back, and just give one of the writers, like, a gold-plated trophy or something.

And I think I'll forward a note to his boss, too. I know a few writers who'd love to "try out" for that Copy Chief job, and with a bit of hope still left in me I can probably be hoodwinked as well.



Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Charity Begins at $250,000 a Year

Curiosity killed the cat, but it maims me at least three or four times a day. In a recent case, I was curious about a news report on Joe.My.God that said the American Jewish World Service charity was soliciting funds to help gays in Uganda.

Riiiight, I thought. Like any minority group cares about any other minority group. I know gay men love to read Latina, and straight black men actually cry when their copy of Out gets lost in the mail.

I knew there was one of two explanations: either AJWS was doing something extraordinary, or this was a ruse to make some pocket cash. I decided to find out which.

Three days later, I'm an expert on charity tax returns, and unfortunately wise to the sins bookkeeping can disguise. See, a charity's expenses are divided into three parts: fundraising, administration, and program expenses. Charity watchdog groups like Charity Navigator use the program expenses total to judge whether a charity is a ripoff or not. In this case, they quoted AJWS's tax return that said 81% of donated money goes to program expenses, which is quite good indeed, and gave them four stars.

Unfortunately, this isn't the right figure to use. With AJWS, for example, this total includes millions in categories like "Travel" and "Other." I emailed Charity Navigator and asked, "If AJWS's president used all their money on first-class vacations allegedly in search of deserving beneficiaries, wouldn't their rating actually go UP?"

Needless to say, I didn't get a response.

Just for a sanity check I looked at the tax returns for Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang.  They spend 92% of their revenues on program expenses.  Know what comprises those "program expenses"? It's 100% grants and allocations. For AJWS it's 56%.

I posted my concerns on JMG and eventually drew the attention of AJWS's president. Ruth Messinger relies a bit too heavily on the incommunicado Charity Navigator to vindicate AJWS's expenses in my mind. After all, they're just quoting from a form where, according to Wikipedia, "the accuracy and reliability . . . is questionable.  Form 990 categorizes a charity's expenditures into three broad categories that are open to accounting manipulation." She says the millions in "Travel" and "Other" are due to their lobbying, educational outreach, and other work, so the 81% figure is correct. And you know what? I believe her. But there's one other little figure that writes them off in my book.

Her salary.

In the gay community, GLAAD is nothing if not controversial. Their work often seems overshadowed by their networking and partying, fueled by relentless fundraising. When they do poke their heads up to take some kind of action, as often as not it's a misfire. I emailed them on three separate occasions alerting them about Jay Leno's latest homophobia, and never once received a reply.

For this, GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios makes a quarter-million dollars a year. And, according to various blogs -- The Petrelis Files, for one -- he's actively trying to hide this fact.

Ruth Messinger makes more. Somewhere in the neighborhood of $270,000 per year. And in the period from 2006 to 2008, she garnered somewhere between a 15% and 26% raise. (Numbers are complicated.)

Ms. Messinger has the balls Mr. Barrios lacks. "As for our salaries," she explains, "our professional staff deserves to be compensated fairly for the work they do.  My own salary is based on the fact that I run a 108-person organization that has grown from $2.8 million to nearly $30 million over the course of my 11-year tenure."

And now we get to the root of the problem. Maybe I'm living in the past, assuming that people who work for or run charities won't get rich doing it. (Yes, I say an income of $250,000+ per year is "rich.") Is this unrealistic? Is it bizarre to think they'd take a reasonable salary, content with the mental rewards they get from doing good?

Well, of course.

As is sadly evident, the world is divided into two parts: the poor people who struggle to keep their heads above water, and the rich who want stuff from them. Which strikes me as, um, slightly backward. I always cringe when I see a president, or president's wife, exhort the masses to volunteer. What, so the work they do merits money, but the work we do doesn't? It sets a bad precedent. If we start helping in our schools for free, for example, why should anyone be paid? The school boards discover their paltry budgets are more than sufficient, and every year they get cut back just a little bit more.

Taken this way, Ms. Messinger's words get the rest of us off the hook. Because -- correct me if I'm wrong -- she apparently thinks smart, competent, hard-working people can make $270,000 per year before the overflow siphons to a deserving cause.

I'll be happy to take her up on that.

Sappy Tuesday

Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera and others went on to pop stardom after appearing on "The All New Mickey Mouse Club" as kids. Co-star Matt Morris just wanted to go home.

"I didn't want to rush toward a rich-and-famous contract," said Morris, now 30, tattooed and married, with a dark beard framing a grin. "I just wanted to go to high school."

He kept in touch though, writing songs with and for Timberlake and Aguilera over the years. And on Tuesday, Morris is releasing his own album on Timberlake's Tennman Records. "When Everything Breaks Open" is the first full-length national release for Timberlake's label.

"I've known Matt since I was 10," Timberlake said, "so we've watched each other grow up with music around us constantly. It goes without saying that I think Matt is beyond gifted, and it's just nice to have a forum where he can put his music out and trust the person taking care of it."

"When Everything Breaks Open," co-produced by Timberlake, took two years to record, with plenty of people contributing. Timberlake, Patty Griffin and Edie Brickell provided background vocals. Morris' husband, Sean Michael Morris, inspired the song "Love."

The lyrics for "Love" don't mention the singer's object of affection, but Morris doesn't hide his husband in the liner notes on his album. The two went to California to get married.

"When certain fundamental elements of life become political, like love, to have any integrity, you have to have a political voice," he said. ''You just have to be honest."

Monday, January 11, 2010

A New Jersey company says it has developed the first sex robot with a personality. The doll is available in five different models: "Mature Martha," ''Wild Wendy'," ''Frigid Farrah," "S&M Susan," and a "young, naive (barely 18)" girl who has not yet been named.

Unfortunately the company is reporting a high rate of returns. See, the instruction manual says you start by turning the doll on, and if guys knew how do that they wouldn't need the dolls in the first place.

S&M Susan's vocabulary isn't huge, but it's nevertheless effective. "I love being here with you," she told this reporter. "Too bad real women don't."
On Tuesday Pope Benedict compared Catholic opposition to gay marriage with concern about the environment, suggesting that laws undermining "the differences between the sexes" were threats to creation.

"Creatures differ from one another and can be protected, or endangered, in different ways, as we know from daily experience," he said. "One such attack comes from laws or proposals which, in the name of fighting discrimination, strike at the biological basis of the difference between the sexes."


Apparently not realizing the Pope was alluding to gay marriage, the Italian government immediately ruled that men are no longer allowed to touch appliances, and women who wear pants should be shot.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Sigh; I never did get around to listening to this.

Welcome, and thank you for creating an account on Microsoft Windows Live! We're sure you'll find your new account very helpful. We've defaulted your new privacy settings to "Tell everybody in the world everything about me, and be sure to sell that information when you can!" but if you'd like to change that, just visit every one of these 22 permission pages and uncheck the one box that's on each page.

Once again, welcome to Microsoft Windows Live!


Oddest Instructions I've Gotten All Week

Please check in at the desk in front of the Barosaurus.

The New York Times pays all sorts of people to write all sorts of crap. There's a woman who writes a column about being a housewife, tarting it up with the title "Wife/Mother/Worker/Spy." The latter is apparently her claim that a parent performs roughly the same functions as someone who kills their enemies with poisoned umbrella tips. This pisses me off: it's like those housewives who say if they were paid for their work they'd pull down $150,000 a year. Because, you know, they occasionally function as psychotherapists, and psychotherapists make $500 an hour.

To which I say, excuse me, but you don't exactly qualify for that post with the ability to heat canned soup and repeatedly coo, "There, there."

And then there's the adorable, probably soon-to-be-a-movie "Cooking With Dexter." Because, you know, readers in the financial capital of the world are only interested in cuisine when there's a tow-headed four-year-old involved. (Dexter is absent from this Sunday's episode, which I'm hoping means we'll see a correction Monday morning: "'We regret to say yesterday's Cooking With Dexter column totally forgot to include Dexter.")

One might think the Times would trend better -- or at least less heterosexual-with-spouse-and-child -- in non-fiction fields. One would be wrong. Randy Cohen, their Ethicist, allegedly looks at both sides of thorny problems and decides which is correct. Which is why I wrote to him many years ago.

A government agency was running an essay contest, which sent up a red flag for me. Non-Christian gay men know what I'm talking about: send in a story about that funny thing that happened to you and your boyfriend at last week's coven and you know it's getting tossed in the trash. Essay contest winners are without exception heterosexual Christians, either bragging about or lamenting the loss of wives and children and picket fences. And while this is just annoying and discriminatory in the real world, when the government gets involved it's unforgiveable.

So, I made up a fun little story about my wife and kids. And I won the contest.

Immediately the shit hit the fan. The prize was huge. And I didn't realize they wanted the winner to make public appearances. With press coverage, of course.

<Low but still possibly natural voice>"As I was telling my dear Katrina the other day, while she was breast-feeding Kassaday, our youngest, . . . "</low>

No, that was not going to work. I've pretended to be straight before, but if I failed and flapped a limp wrist or called some dude "girlfriend" I wasn't going to be tossed straight into the slammer.

I made excuses. I had to travel on business. I was sick. And eventually they just gave up and mailed me the prize.

Naturally, I felt guilty. I wrote Randy. And surprisingly, he wrote back. I tossed out his reply because it was incredibly stupid, but basically he said, "Hey, the rules were it had to be a TRUE STORY, and yours wasn't true. So, dude, you messed up."

I knew I was right, and I still do. I was looking for support, which he didn't give me. I was tempted to write back and say, "Hey, the GOVERNMENT shouldn't be using OUR TAX DOLLARS to reward HETEROSEXUALS who also get hired by the esteemed Times to write about their other-sex spouses and culinarily-inclined rugrats. So whatever the FUCK I do to upset this system is perfectly justified."

Instead I just wrote him off.

And now the Times has its Social Q's column, about etiquette. Hoping for better? This week's column proclaims that gays who boycott hetero weddings are "selfish."

Whoa. Yeah, dude's a little harsh. Better not get him started on that bitch Rosa Parks.

Just forget all those sour grapes, Philip Galanes proclaims, and toast the happy couple celebrating rights you don't have. Maybe express your thoughts about second-class citizenship "in a congratulatory card."

"Dear Fred and Ginger:

Congratulations! You're so lucky most politicians don't think you're an abomination in the eyes of the Lord.

All the best,
Cecil and Bruce

P. S. Don't even think about putting this Baccarat vase in the dishwasher."

Despite my own sour grapes, though, I have hope. I have hope that one day the Times will hire a gay columnist, and that gay columnist won't be afraid to break a few eggs. That gay columnist will tell somebody that not only would he refuse to enter that chapel, but he'd hang out in the parking lot with a sign that read "FRED AND GINGER: WEDDING SCABS!"

I'm thinking that day is far away, though, and color me crazy if I refuse to wait. So, until then, keep an eye out for prize-winning stories about a happy white dude, his lovely wife Katrina, and wise-beyond-her-years Kassaday, who's whipping up an omelet as we speak.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

So, The Smoking Gun got their hands on some of those complaints made to the FCC about Adam Lambert's performance on the American Music Awards. Here are highlights from three of the alleged 1,500 that got him banned from ABC.



Ronald Reagan's grandson was booked yesterday for resisting arrest. Cameron Reagan went to his father Michael Reagan's house, and apparently tripped an alarm. When police arrived to investigate, he was uncooperative and belligerent.

After he replied "I don't recall" to all their questions, though, they realized he really was Reagan's grandson.

This incident just makes me wonder about the younger generation. Cameron Reagan is smart, rich, and barely thirty years old. Shouldn't he be making out with Tila Tequila?

A California airport was temporarily shut down Tuesday after security guards discovered five bottles of a "suspicious-looking liquid" in a passenger's luggage. The liquid tested positive for TNT, and when a bottle was opened, two security guards were overcome by fumes and had to be hospitalized.

Eventually it turned out the liquid was honey, and the passenger was released.


Just to be on the safe side, though, today the Department of Homeland Security raised the terror alert level to Clover.

I'm sure they'll get to the bottom of this. In fact,, they just put out an APB for a billion little terrorists who fly from flower to flower. And as we write, they're questioning two old ladies wearing black-and-yellow stripes.

Yesterday a man was arrested for running naked around the White House.

Apparently the man took off all his clothes, stuffed them in a duffel bag, and then began to run around in circles.


They say Obama was furious: his tranquility was disrupted, his family was endangered, plus when the guy snapped a souvenir photo his suit got all sweaty from their hug.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

My neighbors are such bastards. Here I thought they'd be jealous of my Jack LaLanne Juicer box.

"Ugh," groaned Bulging Bradley as he and his pal wandered into Steroids & Such. "Strawberry this, chocolate that. I can bench-press to total muscular collapse, but if I have to suck down one more bland-tasting supplement I'll scream."

"I know what you mean," croaked his good friend Hardcore Henry. "Sure, I can pull a school bus with a rope tied to my eyes, but my palate cries out for something more."

"Maybe I can help," said clerk Kassaday, who'd been standing nearby. "Times have changed, and now there are literally hundreds of flavors of nutrional supplements for extreme bodybuilders like yourselves. In fact, I'll bet you can't tell which of the following are flavors of nutritional supplements and which are Bonne Bell Lip Smackers for tweens."

Bradley and Henry concentrated until their necks showed muscle-ripping vascularity, but they never got them all right. Can you?

(1) Caramel Latté
(2) Bubble Gum
(3) Kiwi Strawberry
(4) Cookie Dough
(5) Cotton Candy
(6) Cake Batter
(7) Soarin' Strawberry Lemonade
(8) Egg Nog
(9) Brownie Batter
(10) Cinnamon Bun
(11) Banana Berry
(12) Cranberry Grapefruit
(13) Cookie & Creme
(14) Grape Crush
(15) Banana Scream
(16) Slammin' Strawberry Kiwi
(17) Orange Creamation
(18) Sucker Punch



ANSWERS:

(1) Syntha-6 muscle protein beverage
(3) Bullnox Androrush chewies
(5) Methyl Mass supplement, also a Lip Smacker flavor
(6), (8), (9), and (10): Muscle Milk nutritional shakes
(12) Big Boom carb supplement
(13) Oh Yeah! nutritional shakes
(15) Champion Whey pure whey protein stack
(17) and (18): Hemo Rage "Pre-workout detonator"

All the rest are Lip Smacker flavors. Me, I'm a Baja Fruit kind of guy.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

"This actor may the last straight man left in Hollywood, but he does have one unusual request that makes us question his past. This one requires one man (him), two partners (in this case both women), and a room temperature traditionally-shaped bottle of Coca-Cola. When he is about to climax into one woman, the other one shakes up the bottle of Coke and shoves it up his bum. The objective is to have two explosions at once. Given his screen history, we're guessing that this actor rather likes big explosions."

Thus explaining Coke's new jingle: I'd like to teach the world to schwing.

Brittany Murphy, 32. Actress. Found with ten prescription drugs by her bedside. Died of "natural causes."

James "The Rev" Sullivan, 28. Drummer for Avenged Sevenfold. Alleged drug addict. Died of "natural causes."

Casey Johnson, 30. Johnson & Johnson Heiress. Battled drug and alcohol abuse. Died of "natural causes."


Apropos of nothing, the Hollywood coroner also says it's totally natural when you OD on locally-sourced, organic cocaine.

Yesterday on the Alan Colmes radio program, anti-gay minister Scott Lively tried to downplay his role in Uganda's pogrom against homosexuals.

"I suggested they liberalize the law, not to make it more [harsh]," Lively tells Colmes. "What's the gay agenda in Uganda? It's the attempt to homosexualize the country like they did in so many other countries. . . . To change the moral foundation of the society, away from a marriage-based culture, to one of sexual anarchy."

"Uganda was never like that," Colmes replies. "In fact, gays were never accepted in Uganda, why would there be any thought that Uganda would homosexuality the country?"

The truly smart person seizes every opportunity to learn something new, and despite the fact this exchange sounds ridiculously stupid, we can still learn something new here.

PRESENT SIMPLE: I homosexuality.
PRESENT CONTINUOUS: I am homosexualitying.
PRESENT PERFECT: I have homosexualitied.
IMPERFECT: I used to homosexualize.
PAST CONTINUOUS: I was homosexifying.
PAST TENSE: I homosexualified.
FUTURE: I shall homosexualiate.
FUTURE PERFECT: I shall have homosexualiated.
PROGRESSIVE INFINITIVE: I am known to be homosexualifizing.
PERFECT INFINITIVE: I have certainly homosexualificated.

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