In their defense, the Sleep Number people said it came with a demonstration DVD and a free pillow.

They're willing to put down a 10% deposit or shoot somebody in a gold blazer.

The American Nursing Association is organizing a protest against Nurse Jackie, the Showtime program starring Edie Falco as a pill-popping, ethically-questionable nurse.

So, starting next week, Nurse Jackie will just lead people to little rooms, take their blood pressure, and show them pictures of her cockapoo wearing a tank top.

The gayest place in New York? The new High Line park. It opened unexpectedly yesterday, and word immediately hit the gay grapevine. So, while the straights in the city were waiting for the official opening this morning, every gay in the city has already been there, done that.

The park is on an old elevated railroad line that runs from the Meatpacking district up to 28th Street, right through the heart of Chelsea. Even just twenty or thirty feet up, the views are pretty good. You can look right into the second floor windows at the Phillips De Pury auction house and the Equinox gym. I should have known yoga would be a fun spectator sport: with profusive sweat and somebody shouting commands, it's got two of the three things I like about sex.

The park is minimalist and modern, but it was obviously designed by heterosexuals. What, no water feature, guys? There's an odd amphitheater centered around a giant window where you can watch the cars stream by. And the architects left some of the old railroad track just for nostalgia's sake.


Lots of wildflowers, lots of colorful plants.


This being Chelsea, the park has to butt up against some skanky billboards.


The new High Line park is definitely a city highlight -- fresh air, foliage, no bicycle messengers. Everybody friendly and upbeat, excited to see a positive change to the city. And of course the gays have already adopted it: a towelless tanner has left his outline in baby oil on a bench, and I saw a couple rather thick bears getting affectionate in some rather thin woods.

Repeat Monday: Two Mistakes

Every time Richard opens his mouth he makes two mistakes. "I absolutely love Picasso's works from his purple period," he declares at the art museum, staring in admiration at a tiny, colorful work.

These pronouncements always stop me in my tracks, because I never know which mistake to address first. In this case I say, "Actually, Picasso never had a purple period. And that picture in particular is a Mondrian."

"Oh," he says. He nods his head like he's suddenly semi-educated, when in reality he's just moving on to his next mistakes. He doesn't seem to realize how hard it is to talk to him. When somebody makes one mistake, the human brain can easily decipher it. One mistake is glaringly obvious: Ellen Degeneres is married to Portia de Rossi, not Tia Carrera. Narcissus aren't orange, they're white. One can't actually dodge taxes by diverting some of their income to a 10K. The brain decides whether or not the err is worth correcting, and that's the extent of that.

When someone makes two mistakes, though, additional parts of the brain are required, because the conversation receptor is thrown into overload. A dialog starts ping-ponging inside the head. It's like the NYPD caught a naked man holding up a liquor store and then couldn't decide whether the case should go to Violent Crimes or Vice. "Have you seen that movie with Roma Downey Jr.?" Richard asks. "Hawaiian Tropics?"

I have to mentally list all the possible permutations and then rank them by the likeliest. Does he really mean Roma Downey? Probably not. Nobody's meant Roma Downey in quite some time. No, odds are it's Robert Downey Jr. But he never made a movie about tanning lotion, right?

Meanwhile, Richard is standing there blissfully, not a thought in his head.

Now, I kind of like Richard. He's attractive and fun and professional, three qualities I've rarely found before, let alone in the same man. But I can't help but wonder. Making one mistake at a time marks you as an ordinary, fallible human. What does two at a time say?

Still, he's my man for most of December. I bite my lip when he tells me he has a crush on David Beckham, the rugby player who's married to Scary Spice. I sigh sadly when he announces that Oreo cookies are made by leprechauns. I watch in silence as he pours champagne into a martini glass that has colored salt around the rim.

And still, somehow, we make it into bed. The usual way, pretty much: we go out to dinner, drink a bottle of wine, go back to his place and start making out. "I bet you've got a big dick and you know how to use it," he whispers into my ear.

I say, "Oh, just shut up and lie down.""

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- A 23-year-old rancher who recently had his mobile home repossessed has claimed a $232.1 million Powerball jackpot. After taxes, Neal Wanless will take home $88.5 million dollars.

First thing he's going to do with the money? Tar and feather a revenooer.





BANGKOK (AP) -- The body of American actor David Carradine, best known for the 1970s TV series ''Kung Fu,'' was found in a hotel room closet with a rope tied around his neck and his genitals.

Faithful readers, rest assured that's never going to happen to me.

If my mind wanders for like a tenth of a second, even thread slides off.

Okay, so their version is better, but they don't write in their underwear.



(Thanks to Anonymous for the tip.)

I'm a big fan of Lisa Nichols. In case you live in a cave, she's an inspirational writer who has appeared on Oprah and was featured in The Secret.

Lisa now offers a course called "No Matter What!" that's a breakthrough in personal motivation. For just $327, this affirmational coaching service includes flash cards and CDs that will inspire and encourage you to go out and create your greatness!

Needless to say, Lisa has gone way beyond role model to me. In fact, I'm so excited about her work that I plan to follow in her footsteps. I'm going to write my own motivational program that may one day inspire other people to write their own motivational programs, and maybe one day those motivational programs will inspire still more people to write motivational programs.

I call it the Circle of Motivational Life, but don't even think about quoting me for free.

Cat diarrhea in my container garden today. It's official: there's absolutely nothing that will keep stray cats away. Not whirlagigs, not tulle, not mothballs, not cayenne pepper. I'm going to start leaving bran muffins out, so at least it'll be easier to clean up after them.

How You Know You're Old

You leave home in the morning carrying the same shopping bags you come home with at night.

Sometimes when you're dancing you realize you've accidentally started doing your aerobics.

On a bus, at the movies, at a funeral: you think any time is a fine time for a banana.

Queen Sofia of Spain has given Britain's Royals a lesson in austerity by flying to London on Ryanair for just £13.

Unfortunately she checked three bags and ordered a sandwich on board, so the total bill came to £217,000.

When I moved from L. A. to New York, I didn't realize I was moving to a small town. I found the apartment through an ad in the New York Times, and I didn't know about my new neighborhood. It wasn't a gay ghetto like Chelsea. It wasn't a punk fun zone like the East Village. It was Williamsburg, with three salami stores on every corner and thirty nosy old Italian widows on every block.

Now, I've always loved Italians. I had an Italian mother-in-law once, and I couldn't believe how hard she worked. She'd get up at six in the morning and clean the house from top to bottom, then make pasta for lunch by hand, all to keep her son happy. I come from a German/French family and my mother wouldn't have tossed her beer on me if I were on fire.

Before she agrees to rent me the apartment, Luigia quizzes me on the phone. "Are you married?" she asks. "Do you have a girlfriend? Do you do a lot of dating?"

I say no to all of the above, trying to sound more like Joe Jonas than Liberace, but I can tell she's suspicious. I don't have the most masculine voice, and with the notable lack of women in my life I think she senses that something is up.

Still, eventually she declares the apartment is mine. When my taxi pulls up in front of the building, though, and I find her waiting there in a lawn chair, I realize I'm not just moving into her building. I'm moving into her life.

"You finally got here!" she says, beaming at me and pulling the wrinkles out of her housedress. "How was your flight?"

"Long," I complain. "I had an aisle seat next to a woman with a baby. She was up every five minutes. My butt has never been so busy."

Just as I realize there's a touch of innuendo in that sentence I see the look of horror on Luigia's face. Without another word she flings my keys at me and then runs up to her apartment on the second floor.

As I unpack my boxes it hits me. Luigia knows I'm gay and she's cool with it -- as long as I don't bring it up. It's like we've got our own "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Obviously it's not the ideal situation, but with a big, cheap apartment involved I'm willing to play along. Besides, I expect a little homophobia from an eighty-year-old woman. She's got Catholic baggage to deal with. I didn't expect her to be hanging off the balcony, waving a rainbow flag and yelling, "I LOVE MY NEW GAY TENANT!"

So, I resolve to watch what I say. Everything will be fine as long as I watch what I say.

Unfortunately, Luigia is no longer speaking to me, so I don't get another chance. I see her wandering around, and while everybody else in the neighborhood gets an animated hello, I get an annoyed grunt. I do what I can to get back on her good side. I water the plants in front of the building. I clean the graffiti off. I take the trash cans to the curb for the garbage men. And after a couple of weeks, there's a knock at my door.

It's Luigia. "I just wanted to make sure you're eating right," she says, almost apologetically, handing me a big foil pan full of food. There's pasta and meatballs and sausages all covered in spaghetti sauce.

I thank her profusely -- homophobia goes down fine with me as long as it's catered -- and the next day she drops by to ask how everything was. I wrack my brain: I can't say I love sausage, because then we'll be talking about stuffing long tubes of meat into my mouth. And I can't say a word about those tasty crimson balls the size of my fist. The noodles were certainly . . . long, thin and coated in sauce. I throw up a thousand compliments in my head but shoot down every one. Italian food is all about gay innuendo.

When I look down at her she's staring at me and wondering if an answer is coming. "It was absolutely delicious," I finally say.

And so, over the months a bond forms. She asks me a question and I find a non-sexual answer, though I have to think for so long she becomes convinced there's something wrong with me.

One day she calls and says, "Roman, I'm going to call an exterminator -- a man who kills bugs -- for tomorrow. Will you be home?"

She's like the thoughtful grandma I never had, I think. I'm really going to like New York.

And I start to say I'll be in and out all day but finally just swerve it into a yes.

Two weeks after native son Kris Allen won American Idol, Arkansas residents are shooting rifles into the air, drinking too much beer, and hugging and kissing their relatives.

Yes, life has gone back to normal in the Show Me State.

Yeah, because they're not the ones who got knocked up.

Hey, it makes sense. I've seen quite a few that were more entertaining than Bolt.

I'm not a total idiot. I won't buy just any crap I see on TV. Regardless how good it looks, they've got to pay some people to say the product works to get me to buy in.

The Ab Circle Pro sounded too perfect. Just three minutes a day to achieve the abs of your dreams! Websites promised it. TV commercials promised it. The Home Shopping Network promised it, for a very short time offering the Ab Circle Pro for the exact same price as everybody else.

But their testimonials backed up the promises. On the Natural Super Foods Blog "Taylor" declares that a friend of his brother-in-law "used this machine and lost over 60 pounds in 8 weeks. . . . He said he just did it for 3 mins. a day."

Coincidentally, a woman on the Ab Circle Pro TV commercial gave the exact same quote: sixty pounds, eight weeks, three minutes a day. It sounds unbelievable, so let's stop and do the math:

Losing one pound means burning 3,500 calories, so losing sixty pounds means burning 210,000 calories. Over eight weeks, that means 3,750 calories a day. Three minutes a day means the Ab Circle Pro burns 1,250 calories a minute.

Now, that's pretty impressive. I mean, according to Good Housekeeping, step aerobics only burns 20 calories. Playing tennis, roller-skating, and swimming only burns 8 calories.

Lifting weights while you're playing racquetball doesn't come close. Chopping wood while you're jumping rope only burns 40 calories. Which, you know, comes up slightly short of 1,250.

Looking back at "Taylor"'s testimonial, I see his brother-in-law's friend was also "watching his food intake as well." Assuming three minutes on the Ab Circle Pro burns five times more calories than parasailing with a microwave oven strapped to each arm, that's still only 200 calories a day. This means he must have reduced his diet by 3,550 calories a day.

Which is more than most people eat.

Fuzzy math also characterizes Jennifer Nicole Lee's testimony, though maybe massive weight loss makes your brain go weird. According to the Ab Circle Pro website and the Home Shopping Network, she lost over 80 pounds! Well, or over 70 pounds, according to another website and her biography, but maybe it's hard to remember stuff when you don't eat. She talks about her weight loss on the Ab Circle Pro website, and in TV commercials. She sold it on HSN. Her before-and-after pictures are everywhere!




Jennifer totally turned her life around, and that's exactly what I'm going to do. Why, since losing that weight, she's become one of America's favorite fitness experts, even appearing on Oprah and on the covers of over 26 magazines!

I saved her story for last because it's most inspiring. See, her weight loss occurred before 2005, when she was named Miss Bikini America, and the Ab Circle Pro wasn't even trademarked until this year.

Jennifer lost her weight before she started using the Ab Circle Pro! Now that's the kind of results I need.

Researchers studying satellite images of Antartica discovered a huge deposit of reddish-brown penguin poo that was visible from space.

And an exhausted male penguin toddling away, holding a magazine.

How to Write Good, by the New York Times

From a Restaurant review:

[I]n one corner of the room is a stack of vases and bowls and artworks under a sign that reads "all for sale."

Oh. Okay. I'll take a vase and a couple bowls.

The Small Print: 70 Police Injured During Scuffle With Protesters

Today the L. A. Times has a big article on harem pants, with the headline "How to make them say 'sexy,' not M. C. Hammer."

Here's one of their pictures.


What make harem pants sexy? A flirty scarf. Chunky gold jewelry. Sparkly stilettos. Also, leave the ass flap cracked open an inch.

Is Your Blog Just a Useless Shill for NBC, Providing Occasional Chuckles for Underachievers at Work?

Do you have a link to anything from Conan last night?

Octomom jokes. Sports jokes. Jokes about his hair.

The bad news: Yeah, that's Conan. The good news: After 17 years, Letterman gets to know what #1 feels like.

When I moved to New York, I thought it'd be fun. I thought I'd be an oversized Mary Tyler Moore moving to another big city. I'd gaze up at the skyscrapers from a crosswalk and, way too suffused with big-city coolness to exhibit any visible signs of delight, at least mentally fling my beret in the air.

Instead, it was something like Godzilla moving to Tokyo. Are all big creatures that clueless? I wondered the first time a startled woman screamed as I lumbered past her in the dark. When Godzilla packed his bags to move to Tokyo, did he think, "Gosh, think of all the great museums I'll get to see!"?

See, nobody cares if you're short and serious. Short and serious is easily ignored. Salman Rushdie is short and serious. Maya Angelou is short and serious. When you're short and serious, nobody gives a damn. Because what are you going to do, hold a poetry reading without a permit?

When you're tall and serious, though, it's another matter entirely. Whether you're sniffing roses at a botanical garden or sipping tea at the Plaza, you're seconds away from the SWAT team being called. The maitre d' quavers slightly as he leads you to a table, then for the duration of your meal he stands ten feet away with a baseball bat behind his back.

After I'd settled into my new apartment I figured the time had come to find a dude to cheer me up. I threw on a jacket and headed to Christopher Street, but when I walked into the Piston everybody froze. It was like a scene in a movie where everyone's laughing and joking and then Mildred Pierce appears. Every eye zipped straight to me and watched in horror as I headed for the bar.

I hadn't gotten five feet when the manager scurried up. "You know this is an establishment for GAY MEN?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I know."

"So if you have a problem with GAY MEN," he continued, "you should leave IMMEDIATELY."

"I don't have a problem with GAY MEN. In fact, I was hoping to bring one HOME."

He shuddered, and I realized he was probably picturing me clonking my chosen partner over the head and dragging his lifeless body away. I pushed past him and got a beer but he stayed in my shadow, glaring at me like a Tiffany security guard watching Winona Ryder shop.

I did my best to ignore him but he finally wore me down. I gulped my beer and left. At the next bar, though, the scene was even worse. I wasn't three feet inside when the manager appeared. "PLEASE!" he shrieked, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. "WE DON'T WANT ANY TROUBLE HERE!"

I backed out immediately and walked the cold street in disbelief. Is this even possible? I wondered. This is the city where everyone's seen everything, yet somehow they come unglued spotting the opposite of Truman Capote? It's incredible. It's unbelievable. And I'm guessing it'd be even worse if they could see the scar I got opening that can of paté.

I spent most of the ride home staring at myself in the rear-view mirror. Yes, I'm a little intimidating. Okay, maybe scary. With deep-set eyes, angular face, and pointy black beard, I could have been the model for the guy who tried to kill Mulan. The serial-killer glare, though, pushed it way over the top.

I'll admit it: I'm not a smiler. I think smiles looks dopey. They're the default facial expression for people who think, "Isn't the Lord just grand?" Besides, I've always found masculinity attractive, and a big dopey grin doesn't exactly scream Sean Connery to me.

I'd never taken into account my size, though. I'm sufficiently large that I cast a shadow on people ten minutes before I'm close enough to talk. They see the darkness, feel the cold settle in, then spin around to see me, and that's when they take on the look of Melty Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Maybe I could crack a hint of a smile, I thought. I mean, my size is manly enough. I'm like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, sufficiently strange that a familiar facial expression is required to convey the idea that I had parents too. In fact, if the Hunchback had smiled a bit more I bet he'd be a dental hygienist right now.

I wasn't ready to go home but didn't think my ego could take another blow. Then it hit me: The Ramble in Central Park was supposed to be a sexy little fun zone for gay men after dark. I'd never been there before, never being that desperate, but now I craved it. After all that humiliation I needed the furtiveness, the shadowy thrill, the release. I needed to lose myself in weeds and dirt and sheer, unadulterated animal lust.

I wandered the twists and turns for twenty minutes without spotting another soul, then saw the red end of a cigarette glowing in the dark. I followed it to a handsome, broad-shouldered man leaning against a tree.

Yeah, I thought, this could work.

I fired up my new mantra in my head -- I'm not scary! I'm sociable! People like to be with me! -- and forced myself to smile as I approached. "Hi," I said. "My name's Roman."

He shot me a look of disgust as he shook his head. "Ain't nobody doin' no gay shit over here, officer."

One day soon, the Rapture will whisk all the believers to heaven while nonbelievers will be stuck on a tumultuous earth. The Anti-Christ will rise to power, and seven years later Jesus will lead his righteous army back to earth to fight the sinners in the battle of Armageddon.

Naturally, the good guys will prevail. Jesus and his gang will live peaceably for a thousand years, after which they'll head back to heaven while the nonbelievers will be cast into a lake of fire for all eternity.

On Tuesday, Sarah Palin's hometown paper The Frontiersman stated unequivocally: the Antichrist will be gay.


Which actually, you know, proves kind of helpful. Because a few inches left and down there's this ad:


Maybe I'm paranoid, but I'm thinking y'all better meet Chris, Danny, and Drew at Starbucks, just to be safe.

(Via Joe.My.God)

Last Tuesday, Bonnie Sweeten phoned 911 and told dispatchers that two black men carjacked her and her 9-year-old daughter, and stuffed her in the trunk of a Cadillac. Police later discovered evidence that the woman had emptied several bank accounts and stolen a co-workers driver's license before taking her daughter to Disney World.

Not even a year ago, Ashley Todd, a volunteer for John McCain's presidential campaign, called police to report that while she was using a Philadelphia ATM, a black, 6'4" Obama-supporter saw the McCain bumper sticker on her car and attacked her, actually carving the letter B (for "Barack") in her cheek. Charged with filing a false police report, Ms. Todd was sentenced to probation, along with mental health counseling.

And who can forget Susan Smith, who reported to police that she had been carjacked by a black man who drove away with her sons still in the car? The car was found in a nearby lake with the two boys inside and Ms. Smith is now serving life in prison for murder.

I don't mean to stir up a tempest in a teapot, but even the most cursory examination of these stories leads to an inescapable conclusion. Our society is in the midst of an epidemic that political correctness has forced us to ignore, and I for one am furious. It's time we break the silence and face the matter.

We simply cannot continue to allow our innocent white women to be violated by nonexistent black men.

Now, I know: all you bleeding heart liberals are immediately going to launch into debates of whether it's nature or nurture that drives these imaginary black men to crimes against white society. I'll tell you flat out, I don't care! I'm not going to spend another night tossing and turning while wondering if another fine, upstanding white woman is beaten senseless by another imaginary black man!

I've thought long and hard about this, so I'm just going to throw my thoughts onto the table.

I think we should urge our police to use racial profiling. Whenever they see an imaginary black man on the street, they should quiz him about his intentions and frisk him for imaginary weapons. Yes, it's harsh . . . but how easy is it for our poor white women to live in fear? If that doesn't work, I recommend creating an imaginary world in which imaginary black people would live, with imaginary schools, stores, and roads. Only then would I be able to sleep easy, knowing our fair flowers are safe.

Sure, the imaginary black community will call these measures extremist, but what have they done to solve the problem? Instead of bellyaching, maybe they should take some responsibility. Instead of feuding, we should join together knowing we're both working toward the same goal.

It's only through addressing this matter, though, that a solution will be found. With all of us working together, I'm confident we will prevail. Call me a cockeyed-optimist, but I know one day soon we'll turn on the TV news and hear about a nonexistent black man doing something good.

Maybe I'm pessimistic, but my first instinct is not to trust real estate developers. I mean, their power is pretty much dependent on their ability to lie -- e.g., Donald Trump -- so I've always discounted pretty much every word they've ever said.

Thor Equities, on the other hand, has shown me to be a total fool. Sure, they set out from Day One to destroy a landmark. They wanted to bulldoze Coney Island, New York's historic seaside playground, and replace it with luxury condos and a mall. After finishing the bulldozing, though, they realized the city wasn't going to bow down to their zoning demands, so their grand plans came to an abrupt halt.

Realizing New Yorkers weren't entirely thrilled with vacant land where an amusement park used to be, they decided to build a replacement attraction. "This summer we're proud to present a hip new approach to the old school open air market! Festival by the Sea is a totally new and exhilarating experience -– an exciting and festive place to buy handmade crafts made by local artisans, eat great food, hang out and see and be seen. Heck, we'll even have a tent devoted exclusively to gourmets called the Foodies Festival. Come on down and see: Coney Island's looking even better than before!!"

A month ago the flyers went up, and I started to get excited.


"Wow!" I thought. "Four tents! Gay banners! How festive! How fun! I can't wait!" Somehow I held off until the second weekend, to give them time to find their footing, and last Saturday afternoon here's the fest I found.


Yup, that's the grassy circle at the bottom left of the poster. Whee! I know people would have been meandering around the area just above the circle except it's really, like, a road.


This photo was taken from one end of the green tent, looking through to the red one.

I didn't take a picture of the blue or yellow tent because I don't like climbing over cyclone fence.


Is that a festival or what?

Sure, it doesn't look exactly like the poster. I mean, those are just big aluminum frames instead of tents. But aren't those balloons festive? Two of those frames are empty, behind fencing, and two are nearly empty, housing a total of maybe fifteen booths. There isn't any handcrafted work, and no local artisans, but they're fun booths! One sells wacky t-shirts. One sells Tupperware. One sells toys you'd otherwise have to go to Chinatown to buy. And one sells a gasoline additive that's guaranteed to quadruple your mileage. Heck, at gas prices these days, that's even better than some chick who makes purses out of felt.

I know there are some naysayers who'll whine that a lady selling homemade Caribbean food on a card table and a dude selling pickles isn't exactly a Foodies Fest, but it looked like a fine lunch for folks who like to eat stuff that a stranger made and then transported in the trunk of her car.

Anyway, in closing, I would like to add my voice to the thousands who have visited the Festival of Fun over the past few weeks
and say, New York politicians, let Thor Equities build whatever they want at Coney Island! They don't draw up preposterous, impossible proposals and then actually deliver a giant pile of crap, like the unscrupulous developers we all know. No, with this marvelous new festival, Thor Equities has proven that their ability to deliver quality work is more than a match for their vision.

Paleontologists Discover Proof of First Gay Dinosaur

Ladies and gentlemen, continuing in the I Love Lucy tradition of passing off burlap sacks as high fashion, I give you the Wearable Towel.


He's a confident young clubgoer. She's a fashion model. And they're both wearing the new trend that's taking America by storm, A Towel With Holes Cut In It.

Personally I prefer last season's Rubber Band Stretched Around Your Privates, but it's not scaring off the sharks like it used to.

Here's an American Idol scandal you can get angry about. Last week AT&T, the only mobile phone network you can use to text in AI votes, announced that 38% of the votes for the winner came from Kris Allen's home state, Arkansas.

And this week comes the announcement that AT&T held two parties in Arkansas specifically for Kris Allen fans in which they were given cellphones, taught how to "power text" -- send ten votes with one button press -- and allowed to text for free.

Stupid marketing, or conspiracy? Beats me. But throw this in with the gay-bashing judges on So You Think You Can Dance and you've got the gayest network on television acting pretty anti-gay.

The hardest part of a protest is trying to act pissed off. I mean, it's unbelievable how far gay rights have come in the last five years. We've got gay marriage in five states. Jay Leno advocates gay marriage. Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks Prop 8 will be overturned next year. We all know it's just a matter of time, and that time might just be a year or two.

Which means personally I find it hard to be angry. It's like being handed a sundae with 500 scoops of ice cream in it, but trying to frown and go, "Okay, but where's the cinnamon-rhubarb?"

You're walking down the middle of one of New York's busiest streets. Helpful policemen have stopped traffic for you. You're surrounded by handsome, politically-active gay men holding witty signs. (My favorite? "I'll go back in the closet if you go back to the bronze age.") In every building you pass, people spill out onto the streets to cheer you on.

Everyone is such fun it's honestly a delight to be there.

RABBLE-ROUSER WITH MEGAPHONE: WHEN I SAY "MARRIAGE!" YOU SAY "EQUALITY!"
BYSTANDER: MARRIAGE!
RABBLE-ROUSER WITH MEGAPHONE: EQUALITY! (Pause.) Hey, you messed that up.

Needless to say, acting irritated is a chore. What do we want? Maybe a frappuccino. When do we want it? Now.

I don't want to look stupid so I focus on the negatives. I can't believe Obama has betrayed us. I can't believe idiot voters in California passed Prop 8. I can't believe the country is letting tax-exempt institutions like the Mormon church get involved in politics.

Still, it doesn't really hit me until I go home and watch the news. "Hundreds" of protesters? How could "hundreds" of protesters stretch all the way from 5th to 6th Avenue? Why do they always focus on the dude with the feather boa? And who's that grinning, skinny idiot with the lousy posture?

Oh. Okay, now I'm mad.

The opposite of Twitter? 725 drunken, rambling stories about how people's lives have changed due to one sweeeet t-shirt. Spoiler: lots of trailer parks, lots of chest hair, lots of complaints that this bitchin' chick magnet deserves way more than five stars.

Well, I guess it was inevitable. Somebody named Tim Collins has written something called The Little Book Of Twitter which summarizes classic works in 140 characters or less.

Great Expectations: Orphan given £££ by secret follower. He thinks it's @misshavisham but it turns out to be @magwitch.

Ulysses: Man walks around Dublin. We follow every minute detail of his day. He's probably overtweeting.

Waiting for Godot: Vladimir and Estragon stand next to tree and wait for Godot. Their status is not updated.

I'll give you one off the top of my head. The Bible: Omniscient, all-powerful being decides to communicate via foliage.

A senior Chinese health official complained today that his country was being unfairly blamed for a flood of counterfeit drugs that have hit the world market.

He said his country is often misrepresented by the media, who ignore China's side of the story or intentionally seek to blacken their name.

"We're doing everything we can," the official told a news conference. "Now, everybody just chill out and take a Xanacks."

Oxford's First Female Professor of Poetry's Last Official Poem

I romp the boggy heath whilst the honeybees frolic
and the daisies' golden halos bewitch;
I'm hitting the road after just six days in office
because I'm a first-class mega-bitch.

A Man Does What a Man's Gotta Do To Avoid Becoming the Next Mr. Kate Gosselin

Bus Carrying 400 Abercrombie & Fitch Models Crashes in Spain

On the fence about attending one of the concerts in New York's upcoming Pride Music Series? Well, get a load of this, girlfriend: $1.50 of every $102 ticket to Sandra Bernhard is donated to the Heritage of Pride.

We're here, we're queer, we're throwing our spare change at charity.

Is grandma getting tired of penciling in those crazy eyebrows? Finding it too hard to get that perfect McDonalds arch? The eyebrow-transplant specialists at the Natural Hair Transplant Medical Center have the solution for you.

We'll slice a thin strip of hair from the back of your head and stitch it in above your eyes. Throw away that mascara! Throw away those eyebrow pencils! Finally medical experts have made a breakthrough you can use.


Unhappy with what God gave you? Come to us. St. Louis will die of jealousy after they see your arch!


We can even satisfy the craziest fan-chick. Carla will live long and prosper with the eyebrows of her favorite TV star!

God, I thought the day would never come: Bush is cleaning up shit instead of causing it for a change.

We win battles and we lose battles in the war for equality. There are now five states that allow gay marriage . . . but then all three judges on So You Think You Can Dance nearly puke up their tacos when two dudes ballroom-dance together.

Michael Jensen writes about it beautifully here. I'll just reinforce the part that made me scream ASSHOLE! at my TV set.

The judges waiver on whether the pair are good enough to continue in the competition, so they send them to the choreographer to see how fast they learn. Judge Nigel Lithgoe says they'll have to dance with girls now, though, and he adds "You never know, you might enjoy that, too."

That's pretty damned homophobic, but it's particularly offensive when you realize one of the two dudes is straight.

There's one fatal flaw to democracy. Since it takes time to research the issues, compare and contrast claims, hop in the car and drive to the polls, the vast majority of voting will be done by people who have absolutely nothing better to do.

College graduates? Busy. Corporate executives? Busy. Your grandma? Heck, she'll be at the polling place at 7 AM serving Ovaltine to her friends in line.

It's a sad fact that people whose daily plans include denture-clicking and shaking their bony fists at local youngsters have so much control over the world. This is why more politicians come out against gay rights than Medicare: because gay people are too busy making a living and building a social life to complain, while Grandma's had zero on her calendar since Mickey Rooney died. Mr. Politician isn't standing on principle: he just doesn't want to spend eight hours on the phone with a woman whose vocabulary consists solely of the words "Ya whippersnapper!" and "Whazzat you say?"

When American Idol offered one finalist from California and another from Arkansas, then, we could have predicted the result. California has six hundred Michelin-starred restaurants, twenty-six art museums, three Disney parks, and four Six Flags. Arkansas has a drive-thru Quiznos and the world's largest rubber-band ball.

Take a wild guess: the residents of which state had four hours to spend on the phone?

AT&T tells us this is exactly what happened. Almost a hundred million votes were cast last night, with 38 million coming from Arkansas alone.

More than a third of all the votes. From one state.

I hate to go out on a limb here, but I'll guess exactly zero of these folks thought, "I really enjoyed the gender-bending, envelope-pushing Adam's soulful interpretation of Tears for Fears' Mad World." Nope, we had half a million people think, "Hey, Kris! Kris Allen. The Krisster. Tha's ma boy! Hoo-WEE!" and hit the redial button with their PBR can.

If all this seems familiar, think back to election time. There's a suave, cool city dude in one corner, and a swaggering doof in the other. Kris knows he's got nothing going for him: heck, he only went to the audition to support his brother Dan. Like George W., you can see the fear in his eyes when his mouth moves faster than his brain. It looks like he has to concentrate to get both his eyes pointed in the same direction. He just sits back and lets himself get carried to the finish line by down-home folks who love the Lord and have nothing else to do.

So yup, it's no big win for democracy. We didn't get the qualified guy. We didn't get the talented guy. We got the regular guy. We got the church-going guy. Today they're putting up a "Mission Accomplished" banner in Kris' hometown. They're arranging a parade past the Dollar Tree, past where the Curves used to be. Of course, it'll be no vindication when Kris drops his first record and it lands with a thud. Because nobody cares about his singing. All that mattered was that he won.

The good news is, those of us with brains can commiserate. We can remind ourself talent endures while pretenders fade. We can thank our lucky stars that the Constitution only lets idiots vote once, or right now VP Sarah Palin would be urging Congress to dub tomorrow "Kick a Jew for Jesus!" day. Heck, even the American Idol producers seem to be on our side. Seconds before the show went black, they cut to Justin Guarini, a first-season finalist from Georgia. "Yo, bro!" Justin's thinking. "Hooray for the South! See you onstage in my dad's basement in about two weeks."

Right now Melania Trump is wondering, "What, is there a show called I'm Married to a Big-Haired Asshole -- Get Me Out of Here!?"

There's a big article in the New York Times today about readily-available plants that can kill.

The expert they quote recommends the nut from the suicide tree. "You can grind it up and put it in a pulpy kind of dessert — they use it in India — or conceal it in a curry." But if you don't cook, just dump it into coffee and it'll work fine.

And this morning the line at the garden center is six million people long.

Yeah, sure. The hair hat does wonders for him. But it's that "I know you wanna screw me" look that really gets me hot.

Glee is here! The long-awaited, much-hyped Glee finally made its debut on Fox last night, and I've got to say it's funny and hip and diverse and ironic and postmodern and unlike anything you've ever seen.

See, this straight white teacher wants to help the misfits in the glee club, though his straight white wife wishes he were in a more profitable profession. To make the club more hip, he blackmails the straight white football star into joining, and instantly the club's straight white Vanessa Hudgens-wannabe is smitten, though the hunk already has a straight white girlfriend. Surrounded by the hilarious ensemble of a gay, a black, an Asian, and a geek in a wheelchair, much hijinks ensue.

Oh. Wait. Maybe it's like everything we've seen before.

Fox has torn pages straight out of the Republican playbook to create this delusional crap. Since when did "diversity" mean adding minorities for comic relief? It was insulting in Gone With the Wind and it's insulting now. Since when did "equality" mean throwing on a queer kid who constantly worries about dirtying his Marc Jacobs sweater? It didn't work for Mel Gibson, and it's not working now.

New and hip? Ironic and postmodern? Sorry, no. This is the same old bullshit. In fact, maybe it's a step backward, blithely offering up the same old bullshit while pretending it's something new. Once again the diversity sits squarely behind the white stars. There's no lead singing or romance for that effeminate gay kid, or the fat n' sassy black girl, or the quiet Asian (who, something tells me, is going to have to decide whether to continue singing or devote all her energy to pre-med like her controlling, heavily-accented parents want.) The helpless geek in the wheelchair doesn't take center stage. Heck, he can't even find his brakes.

I'll concede one thing: the show tries to be postmodern. When the lead whites sing their first number -- "You're the One that I Want," which surely would have been spoiled by people of color -- FNSBG (Fat N' Sassy Black Girl) protests. She breaks up the number, declaring, "Hey, I ain't having it! You got Beyoncé here! I ain't no Kelly Rowland!"

But then for the finale's whites-only number, she's all "Doo wop. Bee bop. Doo wop. Bee boop."

Evidently between the first half of the show and the second, she learned something.

Heterosexual whites in the front. Everybody else in back, please, waiting for the white man to call.

My friend Ramona is an amazing gardener, and for years she tried to goad me into it. "It's so easy!" she declared. "Just throw dirt and seeds into a pot, and two months later you've got eight thousand zucchini!"

I resisted. It couldn't be that easy, could it? Besides, who needs eight thousand zucchini? But one day I saw a neighbor's garden and it hit me. I was wasting all this sunny cement in front of my house. Even if I didn't need that many zucchini, I could use a dozen or two, and in New York they're like three bucks each.

I went to the local nursery where the clerk convinced me to get ambitious. I bought seeds for zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, carrots, beets and lettuce. The clerk told me that contrary to Ramona's promise, dirt alone wouldn't do the trick, and he added organic humus and peat moss to the pile. I got excited. I was going to help the environment! I was going to save the earth! And then he led me to the planter department where I picked out two hundred dollars worth of orange plastic pots.

I needed a taxi to haul everything home, and tried not to think about the bill. Three hundred twenty dollars. Sure, I'd never spent more than twelve bucks on vegetables in my life, but somehow it'd pay off. I went to bed that night with dirt under my fingernails and a smile on my face. And the next morning I went outside and found cat diarrhea in every pot.

The dirt/humus/peat moss mix filled up eight Hefty bags. Sure, maybe the cat excrement was confined to the dirt's surface, but there was no way I could be sure. And though I had very few standards in life, I knew I couldn't eat a salad that had been watered by cat piss.

Before trying again, I checked online for ways to keep cats out of plants. One website offered a tip: cover the dirt with crinkled foil. Cats had a thing about foil. I went back to the nursery for new dirt and seeds, then to the market. I replanted everything, topped it with foil, and went to bed that night with hope in my heart.

And the next morning I found cat diarrhea streaked like graffiti across the foil.

Everything went into the trash again, and once more I went online. There was no way my $400 was dying in vain. "Cats hate tulle," somebody wrote. "Cover the pots with tulle and the cats will stay far away." So after buying the usual at the nursery I had the taxi driver take me to a fabric store, where I learned that (1) tulle is the fluffy netting used in dancer's outfits, and (2) it only comes in white or pink.

Once again I covered the dirt with crumpled foil before wrapping the pots in tulle. And the next morning I went outside and it looked like six ballerinas had pooped their tutus. I was emptying the pots into garbage bags when a neighbor girl rode up on a Barbie bicycle. "Why did you decorate your plants like that?" she asked.

"To keep the cats out," I said.

"Oh. My daddy said it's because you're gay."

I didn't know how to reply to that, so I went back inside and online. Someone swore that motion keeps cats away, so along with the usual at the nursery I got everything they had that moved. Hummingbirds with spinning wings, whirling plastic sunflowers, bumblebee whirlagigs. I put it all together and stood there assessing the damage. Tulle, foil, fake flowers, birds and bees. I was embarrassed to look at it, and I'd been to Barbra Streisand's farewell tour. If I'd painted the house pink and had Cher blasting on the stereo it wouldn't have been any worse. Still, in my heart I knew it wouldn't keep a New York cat away, and the next day I discovered I was right.

As I upended the pots into Hefty bags the little girl came back. "What are you doing?" she screamed. "It was the most fantastic garden I'd ever seen!"

"Well, I didn't like it much," I said. "And how about your dad? What did he say?"

"He didn't say nothing. He's too busy looking for somewhere else to live."

That night I tried to erase the whole thing from my memory, but first I called Ramona to tell her she'd made my life a living hell. "Why didn't you call me in the first place?" she asked. "Just sprinkle cayenne pepper all over the dirt. It'll keep the cats away."

I sighed. I hated her. I hated the situation she'd put me in. I hated trying to be productive but ending up wasting time and money and feeling like a useless fool. I'd give it exactly one more try before I gave up for good.

I pulled the planters out of the trash bags and bought another round of dirt and seeds. I planted everything again, this time liberally sprinkling the pots with the orange powder.

And it worked. Forty-eight hours went by, and the pots were untouched by cats.

I'd done it. I'd won. I stood there admiring my handiwork, mentally patting myself on the back and congratulating myself for beating a crew of sick felines. And once again, the little girl rode up. "It was waaay better before," she said. "It's not even pretty now."

"I'll bet your dad likes it, though, doesn't he?"

She nodded. "He doesn't talk about moving any more. He really hopes the pixie dust works."

What? Rumer Willis got a job through nepotism? Next you're going to tell me you gotta be a Spielberg to intern at New York mag.

When I first read this I thought it was about astronauts named Bolt and Battery.

But still I'm thinking, I'll bet I could sell the screenplay.

So, this Chinese entrepreneur named Lu Xiaoqing has a brilliant idea. "There's eighty billion people in China," he tells himself. "So sex must be popular, right? Then what could be more popular sex-themed amusement park?"

Makes perfect sense to me. I mean, Dolly Parton's got her own amusement park, and nobody's ever raced to the altar just to hear Island in the Stream.

Mr. Lu follows his dream and starts building Love Land, but then he decides the place could use a little publicity. This isn't such a brilliant idea. Word filters out about what he's doing and then the shit hits the fan. Less than 48 hours later, local officials declare the park an "evil influence on society" and the place is bulldozed.

Sigh. We can only guess the brilliance of what might have been with the few photos that exist.


Here are the sinks in the women's bathroom. There aren't any fixtures: smacking them on the ass turns them on.


Goddammit. I was really looking forward to riding the Wild Taint.


Now all that's left are ruins and an unspoken epitaph:

He tried to build it, so they could come.

(Via Jezebel )

One day someone will make a gay Da Vinci Code and the answer to this puzzle will be 2 7 11 2 10.

(From Awkward Boners)