Longtime journalist Helen Thomas has announced her retirement after her remarks about Israel provoked a minor scandal in Washington. The 89-year-old columnist apologized for saying Jews should leave Palestine, but faced with rebukes from the White House and the Correspondents Association, she decided to resign.

Talking tearfully to some of her coworkers, the woman dubbed the "dean of the White House press corps" said she's regretfully heading back to wherever the hell old people come from.

Today in the New York Times

Nope, it's water!

Alec Baldwin is heading to the Hamptons this weekend to star in Equus. The production will run from June 8 to July 13 at the John Drew Theater in East Hampton, NY.

They've made one small change to the story. Now when Baldwin gets nude, the horse blinds itself.

BP's millionaire CEO, Tony Hayward, is upset at the inconvenience caused to him by his company’s devastation of the Gulf of Mexico. The accident claimed 11 lives on April 20, and has since spewed 20 to 100 million gallons of oil into the Gulf. Immediately after apologizing, Hayward complained about the effect the disaster has had on him, saying “I would like my life back."

BP: Always trying to put a lid on it.™

A beachcomber in Galveston, Texas discovered a bag containing an estimated $2.1 million worth of cocaine.

At first the woman wasn't sure what she found, but when she put it to her ear she could hear Amy Winehouse sing.

The biggest fight? Who gets the Blankoat.

Stung by labor shortages and a rash of suicides at its factories in southern China, Foxconn Technology said Wednesday that it would immediately raise the salaries of many of its Chinese workers by 33 percent.

This is CRAZY. Who's gonna buy an iPad when they're $499.98?

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) said Wednesday night that she's issuing a proclamation declaring that Detroit Tigers Armando Galarraga pitched a perfect game.

A botched call by an umpire erroneously awarded a base hit to a Cleveland Indians batter.

Next on Gov. Granholm's agenda? Making it illegal to write down "Moby Dick" when you're playing Charades.

See, that's what happens when you hire gay scientists to explain the Big Bang.

People are concerned about Bethenny Frankel, who lost 29 pounds of baby weight in three weeks. And the baby was seriously underweight.

People are "concerned"? Are they really? I think not. Actually, the people in my circle can't wait to watch The Four Pound Babies of Beverly Hills.

Authorities are looking for a disgruntled porn actor who stabbed three co-workers, one fatally, with a Samurai sword.

The stabbings were reported around 10:20 p.m. Tuesday in the San Fernando Valley, a part of Southern California renowned for porn production.

34-year-old Stephen Hill grabbed a sword, which was used as a prop, and stabbed a co-worker in the back of the business, police said.

Well, it sounds painful, but it's better than being stabbed in the front porch.

Okay, it's time to start the backlash against singing.

What is singing, really? Pairing up words with music. Yes, it's diverting. It can be interesting. It'll pass the time when you're going for a drive.

But does it really deserve words like "Idol" to describe folks who are good at it?

I mean, it's crazy. Somebody rhythmically croons banal lyrics to a catchy tune and all of a sudden we're tearing our hair out for them? Singing doesn't help anybody. It doesn't accomplish anything.

We so ridiculously prize this "talent" that we've totally lost our country's core values. Our kids ignore worthwhile, productive pastimes in favor of something that virtually guarantees they're going to fail, and in the process provides them with absolutely no life skills. But how can they resist? They turn on the TV and see some fanciful character with one tiny, odd talent being treated like the second coming of Jesus, and all of a sudden they know what they want to do with their lives.

Let's wise up, shall we? Let's give our kids some real role models. Let's show some enthusiasm for the real heroes for a change. The folks who don't get up on a stage when they do their jobs.

Please, join me in emailing the TV networks and saying, ENOUGH! We are sick of it. There are far more important skills than singing, and I for one am not going to rest until So You Think You Can Blow Me is on TV.

I love this photo, supposedly of a Disney employee, because I'm totally in the "bad boy" camp. Really, what more could you ask in a man? Confidence. Muscles. A deadly weapon. And a sword!

Bored bloggers like RomanHans thinks standards are slipping at the Times.

Today on Gawker

M.I.A. was so pissed about her New York Times Magazine profile that she tweeted writer Lynn Hirschberg's phone number and then made a diss track about her. What a baby, right? Well. She had a good reason to be mad.

This was the single zingiest line in Hirschberg's profile:

"I kind of want to be an outsider," she said, eating a truffle-flavored French fry. . . .
That single passage summed up M.I.A.'s fundamental problem: the disconnect between her life and her stated ideals. That truffled fry did her in. But! John Koblin talked to Hirschberg and found out that Frygate was not what it seemed—in fact, Hirschberg is the one who ordered the truffle-flavored fries. . . . Oh ho!

"I was just trying to explain to her what was on the menu," she told The Observer on Tuesday. "I don't really have much of a comment about the French fries. I don't think the French fries illustrate that much about her character. . . . "

Bullshit, Lynn Hirschberg! You know that is bullshit! . . . It's abundantly clear that a journalist of Lynn Hirschberg's caliber knew exactly what that truffle-flavored french fry represented to readers: nearly unforgiveable hypocrisy. . . . The fry thing was the best line in the whole story, and it was a setup. Reporters do shit like that all the time, and usually get away with it, and, you know, that's the game, so don't be mad. But not this time.

A Quick Note from Joey D'Alessandro, Brooklyn Designer and DJ

YO YO YO, BITCHES: IT AIN'T CALLED A CANDLEBOX!

A Chinese elementary school is teaching its boys to be more manly after deciding they are turning into sissies.

Qinlinglu Elementary School in Zhengzhou, Henan province, has launched an initiative called Looking for a Real Man to encourage boys to act more like boys.

The youngsters are taught how to act more masculine, and must take an oath swearing to act like "real men."

Well, actually the teacher reads the oath, and the boys just reply, "Fuck, yeah!"

I feel bad for Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal, the three American "students" imprisoned in Iran, but it's impossible for me to defend them. They were "hiking" around the Iraq-Iran border, and a guard specifically told them to watch out. Apparently ignoring the warning, they strayed into Iran and they were thrown in jail, because -- as one of their mothers said recently -- "[t]hey didn't know where they were." It was "an accident."

First, it's impossible for me to get the concept. Hiking around a war-torn border? I'm not going hiking in New Jersey, and camels don't spontaneously burst into flame from the heat there. Is the world running so short of barren, rocky ground that people have to risk imprisonment by enemy dictatorships to enjoy it?

Because, you know, we're talking about one of the craziest countries in the world. Wouldn't you be a little careful when you're wandering around? Wouldn't you even, say, give up your little hikes? San Diego residents don't wander around the Mexican border at night. Me, I wouldn't get within half a mile of it, and I'd be even more cautious if I heard their scientists were trying to make uranium out of pinto beans.

The "students" were thrown in jail, where they've been held without a trial. Everybody's up in arms. And all I can think is, really? Is this so reprehensible coming from a place ruled by a dude we dubbed Mahmoud Imanutjob? Heck, they might not be treated that well in America. The Iranian government let their mothers visit them ten months into their imprisonment. Here, if you're on Medicare, you'll wait longer than that to see your dentist. You think we'd throw open the gates at Guantanamo because Col. and Mrs. al Akbar showed up with cookies?

Anyway, the mothers returned with good news: two of the kids recently got engaged to be married. Which also strikes me as a bit strange. They were in different cells, because he's a man and she's a woman. So how did he propose? You know, if I'm in some dark, dirty third-world prison, the last thing I'm going to do is stick my head through the bars and scream, "Hey, baby, wanna be my wife?" Even assuming you can get the right person's attention, is this a good idea? I mean, I turned a guy down once because he proposed over steak-and-scampi platters at the North Hollywood Red Lobster, and I didn't want to picture what our anniversaries would be like.

In the end, I'll say I'm sorry for the students, but otherwise I'm staying out of it. I'm with Imanutjob: this scenario doesn't sound particularly innocent to me. If you stray into hostile territory, you can't expect to be treated by American rules. I don't care if you're carrying a map and a rifle or eating cotton candy and pushing a stroller: "Oops!" is not a plausible explanation.

YESTERDAY:

Is trouble brewing in Hobbiton? Spies claim "Lord of the Rings" filmmaker Peter Jackson is vexing Guillermo del Toro, who is due to direct the two-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit." One insider contends an "exasperated" Del Toro is "tired for waiting" for production to start. "Totally untrue," says Del Toro's manager Gary Unger, who denies Jackson has been holding his client hostage in New Zealand. "Making this movie has been a dream of Guillermo's since he was a kid."

TODAY:

The Lynn Hirschberg piece on M. I. A. in Sunday's New York Times magazine is a repulsive piece of work. It floats pastel balloons of faux flattery and then shoots them down with an anti-aircraft gun, with the end result a portrait of a rock star who sounds something like a fraud. Ms. Hirshberger criticizes M. I. A. for standing up for poor people while living in Brentwood. Which confuses me. Is Jerry Lewis a fraud because he doesn't live in the children's ward at Cedars Sinai? M. I. A. commiserates with women in Sri Lanka while she gives birth "in a private room in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center." What, because she's ethnic and politically-active she should just squat down and squeeze the kid out at the corner of Sunset and Doheny?

I don't get Ms. Hirschberg's implied outrage. Are you supposed to stop caring about the poor once you get rich?

Threaded through the insults, though, Ms. Hirschberg seems to have a larger plot afoot. "Wouldn't it be great," she might have thought to herself, "if I can get M. I. A. to eat something that only filthy-rich white people eat while she's spouting all that claptrap about the poor?"

She sets the stage for her plot, I'm thinking, by choosing a Beverly Wilshire Hotel restaurant for their interview. That'll fix her, Ms. Hirschberg might have thought, because they ain't serving no rice and beans there. Judging from the retaliatory recording M. I. A. put up on her website, Ms. Hirschberg makes her first move almost the second ass hits seat.

"The only thing I've ever eaten here is french fries," bubbles Ms. Hirschberg. "They have three different kinds of french fries. They have, like, truffle -- " Ms. Hirschberg's words halt abruptly here, and you imagine her swallowing her tongue. "Can't give it away! Can't tip her off!" might have flashed through her head, because she immediately backtracks. "They have like three different kinds," she seems to correct. "It's very elaborate."

At this point it sounds like there's an edit in the audio tape. Maybe this is where Ms. Hirschberg decides M. I. A. is "surprisingly petite and ladylike," because, you know, young female rappers are always butch and refrigerator-sized. Meanwhile, maybe M. I. A. peruses the menu, but still can't decide. "I'm just going to have some starter," she says.

"Get whatever you like because the New York Times is paying," says Ms. Hirschberg. You know she's got her fingers crossed, like PLEASE GOD ORDER SOME CHAMPAGNE!

Maybe M. I. A. starts talking about Sri Lanka here, or about the Tamil Tigers, or about singing while pregnant on the Grammys. And maybe Ms. Hirschberg just can't concentrate while her plot is afoot. Because her next line on M. I. A.'s recording dwells on a familiar topic. "There's one that's truffled, one that's spicy, and one that's classic. They come, like, in little baskets."

At this point, you can almost picture M. I. A. thinking, "Could you please SHUT UP about the goddamn french fries?" But Ms. Hirschberg is probably sending up flares for the nearest waiter. "Can we order the french fries?" she asks. "That come on the bar menu? The basket?"

If you're sensing desperation in all this, you are not alone.

It's possible the rest of the meal was uneventful. Perhaps at this point Ms. Hirschberg kicked her shoes off and loosened her girdle, because she knew she'd won. If M. I. A. said anything even remotely political while she was eating, Ms. Hirschberg would bag her game.

Unity holds no allure for Maya — she thrives on conflict, real or imagined. “I kind of want to be an outsider,” she said, eating a truffle-flavored French fry.

Ms. Hirschberg, I'm not sure why you're a journalist, considering M. I. A. seems to be the person who's offering the truth here. If you wanted reality in this article, you'd have added the disclaimer "that I ordered because they're really elaborate and they're, like, in little baskets and they're really, really YUMMY!!!" But no, you set up the photo and then you snapped it.

Making you a bully and a bitch.

I'll even throw in fries with that.

You love cheap vodka. Sure, it has its side effects. You've had killer hangovers. You've slept with skanks. You have actually tasted Slim Jim.

But at the very least, haven't you learned the Russian words for, like, eight different fruit flavors?

Guess again, whitey. All those Stoli flavors that sound authentically Russian are just made-up words. They're nonsense. They take an English work and clap an umlaut on it, or tack a v on the end. Let's see, smarty, how good you are at matching the Stoli flavor with the real Russky thing.

(1) Applik
(2) Razberi
(3) Blueberi
(4) Peachik
(5) Strasberi
(6) Blakberi
(7) Cranberi

(a) Persik
(b) Klyukva
(c) Malina
(d) Klubnika
(e) Yabloko
(f) Chernika
(g) Yezhevika



ANSWERS:

1e, 2c, 3f, 4a, 5d, 6g, 7b

For years I've been complaining about how everything we know is wrong because scientists believe in God. "Animals are pure and unspoiled, unlike people," they declared, "so naturally they're faithful and monogamous!" They were so positive they didn't bother to do any studies, and just blithely parroted that theory. And then some atheist wandered through a forest and noticed there were monkeys fucking everything that moved. Female monkeys, male monkeys, squirrels, scientists in fetching shorts.

The atheist tried to spread the word, but people refused to give up that warm and fuzzy picture. They didn't want some godless heathen shooting down their ideal of mating for life. The movie March of the Penguins went particularly moronic: literally two minutes after declaring penguins monogamous, narrator Morgan Freeman mentioned that, though penguins can recognize their mates among millions of lookalikes, they hook up with new partners every year.

Did I get the word "monogamous" wrong? Does it really mean "just sleeps with one thing at a time"? How can they claim this is majestic when it's the animal equivalent of a trailer park?

Unfortunately, a recent study of gaydar doesn't improve on things, though it's slanted in a pinker way. Scientists showed test subjects pictures of rectangles inside of squares and asked the subjects what they saw. The heteros quickly answered, "Squares!" which, of course, is kind of wrong. The gays, on the other hand, took more time, but eventually they correctly declared, "Rectangles and squares."

The scientists thought long and hard about this, and finally came up with a theory: gays are better than straight at noticing little details. And obviously we can extrapolate this theory, because if gays notice rectangles more than straights, wouldn't they be more likely to notice your stylish shoes? Your flattering haircut? Your David Sedaris books, and Liza Minnelli record?

Which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt: GAYDAR EXISTS!

Preposterous.

See, here's the catch: the heteros were faster than the homos to answer. Who knows -- maybe if they'd taken more time, they'd have gotten it right too.

I really hate to say this, because the researcher's conclusion would be powerful. If gays are better at noticing details, wouldn't they make better detectives? Lawyers? Soldiers? Along with, of course, dress designers and hairstylists.

So, my apologies to everyone, including Dr. Lorenza Colzato of Leiden University in the Netherlands. Better luck next time. Because the real conclusion, the unbiased conclusion, is this:

Heterosexuals are fast and stupid.

It ain't exactly gaydar, but it'll sure be easy to confirm.

What Disney Teaches Girls

Not to mention, Always keep a hand near your face so straight dudes know where to look.

(Boing Boing via Joe.My.God)

Like I don't say it often enough, I love love love my iPhone. Every day I find four or five new apps I just can't live without. In fact, today I found one that shows what the guy who actually built this very phone is doing right now.

I don't care what M.I.A. is saying. Just wanted to mention that women who are breastfeeding should probably avoid this dress.

The head of the agency that oversees offshore drilling resigned today under pressure.

S. Elizabeth Birnbaum, who took over as director of the Minerals Management Service last July, disclosed her resignation to colleagues on Thursday morning, just hours before the president was scheduled to discuss the oil spill.

Difference between this administration and the last? Obama never said, "Heckuva job, Birnie."

Here's the main reason the world's going to end badly: we don't stop idiocy. Really, it's ridiculous. In fact, if the country is so crowded we have to start deporting people, I say we choose the stupidest and dump him, rather than just some dude who doesn't have the paperwork.

Over and over I see the same idiots pop up in the news with a fresh round of stupidity. And I think, why don't we have Idiot Filters? Shouldn't this dude have been marginalized by now?

What's pissing me off today is the "Family Research Council"'s argument against repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Peter Sprigg, a Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the FRC, declared that it would be a disaster, because "homosexuals in the military are about three times as likely to commit sexual assaults as heterosexuals are."

Now, he didn't just pluck this figure out of the air: he found it deep inside his ass. No, I mean, it comes from a study he wrote that's based on hard facts. Let's take a closer look.

Less than three percent of Americans are homosexual or bisexual. . . . [I]t seems logical to assume that the percentage of military personnel who are homosexual is likely to be lower than it is in the civilian population. It is hard to come up with even a plausible theory to suggest how it could be higher.

Really? Obviously Mr. Sprigg lacks imagination. I'm a 20-year-old gay man with my whole future in front of me. Should I stay here in Bag O'Pretzels, Wyoming, or spend the next four years in close quarters with sexually-deprived, hunky dudes?

Nevertheless, more than eight percent of sexual assaults in the military are homosexual in nature. This is nearly three times what would be expected. . . . This suggests that homosexuals in the military are about three times as likely to commit sexual assaults than heterosexuals are, relative to their numbers.

No, actually this suggests that somebody failed Logic 101. See, this leap of faith assumes that these assaults were perpetrated by homosexuals. How, exactly, do we know that? These men denied their homosexuality when they enlisted. Did they confess after they were arrested? "I couldn't stop myself, because he's hot and I'm homosexual." Or, for those drama-queen Marines, "He-LLO! I'm A GAY!!!" It's hard to come up with a plausible theory to suggest why somebody who's in trouble will admit to something that's even worse. Like, if you're caught cheating on your taxes, you claim you were drunk, or confused, or temporarily berzerk. You don't say you've been under a lot of stress since you killed those girls.

Instead, Mr. Sprigg uses reverse logic: a male who sexually assaults another male is gay. Which means half of the men in prison are homosexual.

Which is preposterous. I mean, have you seen their flower shop?

In a perfect world, the Logic Police would intervene. "It's idiotic," they'd declare, and Mr. Sprigg would be forever banished from public discourse. Instead, we've got free speech. Which means honest, free-thinking people will be annoyed by idiots until chickens colonize Mars.

By the way, I enjoyed this icing on Mr. Sprigg's Stupid cake.

The most common type of gay attack . . . is "one in which the offender fondles or performs oral sex on a sleeping victim."

Note to dude: the most common thing can't be two different things. Or is he saying touching a penis is the same thing as performing oral sex on it? In that case, every time I get a rash, my doctor blows me.

John Corbett, from Northern Exposure and later Sex and the City, offers some advice to men in relationships. "Don't let the lizard out of the cage," he said. "If you just don't let the lizard out of the cage, you're going to be all right."

Oh. Okay. Maybe that's good advice, but speaking personally, my lizard's going to die if it can't occasionally jump onto a different branch.

December, 2017. Unemployment has officially hit 100% among Americans as undocumented workers have taken virtually every job previously held by a citizen.

"We started down this slippery slope back around 1980," said Rep. Antonio Cardeño of Utah. "Undocumented migrants from Mexico were tolerated, even welcomed, by politicians and businessmen who said they did the jobs Americans didn't want to do."

Eventually, citizens of other countries took advantage of this attitude, moving to these shores and undercutting American pay requirements in virtually every field. "It was great for business," Rep. Cardeño said.

"Eastern Indians took over our computers and technology, Germans took over the farming and cattle industries, Asians took over the auto industry and entertainment," declared Ming Wei Chan, who replaced Laurie Eisner as president of Disney when she decided not to accept a pay cut to $140 a week. "I certainly don't see us as usurping these jobs: we simply provide better value for money, and that helps the economy. If we had to pay our employees minimum wage, nobody could afford to see our films." He then told us to keep an eye out for "Oh Look Happy Donkey!" to be released in Spring of 2018.

According to an informal New York Times poll, there are just two employed American citizens left: a 60-year-old women who works at a See's Candy Store in Hollywood, and a 55-year-old man who runs a dirty movie theater in New York. Both say they're not happy working for peanuts, but they enjoy having their hands full.

Rep. Cardeño recognizes that having 800 million able-bodied people sit at home watching television isn't particularly healthy, but he says we've learned something important about capitalism in the process. "It turns out Americans really don't want to do any jobs," he said. "They only do them because they pay good."

Okay, it's repetitive. But I'm a huge David McAlmont fan, and considering we probably aren't going to see another release from him in thirty years, I'm enjoying it.

Deal Reached for Ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

President Obama, the Pentagon and leading lawmakers reached tentative agreement Monday on preliminary negotiations for a timetable to study a possible repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, clearing the way for Congress to do something or other in as soon as a year or two.

Both sides say the agreement is a startlingly forceful action by a determined president while also a compromise that addresses the Pentagon's unwillingness to do anything at all.

House Democratic leaders met Monday night to consider taking up the measure as soon as November. Even if the measure passes, however, the policy cannot change until the Pentagon declares they're ready. Meanwhile, gay servicepeople will have to sit on the couch and wait while the Pentagon occasionally shouts, "Just five more minutes!" from the bathroom until the Mayan calendar says everything ends.

Representative Patrick J. Boblinko, a leading advocate for repeal, is hoping to attach the proposal to a bill proclaiming October 12 National "Take a Senior to Bingo" Day. Before the measure takes effect, however, Mr. Obama, his defense secretary, the joint chiefs of staff, and eight blue-haired ornithologists from Bangor, Maine would be required to certify that repeal would not harm readiness nor deter the winter migration of the Mexican shrimp-picker, Arctis Tinctararus.

Some gay rights advocates complained that too many conditions were attached to the repeal. For instance, the entire compromise hinges on Lee DeWyze winning American Idol. But the president of the Human Rights Campaign, Joe Solmonese, said the deal "looks like some kind of progress, and that's all we need to keep raising cash."

Already this year, the administration says it has made significant progress toward undoing the policy. Just last month, for instance, Col. Wyebreth Bostitch declared that he had absolutely no intention of pursuing discharges of service members who have told him they are gay. Critics, however, argued that that this wasn't actually progress, seeing that Col. Bostitch is a dance instructor who lives with his partner in Seattle, Washington.

The measure, if passed, would enable gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military for the first time, though most agree humans will have evolved the power to make things explode just by squinting at them long before then. "This is change we can believe in," President Obama declared triumphantly at a mid-morning press conference, "because it doesn't make us do anything different."

Okay. I've finally reached bottom. I am totally ready to acknowledge my powerlessness. I am in bad shape, and there's nothing I can do to help myself.

COULD SOMEBODY PLEASE GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF INDONESIAN FACEBOOK?

I did not open an account with Facebook and tell them I'm Indonesian. I have absolutely no idea how anybody would do this. And yet, I've had three emails today -- IN INDONESIAN (thank you Google Translations), of course -- welcoming me. And here's the really weird part: I already have a friend there.

I thought, well, if I could log into my real account, I could figure out what buttons I have to hit to kill this account. But so far I've clicked on nine hundred Indonesian words (like dikituk and ulanguk and sandiluk) and discovered none means "Log out" or "Ask a representative WHY THE FUCK YOU HAVE AN INDONESIAN ACCOUNT."

So, to my real friends in Facebook, my apologies if I don't answer your notes. In any language. And to anybody emailing me, I'm going to run out of mailbox space very soon because of Facebook's helpful missives full of gibberish, so I'll just say goodbye now.

Silver lining? Oh, okay. I got myself a sweet little merpati in FarmVillukichuk.

There's a lot I don't understand about New York, but one of the strangest is the flourishing massage field. On the high end, Caucasians with diplomas rub you for upwards of two hundred dollars an hour. Slightly out of my range, considering my whole retirement plan is based on the premise that doctors only charge a quarter of that. I don't get it. It's not justified. I'm certainly not paying that kind of money to some tofu-eating yoga dabbler with bedhead.

On the low end of the spectrum, Chinese people set up tents at street fairs, drag in a couple of massage chairs, and offer ten minute massages to people for ten bucks.

Which works out to an hourly rate that's double what I earn with nearly a college degree.

In my view, these establishments serve exactly one purpose: they explain why foreigners pay people to smuggle them into the U.S. Just picture the bedtime stories they tell in Shanghai: "In America," Auntie Chen says little Mai Li, "you put a chair out on the street and squeeze somebody's buttocks for a minute, and they give you thirty million yuan!"

"That's bullshit," little Mai says. "Now tell me about that nanny who flies with her umbrella again."

I'm far too cheap to buy into any part of this scam, but recently a well-meaning friend gave me a gift certificate for a foot massage. I tried to keep an open mind. It could, possibly, be worth the money. Half an hour of bliss and a day or two floating on air would almost justify the price. Seconds after the guy started, though, I knew we weren't getting there. He didn't seem to know what he was doing, and I'd squeezed chicken nuggets with more oomph.

"As hard as you can," I instructed.

"I'm just warming up," he replied.

Right then and there, I nearly leapt up and stormed out. "Warming up"? For that kind of money, I expect dudes to stretch beforehand. I pay my plumber by the hour, and I'm not just going to sit there while he gets in touch with his tools. Minutes passed and, if anything, my masseur just got worse. The spa called this treatment "reflexology," but it felt like somebody was just randomly, absent-mindedly squeezing me, like a Jewish mother with bad aim. This massage was supposed to be about my pleasure, but here -- laying flat on the table, with my pants off -- I felt like I wasn't the center of attention. I felt like my pleasure was an afterthought.

Suddenly, a horrible thought occurred to me. Not only was he being too soft, but he was also just using one hand.

Now, regular readers here know about my past with foot fetishists. I wear size thirteen shoes, so I am to foot fetishists what Justin Beiber is to twelve-year-old girls. I'd worried about this earlier. We've all heard that tired old maxim, "Do what you love." Do what you love. "Why, I love feet!" some of these dudes must have thought, and they could easily have ended up here.

So, against my better judgment, I raised my head. I saw the masseur staring straight down, a wide smile on his face, and I followed his gaze. And sure enough, he'd whipped it out. There it was, out in the open, firmly held in one hand.

"No," I said, hoisting myself to my elbows. "Definitely not."

He glanced up and shot me a guilty look. "Sorry," he said. "I was hoping you wouldn't notice."

"Well, I noticed. And now you can put it away."

It looked like he was going to follow my direction, but then he balked. "At least let me finish. It'll just take a second."

"No," I repeated. "I don't want to see it. And frankly, I think it's insulting. Sure, I'm half-naked, laying here in my underwear, but you know what? I still demand respect. In my day, anybody who saw these feet would have masturbated over them."

"Really?" he replied. "Well, they're okay feet, but -- " And then his BlackBerry shook and he punched a key. "Hang on, I just got another text."

After reiterating his stance that businesses should have the right not to hire black people, Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul of Kentucky also said laws protecting the handicapped went too far.

"I think a lot of things could be handled locally," he said. "I think if you have a two-story office and you hire someone who's handicapped, it might be reasonable to let him have an office on the first floor rather than the government saying you have to have a $100,000 elevator."

Is Rand Paul crazy? I'd hire a militant Pakistani before I'd hire some dude who's gonna whine until I drag him up to the second floor.

From a Craigslist roommate ad originating from a Department of Defense researcher: "On our bathroom door is a checklist. I like to keep a record of my bowel movements and I expect you to do the same."

Well, okay. Just give me a call before you flush.

It's frustrating living in New York. On the one hand, you get to applaud yourself for being in the center of the world. In Williamsburg, you live a block away from LCD Soundsystem, Panda Bear, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It's like 17th century Florence for hipsters.

Sadly, though, you notice signs that indicate you're not quite as hip as you hoped to be. You don't recognize a single band on Pitchfork. You see ads for sold-out concerts and you don't know any of the names.

At Janelle Monae's concert at the Highline Ballroom Tuesday night, though, I'm feeling pretty smug. Her debut, The ArchAndroid,comes out that same day, so nobody has heard of her. Me, I'm not so sure about the record. I've listened to it exactly twice, and her voice isn't that memorable. She sounds like a soprano Teena Marie, but without the soul or range. The songs are anonymous and overproduced, which may have something to do with the phrase "produced by P. Diddy." Four or five songs sound like Queen played by Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band.

Still, three or four songs are fantastic. I can't get "Tightrope" out of my head. When I get an invitation in my email, I immediately RSVP.

The show is amazing, and in this tiny club I'm literally four feet away from her. She's posing like Grace Jones, dancing like Michael Jackson. She does James Brown's counting and anguished collapsing and "I need my cape!" routine. She does an extended version of "Tightrope" and the crowd goes wild. The floor is bouncing like a basketball underneath my feet. Janelle turns up the heat for a couple more songs and tears the roof off the joint. She makes a triumphant exit, dripping sweat, and we're left stunned. Was that really as amazing as we thought it was?

As the crowd slowly shakes off their astonishment, mentally I pat myself on the back.

Luckily, impossibly, in the three seconds that elapsed between Ms. Monae's total obscurity and worldwide idolatry, I got her record and got into her secret small-club show.

I think, finally. I've got it down. I've figured it out. I'm on top of the heap.

And then the announcer says, "Hey, everybody, let's do the Tightrope Dance!" and as the entire crowd starts to flail in unison I think Fuck you. Fuck you very much.

Fine, I'll wizz in the sink.

I know this'll be a little controversial, but every day I'm just a little more proud of this great country we live in. Sure, maybe the Swedes got equal rights for everybody, the Chinese own most of our land, the French guzzle assertive little Merlots while sitting at their desks, but the U. S. of A. leads them all because of a little thing called Free Enterprise.

For example, take a look at this robot created by a Japanese company. It looks like something out of Robocop, kind of like a person and kind of like a robot. It walks and talks and all that shit. Americans look at it and think, "Christ, what a lot of work! No wonder the Japs are always killing themselves."


We Americans, on the other hand, don't work harder: we work smarter. When Anybots of California decided to build a "telepresence robot" they pared down the requirements to the shortest possible list. Like the Japanese, they wanted a robot capable of movement and speech. But then they asked the tough questions. "Do we really want a robot to look robotic?" they wondered. "Does it really need arms and all that shit?" They pared down the essentials to the shortest possible list and got the job done quick.


Brilliant, huh? Try looking at that thing and not seeing the good ole' Stars and Stripes. I mean, c'mon: your grandma would poop her drawers if she saw that Japanese thing coming at her, but even the wussiest kid on the block wouldn't blanche at this potty chair on a stick. That's good design. Good work, dudes! Now go hang ten, you hodads: your work here is done.

Rezo Gabriadze's new theater piece for the Lincoln Center Festival has been cancelled.

Due to health problems, Mr. Gabriadze who is in his 70s, has not finished “Ermon and Ramona," which he describes as a “tragic tale of two trains in love."

Goddammit. I was really looking forward to it after seeing pictures of the sex scene.

Clint Black's Favorite Weekend

For fun, we love a place in Hermosa Beach called the Comedy & Magic Club, and we also like the Hollywood Bowl and Greek Theatre for music. And I saw Boston and Styx at Universal the last time they were there. I have pretty wide musical tastes.

Well, I'll say. There's enough room to squeeze Foreigner in there!

At some point, I want to see Improv Everywhere live and in the flesh. Their latest stunt was a public service designed to publicize budget cuts for New York libraries, and had them re-enacting the opening of Ghostbusters in the colossal old library on Fifth Avenue, where the original was filmed.

New species of frog discovered. Biologists shocked! Blah blah blah.

I saw it coming twenty years ago.

I could have danced all night.
I could have danced all night.
And still have begged for more.

Oh, please, Professor Higgins! Pretty please! Yes, I realize the sun is coming up, and the orchestra has left, and your legs are swollen like sausages inside your seersucker pants. But this is the first time I've ever been to such a marvelous fete, and I really don't want to leave.

Yes, I realize the only people left are the serving help. I realize they've stopped serving champagne, and the canapés are all gone except for some dried-out pizza rolls. Yes, I realize Lord and Lady Walthorpe, our hosts, have long since retired, but they said we could stay forever if we wanted. Yeah, ya dolt, I know what sarcasm is.

But that doesn't mean we have to go home. Does it? Either dance with me or get me a pizza roll.

Oh, you bastard. I should have known you'd be a wet blanket. Well, go home! I don't need you. An unplucked flower like me can find plenty of obliging gentlemen. Hey, Jorge! Wanna see a real lady do the Forbidden Dance? Oh, get back here, you bastard. I ain't the INS.

C'mon, please. Just one dance? We don't need no orchestra. I got bangin' tunes on my iPod. I promise I won't say one word about your breath. I won't call you Miss Higgy for an entire month.

Aw, c'mon. Hey, getta loada dis. I learned it from another swell gentleman who instructed me just prior to yourself. He also tried to transform me from an uncouth scullerymaid into a lady fit for society, and he din't have no untoward interest in me neither. He spent a whole season following Michael Flatley around Ireland too.

Fine. Okay. If that's the way you want it, that's how it'll be. I sure hope, though, that while I'm dancing with somebody else I don't accidentally tell them that youz be starin' at Rhett whenever you pause your Gone with the Wind DVD.

Goddammit. Okay, I'm sorry. Now you done gone and changed me back into a tramp, youz got me so mad. I just wanted to dance, ya bastard. I practiced. I got my Riverdance moves. Sure, I don't exactly look like one of yer hoity-toity ladies, but see if any of them can crack a walnut between her thighs.

Fuck y'all. GO HOME. I can find my own ride. Hey, Paco! C'mere a minute. Christ, does the border patrol wear seafoam crinoline around here?

A man checking in firearms to use at a store's indoor firing range accidentally shot a shopper when one of his weapons discharged.

The 52-year-old San Bernardino, California man was placing six guns on the front counter of Bass Pro Shop on Sunday when he noticed the hammer on a gun was pulled back.

He pulled the trigger of the .45 caliber handgun, apparently thinking it was unloaded because the magazine was removed. But the weapon went off, hitting a nearby woman in the buttocks.

Authorities said the shooting appeared to be accidental and no crime was committed.

Four gay rights activists in the vicinity, however, were immediately taken to jail.

The shooter was said to be apologetic, after initially shouting, "Look, ma, I bagged a big one!"

Well, it's a good start, but I'm going to hold out for Volume 4: The Mute Button.

Physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory are reporting that they have discovered a new clue that could help unravel one of the biggest mysteries of cosmology: why the universe exists.

The new clue hinges on the behavior of particularly strange particles called neutral B-mesons. They oscillate back and forth trillions of times a second between their regular state and their antimatter state. The mesons go from their antimatter state to their matter state more rapidly than they go the other way around, leading to an eventual preponderance of matter over antimatter of about 1 percent, when they decay to muons.

Fuck it. Okay, an omnipotent old white guy made us.

Once a year the International Contemporary Furniture Fair hits New York, bringing with it every gay designer and decorator in the universe. New York's finest stores seize the opportunity to attract new clientele, so literally every night for almost a week there are fifteen or twenty fetes beckoning the upscale, the stylish or, in my case, the poor drunk.

Unfortunately, the recession has taken its toll on the budgets, so these parties aren't quite as lavish as they used to be. Core77 served beer at their party -- beer! One wondered if the Hooters girls were going to show up next. Yigal Azrouël's bash was supposed to introduce Fenom absinthe to the world, but they claimed they couldn't get the proper permits so they served effervescent Shell gas instead.

Artemide went to quite a bit more work with the same results. Their dreadful signature cocktail was made of vast quantities of vodka with a mystery ingredient that colored it Smurf Blue. Bisazza's prosecco went down a bit easier, helped by addictive little chocolate ganache ice cream cones and truffled popcorn.

Out Magazine's little bash -- it may have been a private party unrelated to Furniture Week, but who am I to argue? -- was by far the most fun, with a DJ playing Lady Gaga and four flavors of Belvedere vodka offered by hunky, shirtless waiters. Of course, after an hour or two of serving they exclaimed "Fuck this!" en masse and leapt atop the banquettes to dance, but we all know you can't keep a good go-go boy down. Their gift bag contained, naturally, a copy of Out Magazine and a bottle of vodka for that long cab ride home.

Yes, that's right: in New York City, one goes to parties thrown by capitalist enterprises that get you drunk, feed you and then send you home with free gifts. Only the bitterest heterosexual would say this is the kind of business model that's destroying Greece.

While the average person would have gotten a pocketful of business cards from successful, attractive designers, I got exactly zero. Mind you, I had several thousand conversations: it's just none came near the Everest of witty banter that TV shows like Bones and Moonlighting have led me to require in a man.

At the Kartell party, an attractive man sidled up next to me and opened with the rather banal, "You're very handsome."

"Thanks," I said.

"I'm gay," came his uninspired follow-up.

I smiled. "I think nine out of ten of the men here are."

"So," he said, shooting me a smoldering look over his cocktail, "are you Guy #8?"

I claimed to spot an old friend across the room and literally ran for the hills. Okay, maybe I'll never get the witty banter I want, but can't I find a guy who makes sense?

On the fashion front, chest hair is clearly making a comeback. Nine out of ten of the male partygoers proudly showed off their assets, some with one button cheekily unfastened and some going pirate-style, exposing vast swathes of their verdant forests with shirts open to the waist.

Yes, you guessed it: I was Guy #8.

Family values evangelical Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), who voted against hate crimes and ENDA, voted to ban gay marriage and gay adoption, and compared gay people to alcoholics because they couldn't suppress their immoral desires, will resign today amid allegations that he had an affair with a female staffer.

"That's irony," screamed Alanis Morissette.

A female employee of the Marc Jacobs store on Mercer Street in SoHo received a package from California that contained cocaine -- but she called the cops because she thought it was anthrax. The FBI was called to the scene, and after investigating the package, concluded it was a local matter and turned the case over to the NYPD. After running a test, cops determined the substance was cocaine, and took the employee in for questioning. "It appears to have been a huge mix-up," says our source.

Uh, news flash to Ms. Clueless Shop Assistant. Terrorists usually don't send you four ounces of anthrax. See, it's ridiculously difficult to make, and two grains would kill somebody. They're not going to think, "Well, she'll probably want to do a couple lines tonight, and maybe a little more tomorrow." They don't send you extra just in case you want to share it with friends.

And, you know, she's in fashion and she couldn't recognize cocaine? What, is her résumé blank?

This diagram shows something or other about where all the oil is headed in the Gulf of Mexico.


In layman's terms, Georgia's beaches will be like McDonald's french fries, Florida will be a Jack in the Box taco, and Louisiana will be KFC.

Here's change we can believe in: George Bush would never have hired an advisor who wrote an essay entitled In Defense of Homophobia.

Today at the Times Square Half-Price Ticket Booth

Or the short version, everything but Lion King.

A Taco Bell employee working the drive-through window mistakenly gave a customer the bank deposit.

Police are searching for the person who took the cash, described as a young woman in her 20s, driving a silver SUV with a sunroof and a tire mounted on the back.

When asked how she could have confused the money with food, the employee said it was limp and green and it looked like a lot of people had touched it.