Rob was my first real best friend. There'd been others, but they'd all been "better than nothing" types. Rob had an incredible, bizarre sense of humor: I'm still trying to decipher half the things he said to me, like "Growing up in Ohio it used to rain so hard the food stamps stuck to my lips." He was also so smart the professors at the University of San Francisco went to him when they didn't understand the curriculum.

We were neighbors in the dorm and quickly became inseparable. It was the perfect symbiosis: I was a freshman, and he was a grad student. I was young and naive and he was a cynical old soul. I was attractive, and he looked like a Doonesbury cartoon character. I worshipped him and he loved being worshipped. With his zen friend Steven and Larry, a disabled musician, we became a foursome. We were like San Francisco's version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles if Donatello's power was finding great drugs.

The roommate I'd been assigned was Roger, another senior and Rob's best friend. Roger was a rarity in San Francisco: a real man's man. He went camping. He went fishing. He was tall and broad-shouldered, easily identifiable with his long red hair, bushy beard and plaid shirt. Leave me alone for an hour and I'll eat a muffin and wonder why my t-shirts smell musty; leave him alone for an hour and he'll build a coffee table and rescue six cats from a tree. They say it's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor one. Me, I figured rich was out of my league, so I went with the guy who could rebuild the engine of a VW Bug.

I think Roger was envious of my popularity. He'd spent a few unremarkable years in San Francisco so I think it surprised him to see that seconds after arriving I'd grabbed hold of the city with both gay hands and shaken it until the fun fell out. It seemed like every time I set foot outside, Jefferson Airplane would be playing on the Panhandle and hippie couples would offer me daisies and drug-fueled three-ways. I dated business executives, stockbrokers, bankers, and politicians after just turning sixteen. San Francisco was a small pool but I was making a little splash.

One night I met a man on Castro Street and I went home with him. Since this was Gay Central it wasn't exactly a rare occurrence, though "home" usually wasn't a gated estate in the Napa Valley. A few days later when he dropped me back at the dorm I was shocked to find my placid roommate freaking out.

"Where have you been?" he asked. "It's been days! I called hospitals. I even called the police."

"The police?" I asked, surprised and worried. "What did they say?"

"They didn't sound surprised. They said, 'Oh, we're already looking for him.'"

I appreciated his interest so I figured I'd ramp it up on my side. One night when we were both in separate beds I didn't have to twist his arm.

ME: I think everybody needs to try gay sex just to see how they stand on it.

ROGER: Really?

ME: Absolutely. I mean, nobody's entirely gay or straight, so you need to experiment to find out where -- "

ROGER [leaping in next to me] Okay. What do we do?

The next half hour is a bit of a blur. I don't think it was crazy to assume Roger would take charge, but he didn't. Instead I had to deal with this giant pink thing waiting for me to make the first move. I went with the basics. Afterward Roger didn't exactly give me rave reviews.

ROGER: Is that all there is to it?

ME: What do you mean?

ROGER: We just rub our dicks together? Wrestle around while making out? Basically gay sex is just masturbating while lying down?

ME [peeved]: How the hell am I supposed to know? I've just slept with three guys more than you.

This incident confirmed to Roger that he was hetero and confirmed to me that I was in love with him. It was classic "negging" strategy: criticize my sexual prowess and I'll want to do it again to prove that I can do it right. Roger was hot and hunky and apparently knew how to fuck; me, I was struggling for one out of three.

Unfortunately, Roger soon found a girlfriend, which meant I now had an ex-boyfriend I loved (1) living with me, and (2) fucking women in our room. This wasn't quite the party atmosphere USF had promised. I begged the Resident Advisor to find me alternative housing but being straight he absolutely could not give a fuck. Roger and I yelled, screamed and hollered until Rob intervened.

"I don't care that Roger has a girlfriend," I said. "He can fuck every woman in San Francisco for all I care. I just don't want to meet them, and I don't want them fucking in our room."

"What's the problem?" Rob said. "Roger's a single straight guy. Why shouldn't he fuck around? It's not like you two slept together."

"No," I said, "we did."

I didn't see Rob for a while after that. This incident cemented the fact that he was being left out of non-cerebral life. Luckily, the school year ended. Roger went back to wherever he was from, and then Rob announced that he'd found a house to rent on top of Potrero Hill.

Once again, it was one of those things that only happens to the chosen few. Rob had just happened to run into a gorgeous 19-year-old blonde, and he'd just happened to enchant her, and she'd just happened to mention that she owned a spare house on Potrero Hill that we could have rent-free. Larry, Steven and I knew the deal: she loved his brain and he loved her body. "But who knows how that'll end up?" we thought, drawing straws for bedrooms.

Christine took to all of us, and soon she was hanging around our house more than her own. I'm still not sure of her story. She claimed to know everybody famous, even recounting how Mick Jagger danced around her fireplace on her last birthday. I'd have doubted her stories if she'd been poor or plain but rich and gorgeous means anything goes.

No matter how much people like each other, factions develop when there are gays in a house of straights. We all ate dinner together but after dessert it was time for the tribes to separate. "I'm going to go get a drink or two," I announced. "I'll see you all tomorrow."

"Can I come?" Christine asked.

I thought for a second. It'd probably be okay. Forget Folsom, with its punk rock and leather daddies. Forget Castro, testosterone-fueled home of the Clones. Polk was female-friendly: lined with dance clubs, it was almost bisexual. Fingers crossed that she wouldn't cramp my style too much, I said, "Sure. That sounds like fun."

The night wasn't just fun: it was like being royalty for a night. I thought I'd been treated well as a hot young guy, but add a sexy blonde to the equation and the world is at your feet. The gay clubs didn't just ignore the fact that we were both underage: the bouncers literally begged us to enter and then we drank all night for free. Our baccanale lasted until the sun came up and then we drunkenly staggered back home.

The same thing happened the next night. Christine cooked us rabbit for dinner, maybe trying to prove that she was simultaneously domestic and wild, and stood up before I did. "Are we going out again?" she asked.

"Sure," I said. "Great!"

Grumbles came from around the table. Clearly the heterosexuals hadn't had quite as much fun as we'd had. "Can I come too?" Rob asked.

"You'd hate it," Christine snapped. "It's all glam and glitter and loud music. Too loud to talk, and half-naked men. It would drive you nuts."

Though her assertions were correct I wasn't convinced of her conclusion, but Rob got the hint. "Okay," he shrugged, and Christine and I hit the road.

Once again, the night was spectacular. Every door opened for us, and every attractive person fell at our feet. When we finally stumbled back to Potrero Hill at daybreak we felt like Meryl Streep after the Academy Awards. This time, however, Christine followed me up to my room and dove onto my bed.

CHRISTINE: I think everybody needs to try hetero sex just to see how they real stand on it.

ME: Really?

CHRISTINE: Absolutely. I mean, nobody's entirely gay or straight, so you need to experiment to find out where -- "

She was game and gorgeous so like anybody else in the universe I thought what the fuck.

ME [leaping in next to her] Okay. What do we do?

Christine took total charge, giving me instructions down to the last detail. I'm not sure how our housemates didn't hear the screaming, though maybe they just assumed I'd found a Chuck Norris movie on TV. A good time was had by all, though her thin, smooth, buxom body proved to me that I played for the other team.

The next morning I woke up to a knock on my door. Rob entered and sat on the edge of the bed. "Christine wants you to move out," he said.

Fuck, I thought. Fuck.

"She wouldn't tell me why. Did something happen last night?"

"No, nothing. It was terrific."

"I tried to talk her out of it. There's still a chance she'll calm down. I mean, you guys were getting along so well. It's bizarre. Out of the blue. I mean, it's not like you slept together."

"No," I said, "we did."

As I packed my bags to head back to Los Angeles, I knew my adolescence had come to an end. I'd simultaneously discovered a bright new world and had its inhabitants throw cold water in my face. I never talked to Rob again: I knew he conspired with Christine to get rid of me, and I felt completely betrayed. I Googled him so I could write a followup to this piece and immediately regretted it: Google said he was a lawyer, a doctor and a Harvard professor.

It made me feel awful. How could I go on hating him when he still hadn't gotten laid?

And Now A Word From Our Sponsor

Christian, suffering from cancer? It's not all bad news. Research treatment options by clicking this link and the American Family Association will make a penny or two:

http://www.cancercenter.com/faith/?source=I4FMNA08

Remember, God has a plan, though with you it's confused. We've got our fingers crossed!

A Lost, Directionless Jeb Bush "Wanted To Make It On His Own" So He Took A Job With One Of His Dad's Wealthy Friends

Story.

The media is waging a war on hipsters. It's easy to figure out why: they're doing what their audience wants, and what they want is to stop feeling jealous. They need the media to attack everyone who's better than them and take them down a peg or two.

Hmm: but how do you trash hot young creative types? You can't criticize their looks, or their intelligence, or their age, or their success. You can only criticize the unseen: their motivation, and their germs.

Motivation is attacked with the "wannabe" tag. Which, when you think about it, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Because what exactly is a "wannabe"? It's someone who wants to be successful in an unconventional field. There aren't wannabes in other professions, like architecture or journalism: no, they're called "apprentices." They're called INTERNS.

Why doesn't the media target wannabe doctors? Here's a hospital scene you won't see on ABC:

NURSE: This man collapsed on the escalator at the mall. His pulse is shallow and rapid and his BP is 172 over 95.

INTERN: Thank you, Nancy. I'll take care of this.

DOCTOR [pushing him aside]: You wish, you wannabe!

Why doesn't the media accuse high-fallutin' professions of being wannabes? For instance, I remember back in the 1800s Alexander Hamilton was all, like, "Hey, if George Washington is gonna be a Founding Father then I wanna be one too!" What did Einstein do when he had a Beatles haircut and nobody gave him the time of day? We all know the answer to that. And I remember reading this in Mother Teresa's archives:

Dear Diary,

What should I do? I really want to be a nightclub singer, but damn if Florence Nightingale doesn't get the hunkier dudes.

Oddly, though, nobody cuts hipster interns any slack.

RECORD STORE CLERK: What do you think of the new National record?

HIPSTER INTERN: I'm not really into it. It sounds exactly the same as the last record. And aren't their allegedly "poetic yearnings" just pseudo-romantic tripe?

RECORD STORE CLERK: Okay, that's totally unacceptable. Get out of Brooklyn, charlatan!

So, we get an endless stream of ridiculous studies that make couch potatoes feel better about being far away from the cutting edge. "At least I'm blazing my own trail," they think as they shovel down another handful of Doritos from that butt-sized depression on their Kmart couch.

The latest is a claim by some ABC affiliate that says most hipster beards have traces of poop in them. Clearly from the outset this was designed as a slam job. Because what else are you going to find if you search somebody's beard? Cassette tapes? A Miata? Slices of pumpkin pie?

In this study, exactly one researcher wanders the 'hood swabbing every beard he finds. He checks under a microscope and voila! There's poop in almost every one.

Once again hipsters morph into laughingstocks. They thought they were so hot and so young and so fashionable when actually they're all wearing little toilets on their chins! Tell me again how great homemade mustard is, Mr. Poopoo Face!

It doesn't take a genius to realize that this attack can be easily turned around. ABC's cup may be half-empty, but ours is definitely half-full. Here's how the headline in The Daily Hipster would read:

MOST ASSES IN WILLIAMSBURGHAVE TRACES OF BEARD ON THEM

There. The same study, with an equally valid conclusion. Mr. Smug ABC Viewer, let's see Doritos get you out of that.

Jurassic Park is now a reality, except it’s called Jurassic World in an attempt to dissociate it from the tragedies that resulted from the attempted launch of the original park.

Oh. Okay. So three separate times a "Jurassic Park" has opened. At each of these places there has been a horrible accident where the security systems failed and all the dinosaurs got loose and either tore apart or stomped or ate all the visiting tourists. Worried that nobody would come to the fourth "Jurassic Park" -- though the third was wildly popular, apparently -- the park operators have dubbed it Jurassic World.

Personally, I'm not convinced. I'm not sure that's good enough. I mean, if you want to tell people that you've got nothing to do with the total idiots who opened those three previous disaster parks, you probably want to change more than one word in the name, especially when the remaining word has never been used in actual human conversation.

If I decided to build a tanker to carry oil around Alaska, I wouldn't call it the Exxon Valdooky. If I was a food manufacturer who had a horrible reputation for unhealthy, low-quality junk food I wouldn't create a new product called Hot Packets. If my parents had named me Adolf Hitler, I wouldn't head to the courts and say, "Your honor, this is unbearable. I can't take it. Please, let me change my name to Adolf Garfinkel."

Me, I'd give the new park a totally different name. Something like, "Uncle Bob's Raucous Dinosaur Village." Or "Brontosaurus Brachiapotamus And Beyond." Or mayxj8717ou ]\[)(& Pterod*^%# poius \\][powu Woreorh .253.josid977^*

Shoot. Guess that's it for now. I don't know why but I've been having real problems with this new Time Warthog Cable.

One night when I was fifteen there was a knock on our front door. It was strange for a couple of reasons: first, because we lived way out of town, where houses were cheap. Our neighborhood didn't have any street lights, and just barely had paved roads. And second, because we'd lived there for years and nobody had ever knocked before. I grew up assuming that people just never visited each other rather than realizing that crazy people like my mother have a hard time making friends.

My mother answered the door and saw a well-dressed trio: a dark-haired, fortyish man in a gray suit, a perfectly-coiffed lady in a stylish dress, and a plain but friendly-looking teenage girl. "Hi," the man said. "Our daughter Cynthia goes to the same high school as your son Roman, and she has a question she'd like to ask him."

Mom's eyes flashed like a slot machine as the reels in her brain spun and then stopped. Rich people. Want something. From us! Mom plowed a path through the discarded newspapers and magazines and clothing from the front door to the couch, then pointed at depressions in the sofa where two of them could sit down. They glanced at one another. Their smiles didn't budge but their eyes asked, "If we back out slowly, can we pretend we were never here?"

I liked them. Welcome to my world, I thought. In this insular environment I didn't often get my opinion confirmed. And this was even before seeing the girdles hanging up in the bathroom, or the pinhole glasses she'd purchased that allegedly improved her vision but also made her look like a cross between Betty White and Kanye West.

Mom offered snacks, which the people politely declined, but she ran off in search of them anyway. Good luck on that, I thought. See, we were in an odd financial bracket you might call "Allegedly Poor." Every time one of us kids wanted something, we got a lecture about the sad facts of life. It wasn't fair! We didn't have a cent! Damn our deadbeat dad! We couldn't afford food, or entertainment, or even new pants for me, so as I grew taller Mom sewed rings of castoff fabric around the cuffs of my pants so they'd reach the vicinity of my shoes. Her unhinged optimism wasn't convincing: not only were the pants brighter and more cheerful than the usual ones, she claimed, but if you counted the rings you could guess my age.

Oddly, though, whenever my mom wanted something, we suddenly had the cash. Furniture from Robinsons, dresses from Bullocks Wilshire, face cream from Estee Lauder. It left us kids in financial limbo: were we poor, or weren't we? We envied the black-or-white destitution of the folks in National Geographic. I mean, in Uganda everybody agrees they're starving. The kids don't yell, "Hey, how about buying us a sandwich instead of more Time-Life books?" My chubby sister Clarissa further muddied the waters, but you can't judge a whole family based on a girl who'd stare at a strange man's crotch until he offered to buy her food.

Being a single working mother was part of the problem, but a close second was the work of Clarence Birdseye. When we were flush, we had frozen entrees that came sealed in plastic bags that you dropped in boiling water. They were widely heralded as a technological marvel though a few years later a federal court would rename them

GRAVY
Along With A Little Something That Fell Off The Side Of A Goat
Most of the time, though, our meals came from twelve-cent boxes of Kraft Mac N' Cheese. Which caused endless arguments: my sisters not only lacked the ambition to do their homework or make friends or clean up, but they also found it impossible to commit to six minutes of boiling water. They lolled around on their backs waiting for food to appear, and then attacked it like hyenas.

With pot lids and meat tenderizers I kept them away from my cooking before devising a less-combative solution. If I randomly adulterated my cooking with things they found disgusting, there'd be leftovers for when I was hungry again. Mac N' Cheese with raw onion lasted nearly twelve minutes, with Stella and Clarissa fighting to get it down like baby birds choking down garter snakes. With a cup of cilantro thrown in, though, it lasted three hours. It was disgusting, my sisters claimed. Like eating soap. Apparently they thought their complaints would banish the herb from my repertoire rather than prompt me to add it to everything from instant pudding to apple pie.

Six foot six and a hundred pounds, I knew exactly what was in the kitchen at all times. On this night there were two envelopes of cherry Jello and one box of unmade Mac N' Cheese, but these posh folks didn't look like their meals often went through the powder stage. Rather than running to the kitchen, though, Mom went for her bedroom, reappearing with six boxes in her hands. "Cookies, anyone?" she asked excitedly. "Anyone like Pepperidge Farm?"

"That sounds lovely," the wife said. "Don't mind if I do." Mom dumped a small pile of each cookie onto a plate, then dashed back into her bedroom and fetched bottles this time. "Sherry? Or would you prefer a dash of port?" She half-filled two Baccarat tumblers and passed them out to the adults.

"We don't want to disrupt your evening," the man announced, unaware that we usually spent nights watching Matlock and trying to decide if Mom was lying on the floor because she wanted attention or because she was dead. "But prom is coming up, and our daughter Cynthia hasn't yet chosen a date. We saw a photo of your son in the yearbook and agreed he was a nice-looking lad."

I didn't wait for details but immediately said yes. It didn't matter that Cynthia was as pale and awkward as I was, or that I was gay and would have preferred slow-dancing with her dad. I just knew I liked these people. They were polite. They were clean. They probably stopped and second-guessed Cynthia if she headed for the bus stop with fifty cents in her pocket and a hand-drawn map to Disneyland.

With $20 budgeted for new clothes, I bought a blazer at J. C. Penneys: the salesman insisted it was the finest corduroy, and both of the colors were really hot that year. On prom night Mom dropped me at Cynthia's house, glaring angrily as the happy family met me the door. They took a few dozen photos and then we piled in their car with her dad.

I struggled to recognize the freshly-scrubbed faces, though they were all painfully familiar at school. Well-dressed and surrounded by chaperones, these idiots, jocks and hoodlums suddenly looked like adults. Suddenly they had better things to do than chase the fat kids with briefcases. Cynthia and I danced at arm's length, chatted about the weather, and then I ran off to get us punch. When I returned she was talking to a tiny Grace Kelly, complete with diamond necklace and tiara. "This is my best friend Barbara," Cynthia announced. "Barbara, this is Roman Hans."

Barbara offered me her hand and for a second I was tempted to kiss it. Instead I shook it and said hi. We could have been different species: her hair was hand-twisted and lacquered and arranged, and mine was hacked by a trainee at Supercuts until it looked like bean dip at a Superbowl party. I couldn't give a fuck, because it wasn't even close. I had nothing to offer but attitude.

The next time Cynthia and I danced, she leaned in close. "Barbara likes you," she said. "She wants to go out with you. Would you go out with her?"

"Of course not," I replied.

"Have you ever been to Clarkwalder Beach?" I shook my head. "Her name is Barbara Clarkwalder. The beach is named after her."

With those words, the thought of tossing Cynthia aside for bigger fish took root in my brain. Sure, she lived in a nice house, but buildings are just cement and bricks. A beach is part of history, drawn on a map. It moves you out of the society pages and into the history books. Imagine your name turning into a noun. "Shall we go to Hans this afternoon?" parents would ask their children.

"YIPPEE!" the kids would reply. "Hans is my favorite place in the world!"

A couple of hours later we were giddy but exhausted, and Barbara herded us into her limo. I assumed we were going back to Cynthia's house but we turned off La Cienega into the parking of Lawry's Steak House. I was easy-going so it didn't bother me: I just knew I couldn't order anything with just a dollar in my pocket. In the back of my mind, though, a thought bubbled up. This was a date, a little voice said. And don't guys pay for ladies on dates?

Instantly the bright lights of La Cienega started swirling around my head. The night had gone so well, and now it was going to end with policemen handcuffing me while well-dressed people struggled to distance themselves. "I just saw his picture in a yearbook," Cynthia would say. "I didn't know he was the type who'd go to fine restaurants when he couldn't afford a Burrito Supreme."

I mean, I knew I wouldn't have a problem. I could order potato salad or cole slaw, then hide a crumpled single under the pile of cash collected at the end of the meal. Cynthia, though, looked hungry. And why wouldn't she be? She'd just danced for six hours straight, and she wasn't footing the bill.

Sweat seeped into my blazer as I scanned the padded menu. It was even worse than I'd suspected. Somehow we'd reached a point in American history where fifteen bucks was reasonable for a steak.

"You know what?" I barked at Cynthia. "I'm still stuffed from lunch. I think I'll just get an iced tea."

Cynthia didn't get the hint. She ordered appetizers and soups and salads, then a steak and dessert. It didn't have to end tragically, I thought, as she ladled Béarnaise onto her Porterhouse. I'd just have to come up with a polite way to say, "You know you're paying for what you order, right?"

Cynthia, Barbara, and Barbara's date didn't even flinch when the check came. To me it might as well have had a neon sign atop blaring, "ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO VENTURE HERE." I was deciding between playing on their pity or running for the exit when I felt a hand brush against my leg. When I investigated I saw it was attached to Cynthia, and it was offering me a wad of bills.

I exhaled for the first time in two hours. She was a great girl, that Cynthia. In fact, if she'd dropped to one knee and offered me something simple with maybe one big diamond I'd be Mr. Cynthia right now. I counted five twenties into my lap as Barbara's date grabbed the folder holding the check. "I'll get it," he announced. I looked skyward. Mentally I shook my fist at whoever was up there and hollered, "Now you're just FUCKING WITH ME!"

Cynthia and I cuddled in the back of the limo as we headed back to her house. Was this how the world worked for regular folks? I wondered. A little struggle, a little worry, but everything worked out in the end? I could get to like a world like that. "Hey, about -- " she said, and I gently touched her lips. "Hush," I said. "Let's remember tonight exactly the way it is." I memorized the tinted windows, the fluffy tulle, the gemstones in Barbara's anklet. Sapphire onyx emerald. Sapphire onyx emerald.

I reached back in to check on the wad of bills in my pocket. Everything had changed. The future was bright. I'd need every cent of this cash to leave for college a few months later, but first I had cilantro to buy.

I don't like old white men. It's the old story about being born on third base and acting like you hit a triple. Back when they were young, life was easy for white dudes. Few women worked outside the home, so basically half their competition was gone. And it was the fledgling days of capitalism, when companies assumed they should act honorably, and pay a living wage.

Back in this prehistoric age, a mailman could support a family. A trash collector could buy a house. The cashier at the local supermarket -- one of the few jobs a woman could hold -- made $50,000 a year, which bought her a house and spared shoppers from hearing conversations like, "Hey Cristi, is this a beet or a carrot?" and "I swear to God, if you call me once more I will pull off your dick and hit you with it."

Their back-up plans were better than our career choices. "Well," they'd say, "if things don't work out as an architect, I could always be a flight attendant, fucking my way around the world and making $75,000 a year." Or "If by some horrible happenstance I don't make it as a doctor, Uncle Mike can get me a job as a fireman and I'll earn $70,000 a year for saving people, getting three meals a day, and showering with in-shape guys."

So it's a little surprising seeing how these dudes act like heroes today. They act like it was tough being employed before the word "productivity" was coined, when every office building was dark and empty at exactly 5:01 p.m. Now they're all offering endless streams of advice despite the fact they worked at their dad's factory for thirty years and called in drunk for half of them.

Life isn't working out? Just work hard and you'll get to the top, they say, blissfully unaware that an hour's work at minimum wage will buy you half an onion today. Want a promotion? Just ask your boss for more responsibilities, they say. Yeah, that'll work. Your net worth will skyrocket when you're suddenly in charge of french fries. Get there early and stay there late, they advise, clueless that getting any kind of employment these days means swearing that you love working unpaid overtime and giving white guys a foot massage.

Luckily, I don't see many overprivileged white dudes these days. I don't go to church. I don't read Time or Fortune. I ignore ads for brokerage firms that find life lessons on a golf course. So I was surprised to spot a few at the Budapest airport when I was catching the first of two flights home. You know you've messed up when you get somewhere even before the old people show up. They're supposed to be the early birds, allowing enough time for traffic, six trips to the bathroom, and snapping a hip or two.

As I sat there eating a Starbucks sandwich, an old couple in pastels -- let's call them Carter and Connie -- wheeled their luggage over and plopped down across from me. I winced: these were the kind of people you'd overhear telling waiters things like, "In America, restaurants have ketchup." I catalogued the differences between us: I was in 501s, not khakis, and a Fred Perry polo instead of Ralph Lauren. I wear contacts rather than glasses that come with a guarantee from Sears. Okay, I had some gray hair, but it was premature.

Carter whipped out something called Good Old Days magazine and started flipping through it. I Googled it on my tablet and was stunned speechless. It was an endless scroll of white folks ass-kissing dead relatives in heartwarming stories like these:

Dad's Dots and Dashes: "Morse code was his favorite language." I'm not sure how this'll turn heart-warming, since all I can picture is Dad screaming, "Until you kids shut your freakin' yaps, I'll be in the basement."

Grandma's Machines: "It was a good description for all those newfangled whatchamacallits." This little summary made my jaw drop. Really, in fifty years we've gone from admiring people who called blenders "whatchamacallits" to "Your tablet only has 32 gig of memory? Why the fuck do you get out of bed?"

A Day at Candlestick: "It was an unforgettable trip for a boy and his dad." Uh, let me guess: a bunch of white men watched another bunch of white men hit balls and run around bases, but somehow a boy learned something other than, "Life sure is good for us white folk!"

Home Remedies -- Feeling Rosy: "Roses -- they're not just for Valentine's Day anymore!" I'm honestly kind of curious if this startling expose will run toward "You can also buy them in October!" or "Did you know in a pinch you can use them as a breath spray?"

Sundaes Every Thursday: "Her mom's small gesture made a tremendous difference in her young life." Yes, believe it or not, a mom who makes ice cream sundaes for her kids every Thursday will be a better role model than those stupid bitches who work.

Sim's Lessons: "He couldn't read or write, but he taught his grandson a thing or two." Fingers crossed this is a "Work hard" or "Do your best" kind of lesson rather than "Mexicans stop picking strawberries if you don't give them water every four hours or so."

Carter and Connie sat there quietly for a few minutes until another elderly couple -- let's call them Dick and Debbie -- approached. "I checked this weather at home this morning," Debbie said to Carter and Connie. "Ninety degrees. [PAUSE] Of course, it's always ninety degrees at home. Ha!"

They all chortled as I rolled my eyes. It's her last afternoon in Budapest and she's checking the weather in Bag O' Pretzels, Wyoming? Weather that never changes? Besides, what difference did it make? If it was twelve degrees there, would she wear a parka and ski boots on the plane?

Connie started laughing. "Debbie was so funny this morning, Dick," she said. "We were standing on the deck, and she realized she'd lost you. She just started going up to people and saying, 'I'm looking for a man with silver hair.' Maybe the fourth person she approached said, "Sweetheart, EVERY MAN ON THE BOAT HAS SILVER HAIR.'"

You didn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to put it together. A couple of days earlier, a Viking Cruise Ship had moored in the Danube directly in front of my hotel. These folks must have been passengers. Judging from the commercials on PBS I'd always thought a Viking Cruise would be fun, so a close-up look at their passengers was a bucket of cold water in my face. As a seemingly endless stream of pastel-clad elderly wandered up and joined the four, I x-ed out the option with a Sharpie marker in my head.

When we finally boarded the plane, there had to be fifty of them. The men were all in Ralph Lauren and pleated khakis and the women in high-waisted pants, pastel blouses and gigantic jewelry made out of shiny rocks. They hoisted carry-ons into bins, settled into seats, exhaled hard and fell asleep.

After a couple hours I got sick of sitting and watching old sitcoms so I got up and went for a walk. I passed forty rows of sleeping seniors before I ran into the obligatory hunky flight attendant. I don't think I imagined our connection: flight attendants always do a lot of friendly touching but their hands don't usually linger on your chest. "You look like a whiskey drinker," he said, gesturing toward a crate of tiny bottles. "Help yourself."

Actually I hate whiskey, but I hate alienating handsome men even more. "Thanks," I said in a low but still possibly believable voice. There was a small age gap between us, but the more we talked the more the years melted away. We were both attractive and energetic. We were both handsome and fun and free. Conversation had ceded to serious flirting when Dick and Debbie barged in. "Can we get some water?" Debbie asked Mike. "Otherwise we're gonna be tough as beef jerky when we finally get to Houston."

Mike looked at me and smiled. "Houston, huh?" he said. "I get out to Houston occasionally."

It took a second for my mind to catch up, and I nearly laughed. It was crazy, his linking me with these old farts. It was silly. A minor distraction, a tiny error. Wasn't insulting at all.

I grabbed a handful of tiny bottles to take back to my seat and said, "I'm looking for a man with silver hair."

With A New, Diverse Menu, Domino's Pizza Rename Themselves Domino's Brown Food on Beige Paper

An American Guide to Murder

If you're the average American, you're confused by the way we treat our murderers. How come some people who kill other people get the electric chair while others get a plastic anklet and a book deal?

It's actually not as mysterious as it seems. At some point in our history, the court system divided killing into five distinct types. Though in every case the victim is equally dead, the perpetrator is randomly judged on what was going through his mind at the time.

It's definitely not a perfect system, but it's better than the alternatives, and I'm hopeful this strategy will spread to other crimes. Extortion, for example, could be subdivided onto a sliding scale of heinousness that ranges from "I gotta get something to feed the kids today" to "That BMW won't pay for itself." Arson might run the gamut from, "Ohmigod, Billy, you forgot to put the campfire out!" to "Build luxury condos on the mating ground of the Great Western Lizard? Not while I'm alive!"

Here are the various types of murder, in decreasing order of severity.

1. Premeditated Murder

Premeditated murder is the worst kind of killing because the killer put a lot of work into it. He sat around the house, possibly for months at a time, comparing and contrasting the various methods to off somebody. A gun? A knife? Twist ties and a Hi-C bottle? Judges take a particularly dim view of premeditated murder because the killer has a lot of time to see the light. There isn't much of a gray area: your life has clearly taken a wrong turn when you write notes to yourself saying stuff like, "Will Mentos dissolve in Visine? Might not kill but it'd definitely hurt!"

For this reason, premeditated murder is treated the harshest by the judicial system, with those found guilty either sentenced to life in prison or the death penalty. If you're a relative of the victim, you should be happy that the killer has been put away forever, because this dude is just plain nuts.

2. Spontaneous Murder

Spontaneous murder isn't as bad as premeditated murder, because it's the result of an idle whim. Something happened that got a dude mad, and he just happened to have a gun or a knife or a dry cleaning bag. This isn't treated quite as harshly as premeditated murder since rather than an inborn evil streak this is just some dude who's made one bad choice. Is it fair? I think so, but I've got eighteen vases full of twirly sticks in my apartment just because they were near the cash registers at Kmart.

Prison sentences generally run ten years and up. If you're a relative of the victim, there's a bit of consolation in knowing that right before the murder the criminal probably thought, "Do I really wanna kill this dude? Oh, what the heck!"

3. Felony Manslaughter

Manslaughter is when you don't intend to kill anybody but you do anyway. It's kind of the "Uh-oh!" of the crime world.

You didn't think a pudgy liquor store clerk would try to outrun somebody carrying fourteen bottles of Hpnotiq. You were just playing a joke, and were pretty sure trains stopped running on these tracks back in 2003. You thought pouring forty ounces of vodka into somebody's mouth was a good way to say, "Hey, we don't let just anybody join our frat!"

Luckily you won't be judged nearly as severely as murderers. It's almost like the judge is thinking, "Dude, it's a bummer that accident had to harshen your buzz."

There's plenty of consolation to survivors in acknowledging that for a minute or two the killer was suffused with regret, perhaps thinking to himself, "What, I killed somebody? Goddammit. Now I better forget about stealing those shoes."

4. Murder by Reason of Insanity

Murder by reason of insanity is totally different from premeditated murder. With premeditated murder, the killer has decided that if strangling an irritating record store clerk means he'll get the electric chair, well, that's the price you gotta pay. An insane person, on the other hand, isn't capable of this kind of rational decision-making.

Though this judgment is often controversial, the distinguishing characteristics really couldn't be clearer. Insane people hear voices in their head telling them to kill random strangers. Sane people would never dream of taking that kind of drastic action unless somebody criticized their dancing or said to their girlfriend, "Yo babe, what's up?"

There isn't much consolation for relatives of the victims, who are left thinking things like, "Well, maybe he isn't going to rot in jail, but he'll have to endure lots of psychotherapy and take drugs that won't let him crap."

5. Misdemeanor Manslaughter

Misdemeanor manslaughter is when you're not doing anything specifically illegal but somebody still winds up dead. This is the rap you want to get, the "Whoops!" of the killing world.

New Yorkers are familiar with misdemeanor manslaughter because this is the sentence municipal workers get when they crush somebody who gets in their way. Say you're driving one of those new articulated buses -- basically two buses attached by an accordion -- and your back half flattens an old lady who was in a crosswalk while the light was green. Dead bodies usually prompt animated harangues and finger-pointing but bus drivers are members of powerful unions and nobody wants to fuck with them. All of a sudden the powers-that-be agree it's okay to flatten people because WTF, buses are huge! Drivers can keep track what's happening around the front, but in the back it's every man for himself.

Or how about those trucks that are a whole bunch of wheeled buckets chained together? The driver's made a valiant attempt at safety: he's hung a metal sign on the tail saying, "You're in my blind spot! Who knows what the fuck I'm gonna do!" The courts agree that this absolves the driver of all responsibility. He didn't mean to hit you: he just couldn't see you, and it would have cost money to truly be safe. A truly wise judicial system realizes that people dying is the price you have to pay to keep condos at the low, low price of $1.3 million rather than, say, $1.4.

Relatives of the victims often find themselves on the horn of an ethical dilemma. On the one hand, it's sad; but on the other, those condos aren't going to build themselves.

Thanks, New York Times!

Catholic Church Stops Drenching Sleeping Homeless People Because It Wastes Water

Story.

Kraft Changes Mac And Cheese Slogan To, "Mmm, It's Magnetic!"

Story.

Kraft: We're Very Sorry There Are Chunks Of Metal In Your Mac And Cheese. Please Take It Back To The Supermarket And Get Your Sixty-Nine Cents Back.

Story.

My song is "You're Even Beautifuler And Your Friends Are Really Sad."

World Mourns Religious Leader

Cardinal Egan Dead Too

My Life In Magic

Magic featured prominently throughout my childhood. My dad used to disappear behind the couch. My uncle Bill used to pull quarters out of my ears. My sister could detach the top half of her thumb and slide it along her hand.

I used my very first words to demand a magic set for Christmas. I got maybe a third of the tricks to work, but even then they only fooled dogs and my sister. I couldn't believe that most of the tricks, like the Chinese linking rings, required hours if not weeks of practice. That would have really been a feat, considering my attention span didn't last through The Cosby Show.

Still, I kept going, gradually accumulating a box of simple tricks. The more I learned, though, the more daunting the hobby seemed. My friend Marty was just two years older, but somehow those years had imparted the world's wisdom to him, including how to grow chest hair at the age of ten. He told me about the superhuman efforts Harry Houdini put into his tricks. He could hold his breath for fifteen minutes. He could pick locks with his teeth. He could pull every one of his bones out of their sockets. My goal in life was to escape from a straitjacket inside a locked trunk, but Marty's first step was a stunner:

First hide a crochet hook in your ass.

This baffled me, coming completely out of the blue. I mean, I idolized Houdini, and would have given anything to be like him. Admired by men, loved by women, muscular and rich and amazing. But was this really what the job entailed? As far as I knew, this didn't happen to kids who had other hobbies. If you wanted to take up golf, the first step wasn't stuffing tees in your butt. If you wanted to try out for football, you didn't have a jam a goalpost up your ass. To a kid who was still four years away from initiating contact with anything downstairs, this was equivalent to saying, "Why don't you take up stamp collecting instead?"

Mere minutes later, though, David Copperfield hit it big. He was Houdini reincarnated. The whole world was riveted to their couches when he made the Statue of Liberty disappear, and the next morning I raced to Marty for details.

The solution seemed obvious as he related it, in between taking shots from his flask. Everybody was facing the Statue of Liberty, and then they weren't. Clearly that was the only way to do it, since thousand-foot-tall structures don't disappear. I remember standing there in shock: I mean, if that was the solution, it wasn't a real magic trick. Picture Houdini trying it:

HOUDINI: I am now going to make myself disappear!

AUDIENCE: [GASPS]

HOUDINI: Okay, everybody turn left!

AUDIENCE: [TURNS LEFT]

HOUDINI: Can you see me? No? Ta-dah!

Copperfield's next TV special took place on an airport runway. A bunch of people made a big circle around a 747, holding hands. A curtain closed in front of the whole thing, and when it opened, the people were still in a circle but the plane was gone.

I was baffled. Clearly something inexplicable had happened, but once again Marty knew:

"You really are a kid, aren't you?" he said, taking a puff on his Pall Mall. "You know all the people surrounding the plane? He paid them off. The second the curtain closed they backed away so the plane could get dragged off."

My mouth dropped open in disbelief and it didn't close for weeks. That was the solution: "Everybody was paid"? I went through all the stages of loss over the next few months. I was horrified, disenchanted, disgusted. After finally reaching accepetance, though, I realized something:

If magic just required paying off people, then it really was something I could do.

I quickly devised some simple tricks and spent more time posting signs around my neighborhood. "MAGIC SHOW," they read. "AMAZING SKILLS OF PRESTIDIGITATION BY MUSTARDO THE MAGICIAN! Admission $1." Probably the most amazing thing was that nine people actually showed up that day in my backyard, including adults who should have known better. I gave two dollars to my stooge in the audience, and the show was on.

I gazed out at the audience and pretended to randomly pick someone out, though most of these folks lived within a five-minute walk so they recognized my sister.

ME [HOLDING UP A DECK OF CARDS]: Miss, I'd like you to randomly name any card of any suit. Any card of any suit.

MY SISTER SUE: Okay. I pick the eight of hearts.

ME: Would you be so kind as to look in your purse?

SUE opens her Hello Kitty bag and pulls out a playing card.

SUE: Ohmigod! It's the eight of hearts!

THE AUDIENCE murmurs a bit of approval but foreheads furrow too.

ME: Now I will transport an ordinary piece of string across the room. [I PUT IT IN MY POCKET.] Miss, please look in your pocket.

SUE: What? Oh, this is a surprise.

As SUE fishes the string out there's still a paucity of oohs or aahs and more grumbles and harumphs. "Can you do a trick with somebody other than your sister?" somebody yells. It suddenly occurs to me that David Copperfield probably doesn't perform around people who live on his block.

ME: Is anybody thirsty? Now I will take a drink from the magic cup and transport the magic liquid to a random audience member.

SUE acts shocked and clutches at her throat, then she hocks a huge loogey on the ground.

SUE: YOU ARE FUCKIN' KIDDING ME!

AUDIENCE MEMBER: WHO DO WE TALK TO ABOUT GETTING A REFUND?

ME: Next let's try a stab at mentalism. [I PRETEND TO CONCENTRATE.] Is somebody thinking about a ... cat? Wearing a pink sweater?

SUE: HOLY JESUS! HOLY FUCKIN' GOD!!!

At this point a couple younger members of the audience leapt up and started chasing me. While I didn't exactly need a crochet hook up my ass, a little more practice probably would have helped. But the Amazing Mustardo wasn't particularly scared. He was a pretty quick runner back then, and the cape certainly didn't hurt.

And Now A Word From Our Sponsor

Sure to be this year's hottest action thriller is Run All Night, starring Liam Neeson and Ed Harris. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and penned by veteran screenwriter Brad Ingelsby, you're sure to be on the edge of your seat with hair-raising scenes like this:

LIAM NEESON [VOICEOVER]: A night finally came for me to pay for the things I'd done.

ED HARRIS: You killed my son.

LIAM NEESON: I pulled the trigger to protect my son.

ED HARRIS: I'm coming after your boy with everything I got.

LIAM NEESON: As long as you're coming after my boy, I'm coming after you.

ED HARRIS: My son was very important to me.

LIAM NEESON: Not as important as my son.

ED HARRIS: Everybody loved my son. He led U of Miss football to victory in three straight seasons.

LIAM NEESON: My son sold his internet startup for half a million and nearly banged a supermodel.

ED HARRIS: My son was a real handful. He racked up fifteen hundred dollars in speeding tickets after I bought him that Mustang.

LIAM NEESON: My son wouldn't spit on a Mustang after Farrah Fawcett drove one in Charlie's Angels.

WAITRESS: You guys ready to order?

LIAM NEESON: Yeah. I'll have the usual.

ED HARRIS: Me too.

WAITRESS: Okay. I'll be right back with those.

ED HARRIS: What were we talking about?

LIAM NEESON [CHUCKLING]: I forgot too. [PAUSE] Wait. I think we were talking about our sons.

ED HARRIS: That's right. You never should have gotten near my son.

LIAM NEESON: I'd resurrect your son and chop him into little pieces if he so much as touched a hair on my son.

ED HARRIS: My daughter -- eh.

LIAM NEESON: I know. Chicks are like that.

ED HARRIS: If you came after my daughter, I'd be angry. I might be furious. But I probably wouldn't come after you.

LIAM NEESON: I wouldn't come after your daughter. I'd send my wife after your daughter.

ED HARRIS: If your wife came after my daughter, I'd send my wife after your wife. But nobody's gonna make a movie out of that.

LIAM NEESON: I know, right?

WAITRESS: Here's your breakfast. Enjoy!

ED HARRIS AND LIAM NEESON: Thanks!

Vatican Considering Flipped Quarter for Sainthood Because it Answers Prayers About Half the Time

Hollywood Figures Out What To Do With A Really Talented Singer Who's 45

Picture this: you visit an online personals site. The posts are hit or miss, but you're optimistic. One seems like it might be interesting, but the picture is fuzzy. You click on it, and you find Mistress Hildy's profile:

Hi guys! Do you like amputees? Do you want mommy to put you over her knee and spank you? Did you soil your diapers like a naughty boy?

You close the page as soon as possible and literally five seconds later you get an email saying, "Hi! THIS IS MISTRESS HILDY! DID SOMEBODY POOP THEIR JEANS? DID SOMEBODY POOP THEIR JEANS?"

Oddly, this is how an increasing number of websites work these days. (1) They give you very little information; (2) you click to find out more; (3) as the photos fill in and details appear you're smacked with the horrifying realization that you were duped into looking at crap that isn't remotely close to what you want; and then (4) you get emails for the rest of your life with subject lines like, "HEY, ROMAN! MISTRESS HILDY IS STILL WAITING TO GIVE YOU THE ENEMA YOU DESERVE!"

My bath towels were looking a little threadbare so I used Google to see what my options were. Their top recommendation was Kmart, so I went there to investigate. They had a myriad of choices: polyester with embroidered butterflies, rayon with embroidered mushrooms, and dacron with gingham Holly Hobby silhouettes. I closed the window as quickly as possible but a few hours later I got an email from Kmart saying, "We saw you browsing our online aisles and thought you might be interested in these!"

And below are photographs of cardboard shoes, books about Jesus, and selections from Nicki Minaj's new clothing line for dogs.

It doesn't quite link up in my head. I mean, I didn't buy what I needed at Kmart, so they should probably have realized that I wasn't going to buy random shit. In fact, I was pretty much sitting there thinking, "Christ, what kind of desperate, douche-ass operation tries to flog all this bargain-basement crap?" It confirmed that if indeed there was a Kmart customer, it sure as hell wasn't me.

I got tickets for a talk on Eventbrite so naturally that signed me up for a news blast announcing every future event on the Eastern seaboard. The events weren't artistic. The locations weren't convenient. In fact, even EventBrite realized their suggestions had little in common with the event I chose. "YOU LIKE TO GO OUTSIDE," read the email's subject line. "HERE ARE OTHER EVENTS HAPPENING OUTSIDE YOUR HOUSE!"

I don't know what the fuck is up with LivingSocial. I'd heard they were a Groupon-style shopping portal that sent daily notifications about online deals, so I signed up. When their suggested deals weren't exactly my cup of tea, I followed their advice and customized my deal preferences. I spent literally hours filling out their six-hundred item "Personal Interests" checklist telling them things I barely admit to myself. Dogs don't like me, my gums are receding, I have a rather extensive collection of animated GIFs of Jon Hamm from the waist down.

And then every eight minutes for the next year I got email from them headlined, "CHOSEN ESPECIALLY FOR YOU!" that offered discounts at colon therapy and electrolysis salons. I'm not sure if the fault is accidental or intentional: though they ask yea or nay on Portuguese-Alaskan vegan-fusion restaurants, they neglect to inquire if you're unable to poop or are entirely covered in hair. I'm an atheist without a car, yet for some reason they think I'm itching to make a three-hour bus ride to New Brunswick, New Jersey, to see a play called, "Oy! Plotzing with a Yiddish Mama." Click on anything for additional info and they'll never let you forget it: a few hours later you'll see the email, "JUST BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T BUY IT DOESN'T MEAN YOU DON'T NEED A BRAZILIAN WAX!"

Even Change.Org -- the allegedly-altruistic petition site -- is full of shit. You sign one petition to protest bullying at a New Jersey preschool and literally seconds later the deluge begins. Now you get daily emails with headlines like, "Hey, Mr. Bleeding Heart, don't you give a fuck about the Boko Haram?"

I'm not sure what can be done about this irritating new trend. Businesses might pretend that those follow-up emails are a customer service, but when you get a hundred a day it seems more like punishment for visiting their website in the first place.

If you really want to sell me something, then, make a mouse that'll take back my last few clicks. "Excuse me," it'll broadcast to Change.Org, "I apologize for giving a shit." "Oops," it'll say to Kmart, "I'm not looking for fabrics made by DuPont." "Sorry," it'll tell Mistress Hildy, "I thought that was a mustache on your upper lip."

I'll read a book about "having it all" when it's written by an ugly dude.

I like this radio station. Ohmigod, was that a raccoon? I sure hope he didn't have a family. No, wait -- he's got a pouch, so they'd have been in his pouch. So I hope he did have family? No -- I hope he had family but they were on vacation. Though I'm not exactly sure where furry brown pouch-dwellers would be welcome. Maybe ... Greece? No, wait -- it wouldn't be good if they were on vacation. Think of it: you're sitting on a beach and you get a telegram saying your father is dead. Good luck finishing that Peach Mojito. Or would that have been their mother? Shoot, now I'm crying. And it wasn't even a raccoon, either. It was a homeless guy.

I really shouldn't be driving. What was it I took? I didn't think cocaine made people hallucinate. I really feel like some of these buildings could be Transformers and they could turn into robots at any time. Would that be a bad thing? It would if they had laser beams for eyes, but not if they were the "Danger, Will Robinson!" type. Why are robots always either good or evil? Those Transformers movies would be like six minutes long if all the other robots were normal. Like if they said, "Optimus, you know, I've got a lot on my plate today. Can't you enslave mankind by yourself?"

If there were people in a building and it transformed into a giant car, would they all end up in the seats or would they be crushed to death in the folded parts, just like that raccoon? There could be hundreds of people in a building, but only six or seven could fit in this Infiniti, so -- JESUS CHRIST! I guess I should at least look out for cheaper cars because who'd give a damn if they banged up a piece of shit?

These seats are so soft. I can't take my eyes off them. I know I should look at the road, but cement isn't exactly imported from Spain. Look, there's a small imperfection, almost like a zit. OHMIGOD WERE THESE LEATHER SEATS MADE OUT OF MY SKIN? No wait -- it's still there. I'm not sure about my back or my ass, though. Are my back and my ass still there? I think they must be, though I haven't seen them recently. OH HOLY FUCK!!! IT IS OPTIMUS PRIME! You bastard, you'll steal our civilization from my cold, dead hands! TAKE THAT! AND THAT! AMERICA'S NOT GOING DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT!!!

Oops. Wow. Since when did we get mass transit in L.A.?

---

The Infiniti Q50. The car that pays attention so you don't have to.

---

[Fifty Shades of Grey] is a movie about submitting to erotic chastisement by a handsome man who plays Chopin on his grand piano and sips chardonnay from long-stemmed glassware. He is extremely rich. Because there’s nothing sexy about spanking if he’s skint.

Lecturer On Cosmology, Particle Physics And Quantum Mechanics Accidentally Links To Zazzle Ladybug Speakers

Or cool personalized speakers with a ladybug pattern!

Madonna Performs "Living For Love" At The 2015 Grammys

While the rest of the world remains blissfully clueless, music insiders are buzzing about what happened to Madonna during her performance at the Grammys last night. Her rehearsal earlier in the evening went perfectly and there was no reason to suspect anything would go wrong other than the fact that she is turning into Mae West as we speak. Analyzing frames from the broadcast performance, however, we can see where her act took such a dreadful turn.

The show starts off well. She sings a bit, then flings aside her cape to reveal her colorful matador costume underneath. This is the first time in forty years she's taken her clothes off by herself, though, and she finds the process has winded her.

She drops to the ground, injuring a knee. She discovers she can't get up.

Her backup dancers start to buzz about what's happening, because this is where she's supposed to mime being trapped in Tupperware to illustrate the crushing need for recycling. Instead she remains on the ground and reaches out for help.

At this point, no one in the audience suspects anything has happened. The pain isn't registering on Madonna's face, but there's probably a reason that might also explain why her eyes are now five feet apart. A dancer, however, realizes that until they answer the phone at MedAlert someone's going to have to help her through the act.

Other dancers catch on and lift her onto the smoking stage, where she is supposed to perch on a glittery rock and rap about how young women need to v-steam in the third world. Instead she seems to be struggling to remember where she is. Lights, glitter, men in lace masks and horns: oh, good -- she's in her bedroom.

More dancers join in and try to form a human walker around Madonna, but that just confuses her and makes her think she's headed to Sav-On. She starts groping around for a scarf and her Coupon Saver.

Smartly, Madonna has cast her dancers from the ranks of the West Hollywood Fire Department, and their training immediately shows. One of them hoists her into the air in a textbook Liza Minnelli Lift. He carries her to the side of the stage. This can't be easy for her, as she perhaps senses that this scene is just an Andrew McCarthy away from being Weekend at Bernie's.

Perhaps he feels his resolve weakening, as he's usually armed with a hose and a gas mask. He hands her off to a colleague. Madonna is really being a trooper here, though her dance rebuke against Boko Haram goes untapped. Anybody else would have left the stage, but instead you can almost hear her exhorting her helpers to never forget the jazz hands.

Finally the Medevac helicopter arrives and hoists her to safety, and the Grammy audience still doesn't suspect a thing. Madonna is said to be resting comfortably this morning. She is surrounded by concerned dancers, basking in their good wishes while reminding them that they really should come up and see her sometime.

The Second Greatest Discovery In The History Of Man

I've posted some landmark stuff here before but this is truly the landmarkiest. It's unbelievable, incredible, amazing. My hands are literally shaking as I type. I'm not overselling this, either: when you're done reading I think you'll agree I made one of the most stupendous discoveries in history.

It's been a million years since someone made a discovery as groundbreaking, when a caveman's odd, arbitrary actions changed history. Maybe he rubbed his nose with a rock and nothing happened. He scratched the ground with a stick and nothing happened. But then he smashed two rocks together, producing sparks that just happened to shoot into a bed of sticks. And suddenly there was fire.

He must have thought he was hallucinating. I mean, one minor, arbitrary action discovers a life-changing chemical process. A hither-to unknown substance -- with seemingly no weight or substance -- runs and leaps and sprints across the earth, leaving everything in its path black and burnt. It's like the opposite of air, all orange flames and destruction. It must have seemed like some horrific demon that consumed everything in its path, and when it finally ran out of food it died. Why is it orange? Why does it give off heat? It's all so bizarre and capricious it must have seemed like a dream.

My discovery was also arbitrary. My Maltese, Chutney, waddled up to me and started barking while I was making dinner. She was so cute I just had to pick her up. While I was giving her a hug, though, she bumped into a butternut squash, and then all hell broke loose. Seriously. It was unbelievable: yet another nondescript action somehow initiated an unstoppable, indescribable force.

The closest comparison I can come up with is fire, but instead of orange flames it burbled up in iridescent fuchsia bubbles. It spread really quickly, because like regular bubbles these arbitrarily took flight and landed on nearby surfaces, setting off further chain reactions. Instead of leaving things burnt and filling my apartment with smoke, though, it left a shiny trail, and its smell was reminiscent of popcorn.

I put Chutney down and grabbed a towel and chased it through the room, finally managing to smother every bit. I don't want to scare you too much: it wasn't hot and it didn't burn stuff so I wasn't in any danger. In fact, putting it out was something like shampooing a two-year-old: if it hadn't left me damp and out of breath I'd have said it was kind of fun.

When I regained my bearing I ran to Google. I typed in everything I'd observed -- fuchsia bubbles, popcorn, Maltese, butternut squash -- but for the first time ever it came up blank. And then it hit me.

I'd discovered an incredible new phenomena.

Like I say, I was trembling at this point. I immediately knew it wasn't quite as great as the discovery of fire: I mean, fire has all sorts of applied uses, from heating food to powering cars. I'm not sure what good fuchsia bubbles are, or who wants to smell like popcorn. But singlehandedly I'd opened up a whole new field to investigate, and unwittingly found myself on the forefront.

I grabbed my notebook and wrote down two definitions:

GRONK: [noun, guh-RONK] the fuchsia bubbles that appear when a dog touches squash

SPELCHING: [verb, SPELL-chung] the arbitrary encroachment of gronk throughout an area, turning everything shiny and smelling of popcorn

Now that I'd named my new world, I'd have to define it. What prompts it? What fuels it? What purposes could it serve? And naturally, as someone with nearly a degree from a major university, I'd need to re-enact the experiment in controlled conditions.

UPDATE 1: When neighborhood dogs touch a butternut squash, nothing happens. No gronk and definitely no spelching. Bad news, not to mention the rather insulting posters blaring BEWARE OF THIS MAN!!! that were recently taped up on my street.

UPDATE 2: When Chutney comes into contact with a pumpkin, nothing happens. Similarly acorn and spaghetti squash. I'm a bit embarrassed that what I tell friends will be the Entertainment Event of the Century actually turns into three rather boring side dishes touched by a dog.

UPDATE 3: I decide to start from scratch. I make Chutney touch a butternut squash again. To my horror there are no fuchsia bubbles, and it doesn't smell like popcorn.

UPDATE 4: I take another hit of LSD. Twelve hours later I realize this must have been the catalyst, since my notebook is mostly unintelligible except for the words RUNAWAY SCRELB and PLATCHING.

Anyway, I guess that's it. It appears the whole thing was an illusion. I hope you don't see this as a massive waste of time, because I certainly don't. I believe we made headway in describing how we encounter our world, though I should probably give a shout-out to my neighbor for pointing out that my beloved Maltese Chutney is actually a striped sweatsock.

Football Player Who Said We Should Investigate Domestic Abuse In Society, Not In Football, Arrested For Beating Up Society

Story.

BROOKLYN: Massive Fire On Yet Another Great Site For Luxury Condos

Story.

Fox News Anchor Doesn't Realize Key Card Controls The Electricity In His Hotel Room, Assumes Storm Knocked Out Power. Spends Night Sitting Alone In The Dark.

Story.

Scientists Invent A Way To "Un-Boil" A Hard-Boiled Egg

"Okay! Christ, I'll make you a cheese sandwich," said their moms.

Lindsay Lohan's Vagina Magically Draws Glassware To It

Somebody forwarded this picture to me the other day with the subject "Ohmifuckin' GOD, this is INCREDIBLE." After looking at it long and hard, I agreed. It seemed unbelievable, inhuman, a bizarre trick of nature. Could there be a rational explanation? Because taking this photo on face value, the conclusion seemed inescapable:

Lindsay Lohan's vagina magically draws glassware to it.

On the face of it it seems unlikely, but it's not without precedent. Lindsay has supposedly slept with Adam Levine, James Franco, and Justin Timberlake, so there's something going on downstairs that the laws of nature can't explain. I wrote up a list of possible explanations and judged the likeliness of each.

First I spoke to a friend who nearly has a degree. "These perfume bottles seem to be moving toward Lindsay's vagina," I said. "Is that totally impossible?"

His answer surprised me. "Definitely not," he said. "Einstein documented distortions in time and space caused by an observer standing at a fixed position and something moving really quickly."

I mused over this for a while before I discounted it. I mean, perfume bottles can't move really quickly. And judging from what my straight friends tell me, vaginas can barely be budged from the bed.

A second possibility is the "birds of a feather" argument. We all know how perfume bottles cluster together on dressing tables, as if they have an affinity for each other. Is it possible they're downwind of Lindsay's vagina, and they suspect that it's one of them? At the risk of personifying them, maybe it's like they're sniffing the air and thinking, "Hmm, I smell a brisk autumn breeze and sweet romance. Guys, I think we're supposed to be over there." This might explain why the closest bottles is the most eager to move while the third is like, "I haven't smelled nothing but toilet since 1985."

However, we reach the sole rational conclusion by offering a proven parallel. In the Caribbean, there are pearl divers who can hold their breath for upwards of ten minutes. They start slowly, and with practice they develop a skill that seems other-worldly. Rather than diving for pearls, though, Lindsay is taking selfies, brutally sucking in her stomach dozens of times a day. Over the years it's not a stretch to imagine she can now create a perfect vacuum inside her body: one that not only pulls in human flesh but also anything lurking nearby.

One hallmark of a good theory is that it's easily testable, and I hope to test this in the immediate future. I've already written up a simple script that calls only for Ms. Lohan and the line, "Ohmigod, I just can't hold onto this paperclip."

Still, we haven't answered all of the questions this selfie poses. Maybe tomorrow we'll think of reasons why Lindsay's bathroom mirror doesn't actually reflect people but instead only offers the image of three elongated clams.

Mansions These Days Have Ballrooms, Theaters, Recording Studios, Bowling Alleys, Cigar Rooms and Staff Quarters But Hairdressing Salons Make Them "Hard As Heck To Sell"

Story.

The Golden Globes Night of Mostly Underperforming Stars

Once again Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were smart, snappy hosts. The Guardian says their "sister act subverted the conversations that take place about celebrity women." Yes, the night was truly a feminist triumph, except for the part where a dude had to help them upstairs so they wouldn't trip on their gowns.

I don't think anybody could have predicted most of the winners, unless you knew which movies weren't particularly successful and had money left in their advertising budget. Patricia Arquette was a surprise winner for Boyhood. (The feminist triumph of Girlhood should hit theaters in 2027.) No sour grapes here: I mean, I'd give her a whole truckful of Golden Globes if she could play a mom who wasn't annoying.

Greer Grammer was a bright light in an occasionally dazzling evening. Clearly her assignment wasn't about connections or beauty: it was all about the work. And I know in the future she'll really be able to use that experience showing people how to find the exit of a theater.

Whenever I see Leonardo Dicaprio I think of Oscar Wilde. Not because of his wit or subversion but because in his attic I'll bet there's a painting of an attractive guy.

On the plus side, the night was lightweight, silly fun. Me, I loved hearing the screams of surprise when the winners were announced. I guess nobody knew if their checks had cleared or not.

Every morning I wake up with a headache, and I'm not sure if it's caused by gin or a cheap space heater I bought. A friend said to test it I should either turn off the heater or not drink for a night, so I guess I won't know until July.

HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO GO

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH AS ALAN TURING: One day computers will be so smart they will be virtually indistinguishable from people.

POLICEMAN: Really?

BCAAT: I've devised a test that I know one day will be met. You will type in messages on your keyboard, and you will see responses on your screen. You type in whatever questions you want: What's the weather like? Who is the president of China? Why am I so insecure? You won't be told who's on the other end. It could be a person replying to you or a computer. One day computers will have such limitless intelligence that you will have absolutely no idea it's a machine you're talking to. And that, my friend, is what I call "The Imitation Game."

HOW IT WENT IN THE MOVIE

BCAAT: Go ahead: ask me any question, and then tell me what I am.

Is broth the next juice? We visited Brodo in East Village to find out.

Chef Marco Canora opened Brodo out of a window of his popular East Village restaurant Hearth to serve bone broths in paper cups to street side patrons. This may sound like an unusual concept at first, but it looks like Marco may have tapped into NYC’s next big health trend.

You know what's not the new health trend? A professional chef tasting his broth and then using that spoon to stir it.