Ohmigod, people! So some of us downloaded Wolverine illegally. Christ, just let it go!

Steven keeps emailing to ask when we're going to have our "session."

Session. Evidently that's what folks into S&M call "having sex."

The more I think about it, the more the word creeps me out. I mean, I don't like those Pepe LePew guys who are always asking when we're going to "make love," but there's got to be some middle ground. "Session" is so cold. Psychiatrists have sessions. Courts are in session. When we're talking about getting naked, I don't want to picture Dr. Phil or Judge Judy hanging around. "Session" doesn't give the impression that we're sharing something intimate. In fact, I get the idea that halfway through I'll be chained to a rock with a ball-gag in my mouth, and he'll be like, "It's 12:15 and I've got some email to return. Why don't we resume around 2?"

I've been curious about S&M since I tended bar in my teens. To drum up business one night the owner played the movie Born to Raise Hell. It was certainly eye-opening to a timid kid who wouldn't have mailed a letter without a nine-digit zip code. All I remember is one scene where a hunky guy in a leather harness is tied to a tree and somebody punches him in the stomach until he pukes.

I appreciated the wry insouciance and the countercultural flair, but to this day I haven't seen anything less likely to turn me on, and I watch "The View" every day.

Still, every once in a while I reconsider whether or not I want to get involved. S&M folks couldn't be more open and outgoing, to the point where you wonder if they're "recruiting" like the right-wingers say all us homosexuals are. At least once a year the local organization holds an open house with mummifications and crucifixions and everything, showing off their skills to the curious public like the sheep-shearing girls at Appleton's Amish Village, except in studded harnesses and leather caps instead of dirndls and bonnets. I find them interesting and always politely clap between acts, but at no point do I think, Oh God, I wish that was me immobilized beneath that Saran Wrap.

I like the masculinity. I like the camaraderie. I like the clothes. But I've tried and tried and I just never get that SCHWING! when somebody pokes me with a cattle prod.

Still, I've been toying with the idea for so long that I'd probably give it a shot, except I'm pretty sure Steven is the wrong guy. First, I don't have the confidence in him that I'd want in my master. I've been over to his place for dinner a couple times, and he just picked up food off of serving platters with his hands. Didn't use forks or spatulas or anything. And I'm thinking, you know, when your master clamps your nipples together and then flogs you with a cat o'nine tails, you probably can't say stuff like, "Dude, you sterilized all this shit beforehand, right?"

What it comes down to, though, is I just don't trust Steven, and that's the straw that broke the camel's back. He's the kind of guy who, when you run into him, is all "Hey, we gotta have a session! We gotta have a session!" and then you don't hear from him for eight years. He isn't trustworthy. He doesn't inspire confidence. And confidence is what I need to break down the last bit of my reserve. Because, you know, I've had guys who wouldn't stop kissing me before, and that would be a lot more annoying if they were holding pliers.

Frommers: The Best There is for Travel Advice

I'm going to Vermont in June, so I'm looking for a good mid-priced hotel where I can stay. Google pointed me to Frommer's, the acclaimed masters of travel for nearly forty years. Here's their advice, in its entirety:


Well, I don't know. Maybe there is just a fine line between sleeping on the ground in a tent and a Marriott.

Repeat Friday: Surprise

I have to do something. Every morning I wake up and it's like my eyebrows have grown just a little bit bigger, until they threaten to consume my face. It looks like two squirrels are scurrying across my forehead, and very soon there's just going be to one. Years ago, though, after an overzealous afternoon with a razor blade, I learned that shaping and tweezing your facial hair is like trying to remove your own gall bladder. This time around, I decide, I'll let a professional handle it.

I don't exactly keep up with the trends, but I know about threading. I've seen it on the news, where an Asian woman wielding something like dental floss wraps a coil around a stray hair and yanks it out, faster than the blink of an eye. While I run my daily errands I pass eight or nine threading salons, and I slow in front of every one. I feel my eyebrows swelling until I can barely keep my head up. I think, why don't I just go in and get it done?

You hear all these rumors about New York metrosexuals, but I'm the only guy in the salon I finally choose. There's so much estrogen in the building, in fact, I feel like I've accidentally stumbled into Pinkberry. Mercifully, the procedure is quick and painless. Five minutes and fifteen dollars later, the woman passes me a hand mirror. My eyebrows are far apart and half their original size. The delicate arch makes me look ever so slightly surprised.

I look at the woman. She looks at me. "Well, I think they look good," she says.

I race to the bathroom of a nearby Bed Bath & Beyond and survey the damage. They could definitely be worse. They're certainly not that 30s Jean Harlow brow, the thin Sharpie squiggle dancing below the hairline. They could almost pass for natural. Still, the arch is sharp enough to change my default expression. I'm no longer bored. I'm not exhausted. If I keep my face entirely still, I'm somewhere between inquisitive and questioning. Add in even the slightest additional surprise, though, and I look like a man fleeing Godzilla.

I run my remaining errands as I struggle to keeping my face utterly placid. Inquisitive eyebrows aren't such a horrible thing, I discover. They have the attitude that I don't, second-guessing every word I hear.

I stop at a fruit stand for a mango and some strawberries. "That'll be twelve dollars," the man says. I look at him. He looks at me. "Okay, okay," he snaps. "Maybe it's just ten."

I drop in Designer Shoe Warehouse to see what's new. There's a pair of Ecco shoes I almost like but they're clunky, and they only come in brown. "Those are absolutely perfect," a clerk says. I look at her. She looks at me. "If your girlfriend's named Rainbow and you wear fringed vests," she adds.

By the time I head home it's late, and the subway is deserted. Still, a middle-aged man sits down right next to me. His suit is cheap, his hair's thinning, his moustache nearly hides his mouth. "You should be a model," he says, just out of the blue. "I mean, you are absolutely gorgeous. You've got an amazing face, and it looks like you've got a really hot body. You could be, like, in one of those Calvin Klein ads, just wearing underwear. David Beckham's got nothing on you."

I look at him. He looks at me.

"Well, I wouldn't turn off the lights when I fucked you," he says, so imagine my surprise when he did.

Need More Attention? Here's How To Get It.

Need more attention from the hubby? Pick up Bjorn Franke's Imaginary Affair toolkit. It'll do wonders to spark up that dull love life. "What, this? I must have, er, tripped and slid across the rug."

A certain minority group has decided to take a different path through life, which is their prerogative. But now they want society to change to accept this odd lifestyle, and I say they can go to hell.

I'm speaking, of course, about parents. You know, those heterosexuals who fuck one night and then nine months later think the sun shines out of their ass. Somehow, while the rest of us are struggling to achieve equality, they've actually eked out a few special rights for themselves, and it's about time this came to an end.

Why is it cheaper for kids to go to the movies? Judging from the ones in my neighborhood, my ass fills up less of the seat.

How come when some chick with a stroller struts down the street we're all supposed to leap out of the way, but when I'm walking nobody yells, "Hey, clear the way! Tall guy coming through!"?

Plus, you don't see me getting banged all night and then six months later expecting dudes on the subway to give me their seats.

Last, we've got one very important rule that holds together the thin fabric of our society: you can't just whip out your erogenous zones any time you feel like it. There's a place in our society for breasts, and that's behind fabric during the daytime and behind pasties at night. Breast-feeding is immoral and illegal, and there's no place for it in public life. You don't see me whipping my dick out any time I want to give my baby a drink, and it doesn't make one bit of difference that he's French and thirty-six years old.

Sigh; two weeks after I finish a course of antibiotics I'm still totally fucked up. I guess I should have known this in advance, but I didn't realize that antibiotics would kill all the probiotics in my body. Adios to every benefit I got from eight thousand dollars worth of Activia.

I didn't realize how much I needed these guys. See, probiotics are like the customs agents that live in your colon. They stand there, arms crossed, examining everything that comes by for something the body can use. Carrot chunk? Just pull that puppy over here so we can suck all the Vitamin A out of it. Spinach leaf? Thisaway.

And now they're all dead, and everything I eat just gets waved right on through.

Animal rights group PETA is contacting celebrities and asking them to change their names to focus a spotlight on animal cruelty and abuse. In a letter to the Pet Shop Boys, they write

By agreeing to change your name to the Rescue Shelter Boys, you would help raise awareness about the cruelty involved in the pet trade and encourage your millions of fans to consider giving a home to an abandoned or unwanted animal from an animal shelter. So, what do you say?

While the Pet Shop Boys haven't committed to any action, Heidi Klum's husband has already agreed to their request and will henceforth be known as Sea Kitten.


(Via Joe.My.God)

Some people say gun owners don't need that kind of firepower, but sometimes you meet a particularly recalcitrant deer.

From the subway ad for Single Husbands by Mary Morrison:

WARNING! ADULT FICTION. SEXUALLY EXQUISITE.

Well, as they said about Harry Potter: it doesn't really matter if it's crap, just that it gets idiots to read.

Whenever people ask me what I do, I say "As little as possible, in every room of the house." Because the thing is, nobody's got the right to have expectations when I already shot them down.

Still, some dudes get mad anyway. They say, "Well, I thought you were going to do something," or "I didn't think you'd just lie there."

Tough. I tell them, "Hey, I wasn't exactly excited when I met you, and that was before I saw you naked."

A Joke

So all these New Yorkers are mad because a couple fried chicken stands renamed themselves after Obama. Everybody's furious, saying it's insulting and racist and rude.

Me, I think it's just sour grapes. They're jealous that it's just a couple chicken joints, while Bush got a whole league named after him.

Why I'll Always Be a Luddite

In real life you don't have to wait twelve minutes for your yellow pages to load.

A "debate." The New York Times thinks this is a "debate."

Uh, no. Here's a debate: should Madoff's jailers actually fling horseshit onto him every day of the 150 years he serves, or just make him wear women's clothing and spit in all his food?

His London restaurant La Noisette just closed.

He sold his "glittering" restaurant on L. A.'s Sunset Strip less than a year after it opened.

His restaurant at London's Savoy hotel has shut down while the hotel is refurbished.

He sold his restaurant at Prague's Hilton hotel.

His restaurant at London's Connaught hotel closed.

His plans to open a restaurant in Berlin have been shelved.

Gordon Ramsay is "concentrating on Australia and South Africa," a spokesman says.

I'd say slap a slice of melty cheese on everything, but dude's probably a little touchy about cooking tips.

I wouldn't waste half as much time surfing the internet if articles didn't pretend to be about roller coasters when they aren't.

Miscellaneous Travel Thoughts

I spent five days in the Alps. The cold was unbelievable. I froze straight through to the bone, and every step I took was an inhuman effort. At night we built fires, and huddled together for warmth. C'mon, how hard would it be to post English instructions on the fuckin' air conditioner?



Songs in which you'll find words that'll be helpful while you're traveling in Germany:

-- Cabaret ("Vilkomen, bienvenue")
-- Danke Schoene

Songs that aren't so helpful:

-- 99 Luftballons



It seems like every time I go somewhere I discover something that I guess should have been obvious but comes as a real surprise. When I went to the Bahamas, I didn't realize all the residents were poor and black. When I went to Montreal, I didn't realize all the street signs were in French.

And when I went to Barcelona, I didn't realize that everybody there smokes. Two or three cigarettes at a time, just in case one goes out. I couldn't wait to go: I'd read all those rapturous reviews about how great the tapas bars are, but they didn't mention that the restaurants are so smoky you'll have to take the waiter's word for it that he brought you food.

Barcelona was my first stop for a three-week tour of Europe. I pack light, so I didn't have a heck of a lot of clothes, and only had one coat. So my choice was, eat at one of those terrific places where all the locals go, burn out my sinuses and smell like an ashtray for the next three weeks, or live on takeout sandwiches and attack those cretins every chance I get.

Barcelona! Assholes. They're so freakin' lazy even the restaurants close for lunch.




Okay, I'll end this on a positive note. You're got to applaud the Europeans for one innovation. They've got a surefire answer to the question, "How can I get my kid to eat multicolored meat?"

Somebody needs to tell that bitch Madonna to mind her own business. Why's she always poking her skinny nose into places where it doesn't belong?

Naturally I'm talking about the way she buys foreign children in Malawi. You wonder why the world hates America? You got a prime example right here. Why does this woman think she can blithely plow her way into a government building and randomly grab a kid, like she's shopping for free-range beef at Whole Foods? She thinks that just because she has enough money to support it she can take it home with her. Is that unbelievable? What kind of egomaniacal hubris makes her think these kids don't already have parents that they love?

My God, sometimes she doesn't even wait until after they've had their daily teaspoon of rice.

Well, you say, so far she's just been pulling kids out of orphanages. What difference does that make? See, Malawi has a different sort of child-care system. In Malawi, all the kids in orphanages have families. Orphanages are really more like day-care centers, or even summer camps, where you can park a kid while you're, say, redecorating your hut, or fattening up the rat for Thanksgiving dinner. They're a convenient way to get the kids out of your hair for a year or two while you're trying to earn enough to buy a cup of flour.

It's different, but it's quite an efficient system. See, with these types of orphanages, the Malawians do away with the tyranny of parenthood, because having a child doesn't have to be a life-long sentence. Any time you want you can drop your kid off at a state-supported center, and every morning you can decide whether or not you want him back. Parents can spend many wonderful years in peace and quiet without ever giving up the right to say, "Hey, I want David back now that that rich old white woman wants him!"

Okay, so the orphanages aren't particularly easy on the children. I mean, they know they've got relatives on the outside, and it's not particularly reassuring to them to know that they're in this strange environment because Grandma doesn't want them until they're six. But with all the activities in these orphanages, they soon forget. They play Swat the Dung Beetle and Who's Eating Dirt and pretty soon they're oblivious to the world -- and prime targets for every white woman who happens to have a spare room and a sandwich or two.

Really, it's the most unimaginable hubris. I mean, how would Madonna feel if a rich African man burst into an American orphanage and pulled out three or four children just because he wanted to give them a better life? Doesn't sound quite so altruistic now, right?

Obviously life in Malawi isn't perfect. There is hunger and disease. But the biggest problem by far is keeping meddlesome rock stars out of orphanages, and stopping rich people from buying these children. They are not commodities. They are not possessions. They're living, breathing beings who may be wanted by their parents one day soon.

Public Art in Barcelona

Barcelona is an important cultural centre and a major tourist destination with a rich cultural heritage. The city is perhaps unrivaled in the world with its vast treasures of public art.


One can't mention Barcelona without talking about Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi was an architect famous for his unique and highly individualistic designs. Many of the city's buildings bear his modernist stamp. This photo shows details of his work in Park Guell.


Joan Miro was also a Barcelona native. Various examples of his work can be found around the city, and his Foundation is one of the city's most exciting showcases of contemporary art. This piece is titled Woman and Bird.

And then there's this untitled work on La Rambla, by an unknown sculptor.


This piece breaks from Barcelona's art nouveau history with its implacable realism. In stark contrast to the layered nuance of the Mona Lisa, this man's face just says he wants to take a crap.

In this masterpiece of stone masonry, the toilet has the pure lustre of porcelain, the toilet brush bears the dull matte of plastic, and the lowered khakis are a symphony of tight wrinkles. The toilet tissue looks like at any moment it might unspool and fly away.

If you're lucky, you'll wander by when the piece makes a farting sound and then waves at its butt with the newspaper.

Clearly Barcelona is the throne of Europe's contemporary art scene, where tomorrow's movements start today. If you've ever thought about visiting, it's time to shit or get off the pot. Barcelona is waiting: isn't it time you dropped in?

I have decided to pursue my goal to become a Russian gymnast.

No longer will I stumble through life with no direction or self-control. No longer will self-indulgence and excess rule my life. No, steely concentration will be my mantra as I focus single-mindedly on this pursuit.

Together with my brother Dmitri, we will become a team that will turn the gymnastics world upside-down. We will perform routines the likes of which no one has ever seen, blithely contorting ourselves into death-defying positions that make ordinary gymnasts run screaming to their mommies.

Of course, it won't be easy. Our typical day will consist of four hours of weight training, three hours of flexibility lessons, and six hours of gymnastics. After all that grueling work, when our bulging muscles are exhausted to the point of collapse, we will retire to a local bar where we will knock back vodka like it's water and girls will blush in our testosterone-drenched presence. They'll search for every excuse to touch our rock-hard biceps, but we'll push them away. There's no place for females in the rough-and-tumble gymnastics world.

Audiences will gasp in disbelief as we strip off our warm-up suits and show off bodies that look like anatomical charts. Women will swoon with desire and men will sob with jealousy. My arms will be like steel cables: flexible, yet strong. My shoulders will be broad and muscular. My abdomen will look like it's sculpted from marble. My legs will be like tree trunks, unyielding sinew that will support my brother in our signature Chinese Pagoda move. Every fiber of our beings will burn with fury as we take positions no other duo has even dreamed of and, indeed, do things that God Himself never meant the human body to do.

We will work relentlessly to perfect each new position, and there will be no place for either shame or privacy to distract us from our goals. My trembling fingers may rest mere centimeters from my brother Dmitri's groin, but with our cold-hearted focus neither of us will care. With ropy veins bulging I will support Dmitri solely by the buttocks as he attempts the death-defying Iron Cross. Audiences might chuckle uneasily, unaccustomed to the blasé way we macho men handle each other's rock-hard bodies, but the titters will die in their throats when through sheer force of will and muscular power we contort our bodies into positions that'd make Michelangelo weep with joy.

And pretty soon we'll be rich and famous and our names will be on everyone's lips.

So c'mon, Dmitri -- just put on the tights, okay?