Did you know you can print exactly 83 pages after your Canon MP530 says you're out of ink?
Did you know the difference between "self-employed" and "unemployed" is $6,583 in tax?
Did you know that if you pop Tylenol like candy, your headache won't go away but your liver will shut down?
Taxes in America are ridiculous. The forms are unbelievably long and complicated, though one form assured me that a committee had been formed to judge whether an ordinary human could understand and complete the form within a calendar year and the answer came up yes. Still, you've got to admire the balls of a state where, if you earn $85 over poverty level, they've got dibs on $3.
In simpler terms, work, for Mr. Blasberg, means what he is doing right now, which is being a part of a scene. What that scene is does not matter, so long as the same Very Important People are there being photographed, their dresses remarked upon and their names recorded in the party pages of a newspaper or magazine or whichever blog is in favor at the moment, like the one written by Mr. Blasberg for Style.com. He is very good at his part — witty, teddy-bear cute but no threat to anyone’s husband.
A pair of male swans have built a love nest in the UK. "They sit on the nest and act in every way as if they were a pair expecting to lay eggs," said swannery manager John Houston. "It is quite sweet. . . We realized they were together because the swan herds can obviously tell the difference between the males and females as the cobs have a much larger bump on their nose."
Meanwhile, you know how this is being reported on Fox News? TWO BLIND SWANS FOUND IN ENGLAND.
Constance McMillen, a Mississippi high school honors student who fought back when her school told her she couldn’t take her girlfriend to the prom, has been announced as one of the Grand Marshals for the 41st Annual LGBT Pride March in New York on June 27, 2010. “I never dreamed so many people would support my fight to take my girlfriend to the prom, much less that I’d end up being asked to be a Grand Marshal at NYC Pride,” said McMillen, an 18-year-old high school senior from Fulton, Mississippi, adding, “I’m really honored and touched to be asked to be part of this celebration.”
By the way, if any of the folks in Mississippi are interested in seeing the demonized hometown girl applauded by millions of New Yorkers, I have vital information. The original route, marching down 5th Avenue from 52nd Street, has been changed. The new route is down McDougal Street in Staten Island, starting at the Exxon on Turner Boulevard and ending at the Tottenville Food Circus at Willis and Grand.
I didn't like Glee from Day One. Where everybody else saw a fresh new era of fun, diversity and inclusiveness, I saw the same old minstrel show where straight white people were up front and all the members of minority groups served as comic relief.
So I was startled when every dude with a blog hailed Glee as a wonderful, fun breakthrough, whereas I saw it as a musical Mary Tyler Moore show where Rhoda's in a wheelchair and Phyllis is gay.
You'll be pleased to hear, though, that now I'm ready to eat my words. Glee recently released two compilations of music from the series, a total of thirty-nine songs, and Kurt, the gay character, is actually featured on one of those songs!
Well, color me contrite. Like Ricky Martin coming out, this is a startling breakthrough for gays that I never thought we'd see in our lifetimes.
Sure, one out of thirty-nine isn't such a huge number. In fact, there's a higher ratio of African-Americans at Moody Blues reunions. Still, it's the thought that counts. We're included! We're part of the perky tapestry. So what if Kristin Chenowith has twice as many songs on the compilations and she guest-starred on exactly one episode? Ha ha to all the bigots and haters out there who, over the course of nearly three hours of music, will have to hit the fast-forward button on their iPod once!
I am now officially a Gleek. With my foot in my mouth and a sheepish grin on my face I'm heading over to the Itunes store right now. I'd like to thank the amazing folks at Glee for creating such a groundbreaking vision, but I send special thanks to the people at Amazon for making the records available by the song so I can buy the entire gay part for just thirty-nine cents.
Actually is one of my favorite words. Actually, it's my favorite word, since you can actually use it in so many ways. It's actually kind of weird, though, because when you say actually I think you're really saying really, and really isn't actually such a great word. Actually, really is actually kind of meaningless, actually meaning something like very, which is really pretty useless. That's actually why I use actually far more than I actually use really, and really more than I actually use very. Worst of all, though, is pretty, which I actually use far less than really, and really use less than very, actually, because pretty is actually completely meaningless, and I really actually pride myself on avoiding words that are really pretty meaningless.
Investigators examining the crash in which Polish President Lech Kaczynski was killed appear to be focusing on why the pilot did not heed instructions from air traffic controllers to give up trying to land in bad weather.
Attention has been drawn to the pilot's state of mind because of a previous incident involving the Polish president.
In August 2008, Mr. Kaczynski got into a dispute with a pilot who refused to land his plane in bad weather, and threatened that there would be consequences. "If someone decides to become a pilot, he cannot be fearful," Mr. Kaczynski said. "After returning to the country, we shall deal with this matter."
Rest in peace, Fearless.
After four consecutive nights of partying, I spent last night at home. I aimed my face at the TV and held down the channel-changing button on the remote. At eleven, I turned it off, convinced America is a far stranger place than I thought.
On Iron Chef America, guest Holly Smith battled the home team's Cat Cora. From her website: "[Ms. Smith's] Cafe Juanita has been a labor of love, allowing Holly to express her passion for Northern Italian food and wine; a commitment to organics and sustainability and a holistic approach to the dining experience. Holly hopes to showcase local products while serving modern Northern Italian inspired cuisine." She's been in every magazine, received every award, blah blah blah.
When the battle ended, Ms. Smith's team beamed with pride, and we saw her Hispanic assistant was missing four of his front teeth. Nobody says a word. Nobody notices. Me, I wonder: exactly how many James Beard Awards does Ms. Smith have to win before her employees can afford incisors? Is she making them wait to buy locally-sourced ivory?
Continuing our theme of idiots versus gays, remember that beauty-pageant moron, Miss South Carolina, who blathered on for five minutes about trying to find crap on maps? Caitlin "Caite" Upton is on The Amazing Race this season, and last night she proved exactly how smart she is. She got a chance to knock any team out of the race and she picked the third-place lesbians. "The lesbians!" she repeated, as her eyes glazed over and bits of foam appeared at the corners of her mouth. "LESBIANS!"
She parroted the words like they're an epithet, until you started to wonder if the show was homophobic for allowing it. I mean, would we see this idiot make these same outbursts if she had other targets in mind? If she were playing against a pair of rabbis, for instance, would we hear repeated exclamations like "When I get a chance, I'm really gonna screw them Jews!"?
The real head-scratcher, though, was the Celebrity Apprentice, a show that clearly cannot be watched by people with functioning brains. Two teams had to make commercials about Right Guard, which means we had to hear alleged celebrities talk about how much they sweat, with various degrees of success. Goldberg, the wrestler, described how stressful his work is, saying "Have you ever wrestled live in front of millions in your underwear?" Well, no, I haven't -- but he hasn't either, unless he's got purple spandex under those pleated Dockers. Chef Curtis Stone tried to convince us that he gushes veritable buckets as he artfully dabs basil bechamel onto porcelain. Holly Robinson-Peete shared a conversation-stopping anecdote about the first time she smelled her preteen son's B. O.
And you thought your friends were weird when they talked about sniffing their newborn's head.
The winning commercial, though, was a tour de force that'd make David Lynch flinch. Two kids are sitting on a couch. "He ain't coming," one kid says.
"Yeah, he is," says the other. "I won him in a contest, so he is."
Clyde "The Slide" Drexler turns up, and what do you think the kids have planned for the basketball star? A game of HORSE? Some one-on-one? Nope. They have Clyde exercise, and then they smell him to see if he has B. O.
You know, if I caught my kid doing this, I'd take him to a psychiatrist. Which is saying something, because if I caught him reading a magazine called "Shetland Ponies Fuck Nazi Sluts!" I'd totally let it slide.
The kids make Clyde do two hundred sit-ups then sniff at him. "Nothing," the first kid in disgust. "Told you," the other replies. They make Clyde do a thousand jumping jacks. "Nothing," repeats the first kid. "Told you," the other replies.
Judging by the dialog, you realize they've planned this in advance. "Oboy!" one of them must have yelled. "A basketball star is coming to my house!"
"Wow!" screamed the other. "I wonder if his pits smell like cheese."
Obviously, the world has changed. On TV, we've got commercials in between commercials, with people fighting over who can sell out more. We proudly paint our children as perverts if it fits the marketing plan. "If I work really hard," goes our new American Dream, "one day I'll sign with the Yankees, and I can see what A-Rod smells like!"
At some point, we think, something's got to give. People just can't be that dumb. The last battle the world will face isn't going to be masses of Satan's winged followers fighting haloed angels with enchanted swords. No, there'll be somewhat blander teams, like Idiots vs. Lesbians, or Rich People vs. Toothless Assistants, with the rest of us taking sides.
Which is too bad. Because judging from the word around my neighborhood, sweaty angels smell like basil bechamel.
Michelle "Bombshell" McGee, Jesse James' mistress, is involved in a bitter custody battle, and she's written up a long rebuttal to some of the claims her ex has made. I'll admit it's no picnic being on the defensive, but as you parse her words you'll notice they're oddly qualified.
"I do NOT show my children how to 'nazi salute,'" she says. Well, that's nice, but it's a little specific. Just the salute is off-limits? Maybe it interferes with their goose-stepping.
"I do NOT do any pornography in my home." Oh-kay. Do we need to ask specifically about bowling alleys, or the Dollar Store?
"I do NOT do any webcam 'sessions' from my home with my children present." Well! Two qualifiers there. Sure that's enough, "Bombshell"? Best play it safe and tag on "while DJ Jazzy Jeff played on the radio."
Last, she says, "I do NOT have a swastika tattoo on me." We were always confused about that, because we've seen pictures of her virtually naked and played Spot the Swastika to no avail.
What about the WP tattoo, though? She doesn't mention it. Maybe it stands for Wolfgang Puck. He makes a cream-cheese-and-lox pizza that'll make you plotz, right there in the Dollar Store.
Did you read about this? It's pretty amazing. Archaeologists digging in Greece have discovered a couplet inscribed in stone that appears to be the world's first personals ad. It's truly strange, a time capsule into a different world, but also shows that we haven't really changed that much in the ensuing 5,000 years.
[Butch Anthony is] the host of the Doo Nanny, the annual alt/folk art “micro” festival, as he calls it, that started as an “art party” he and two friends gave on the side of the road 15 years ago in nearby Pittsview, and moved to Mr. Anthony’s property here three years ago.
“There’s a 100-foot vagina we’re fixing to burn,” Mr. Anthony remarked recently while filling a garbage can in the back of his battered truck with water, a precautionary measure, one gathered, in case things got out of hand.
But why a vagina? “They’ve got a burning man, why not have a burning woman?”
Really? Woman = vagina? This dude sounds like a dick.
Nicholas Cage's bedroom.
If that train stops at the bed and drops off ice cream cones, this is the house I've been dreaming about since I was five years old.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
This sculpture evokes a lot of mixed feelings in me.
I'm sad to see Super Mario is dead, since I've had more than a few dreams about his tiny moustache tickling hard-to-reach parts of my body.
I'm curious if some new religion will spring up around him, with a Holy Trinity that includes Mario, Luigi, and Donkey Kong. When you turn thirteen, instead of declaring that you're a man, they'll give you a hammer and then roll barrels at you.
But mostly I'm sorry I missed what must have been an awesome Last Supper.
Okay, I'll admit it: I was suspicious about Tiger Woods from the beginning. He looked like a hip black man, but he didn't act like one. He played the Masters at Augusta, a club where women aren't allowed. I thought he should have spoken out about their discrimination, since he knows what it's like. But then I thought, well, you can't hold a dude to higher standards just because he's black.
Then there was the issue of racial identity. Tiger looks black, and if he'd just come out and said he was black he would have revolutionized golf. There's never been a famous African-American golfer, and he'd have been a hero to that community. Instead, he said he was something called a Caucablackapaloozan.
WTF?
I sat down and puzzled for hours over that one. First, you know, ethnic identity doesn't require military precision. We're not naming birth-control pills here. My parents are German and French but you didn't see me scouring the Census for a FERMAN box. You just pick out your predominant ethnic background and go for it. Besides, Tiger is one quarter Thai, one quarter African American, one quarter Chinese, and one quarter other stuff. Wouldn't that make the dude Thaiblachin?
Either way, you know his little semantics game doesn't mean shit to folks in the South. I'm pretty sure Otis McRedneck wouldn't say, "I know we run the black folks out of town, but Tiger says he's Caucablackapaloozan so I say we give him a pass."
Since then, Tiger's been to hell and back, and we're willing to give the man another shot. Sure, he still hasn't said a word about Augusta, which still doesn't let women join. And sure, he's still just done one thing for civil rights, and that's reaffirm the right of rich dudes of any ethnic background to fuck white whores.
But I'm an optimist. I hope Tiger has learned something. Like his wife Elin, I wonder if he'll finally take the high road, or if once again we'll see a secretive man, smaller than life, wielding that misplaced Cauc.
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