You know, if it looks like a real Louis Vuitton bag, I don't care if those are capillaries.

Regular readers know I often chat about turning my blog into a money maker, but so far all my efforts have fallen flat. Today, though, I think I've come up with a workable business plan. I'll find some product that I really like, and I'll write about it, and maybe the company that manufactures the item will send me a small check for giving them some publicity.

Abercrombie Kids has the same hip style as their parent company, Abercrombie & Fitch, but they're aimed at the grade school crowd. What's going to be the hottest swimsuit this year for seven- to fourteen-year-olds? Their new Ashley push-up bikini top.


"What?" I can hear you asking. "Push-up bikini tops for seven-year-old girls?"

Well, that's the perfect age, we say! After all, seven is the new fifteen. It's the age when you teach girls to be kind to animals, be loyal to friends, and start putting some frosting on the devil's cornbread. But let's be realistic: not every seven-year-old looks like Carmen Elektra. Hell, they might not have any breast tissue, and it's a couple of years early to start talking about implants. What's the solution? Abercrombie Kids' Ashley push-up triangles.

Now, it's possible your seven-year-old doesn't realize she's flat-chested. I mean, Dora the Explorer doesn't bring up the topic very often, despite the fact she's a longtime resident of the Straits of Notitty herself. But it's also possible your daughter is ashamed. I mean, what girl wants to bring up her little batch of cupcakes when Mom needs pillars to support her angel food?

Besides, I know you want your daughter to look her best. But picture this: you take her to the beach in a regular swimsuit, and nobody looks at her. She plays frisbee. She swims. She looks at tide pools. What kind of fun is that for somebody who's probably already sexted pictures of herself to Jamie Foxx? Buy your little angel the new Ashley triangles, on the other hand, and watch the difference. "Hey, boys!" this top veritably yells across the beach, "get a load of these sandcastles!"

How does it work? The bra's architectural design pushes all that extra baby fat up and out, so it looks like your little darlin' has a couple little darlin's of her own. Plus, there's a layer of padding built in, because if a girl doesn't have a little something to show off, all the boys will just be staring at her starfish.

So, be a good parent: buy the Ashley push-up triangles. It comes in Rockin' Strawberry Red, Smurfette Blue, and Count Chocublack. Then get the camera ready for when your little princess gets that first sand dollar stuffed into her shorts!

Playmobil's New Apple Store Playset

It's very, very difficult to write good porn, but Kristian Herzog is giving it a try. Herzog, you may recall, started as the bodyguard to Mel Gibson's ex Oksana Grigorieva, and apparently protected her all the way into bed. In his forthcoming book Storm Surge, he's going to spill the beans about their affair.

Will the book be worth reading or not? Let's examine a couple of excerpts he leaked to RadarOnline.com.

1. Grigorieva "played my instrument like a cheap instrument," Herzog gushed. "Her soft warm inviting mouth and sorceress tongue controlled me."

Let's make this perfectly clear: no dude should ever refer to his dick as an "instrument." According to the dictionary, an "instrument" is a "precision tool," and I don't know anybody who gauges their penile penetrations to within .005" degrees of tolerance. Personally, I've heard the phrase "Close enough for government work!" more than once or twice.

Besides, that first sentence doesn't make sense. Herzog seems to be implying that true experts can really show their expertise with cut-rate props. Like John Wayne was a great horseman, but you really should have seen him ride a sway-backed glue pot.

Me, I'd write, "She played my dick like a Stradivarius." Why a Stradivarius? They're high-quality, and they don't have spit valves.

The second sentence doesn't fare any better. I don't exactly get rigid thinking about some chick's "sorceress" tongue. What, is it forked? Can it pull a "rabbit" out of my "hat"? And don't call somebody's mouth "inviting" unless you want people picturing soggy white envelopes in their mailbox.

My score? Two out of ten. Guy doesn't come off well. He's already being controlled and Grigorieva hasn't even unbuttoned her blouse.

2. "The Bodyguard becomes the Lover, making love to Oksana," Herzog said. "If lips were ships, her lips were the S.S. Titanic, dragging men down deep."

Okay, it's oral sex again. What, don't people fuck any more? Was her vagina previously engaged? Yeah, yeah, I get it: it's not really sex if there's just dicks and mouths involved.

And whaddaya know, another repetition: Lover, making love. It's totally redundant, because that's what lovers do. A lover isn't exactly going to do your ironing, or change your lightbulbs to the new swirly kind.

Then there's that immortal question: What if lips were ships? Well, I'd get a lot more barnacles on my hull. But the Titanic? That's even weaker than all that "instrument" crap, though I'll bet Grigorieva has destroyed her share of patio furniture. As I remember from the history books, you couldn't stop the Titanic from going down by pulling on her sexy, sorceress hair.

I used to wonder: how is it that I have healthy relationships with respected businessmen, while others seem to trade cash and jewelry for sexual favors with rich, oblivious boyfriends? "Maybe they're just in the right place at the right time," I guessed.

Now, though, I'm thinking maybe there's more to it than that. Barry Bonds dated Kimberly Bell through his two marriages, and she's currently testifying in his trial for perjury. In his first trial she testified that, apparently as a result of steroids, his testicles shrank by half, but now she's saying it wasn't quite that drastic. They shrank and changed shape, but they didn't reduce by half. So far she's talked about his balls for twelve hours.

Which, you know, kind of boggles my mind. I've had my testicles nearly all my life, and the only word I can think of to describe them is "dangly." And "widely ignored." Well, and maybe "manicured," if it's near the 15th of the month. But this chick's hitting the thesaurus: thickening, shrinking, changing texture, getting lumpy. This isn't a testicular status report: it's a recipe for caramel corn.

Naturally I thought she was crazy, or a pervert. Does a regular person know that much about their partner's testicles? Not to my mind. It's like going to a concert: Really, if Tina Turner is doing her job, are you going to notice that one of the Ikettes has lost weight?

This got me thinking, though: maybe that's how Kimberly got herself an athlete. She's open to every member of his genital community while I'm the guy with the velvet rope around his mouth going, "You, c'mon in. You two? Get lost!"

I don't like being Puritanical, but it's the way I was brought up. My parents were Christian, which means I'm not supposed to be doing any of this. Forget those drunken weekends: God's already pissed off by what I do with Chuck Norris photos. It's like an earthquake has leveled Los Angeles, and the whole city is on fire. Everybody else is dragging big-screen TVs out of Target while I'm standing in the candy section saying, "Well, maybe it wouldn't be horrible if I took a box of Choxie." Which is stupid, because something tells me heaven doesn't have an express line for people who stole eight items or less.

Anyway, as always, all this pondering and ruminating has taught me a lesson. If I want to date those high-class guys, I need to learn to let myself go. Maybe I'd attract those high-powered dudes if I learned to appreciate animal passions, learned to abandon myself to the pleasures of debauchery, learned to love the smell of a man in heat.

Until then, who wants caramel corn?

My friend George wrote a fabulous piece on Todd Hayne's Mildred Pierce, now airing on HBO. I'd kill to have written this paragraph:

Haynes' production does not disappoint. It is faithful not only to Cain's dialogue and to the original film version of the novel but most importantly to the great myths presented therein: that everything comes with a terrible price, especially good sex; that children are a horror because they reflect a part of who you really are; that the American dream is inextricably tied up with real estate and scoundrels and good pie.

Unfortunately, I'm not quite as enamored of the melodrama. It opens during a violent argument between a middle-class married couple:

BERT: Maybe I'm sleepin' with her, and maybe I ain't! You really wanna push this, babe? You wanna?

MILDRED: Yeah, I wanna! You been sleepin' with sluts every night of the week, and I'm sick of it! I ain't takin' any more, ya hear? Get outta here, ya lousy bum! GET OUT!

BERT exits. Twelve-year-old VEDA enters.

VEDA: Tra la la and fiddle dee dee, has there been some tumult within?

MILDRED: Veda, it . . . it's your papa. He's left. He's left us and he ain't never comin' back.

VEDA (hyperventilating): My swan, mother: hie me to the fainting chair. The vapors return forthwith!

Mildred is, of course, sympathetic. She tries to shield her daughter from their inevitable plunge into poverty, fearing the sting of her shame. We viewers, on the other hand, suspect that something else is up.

When the neighborhood kids come over to play with her younger sister, they're a ragtag gang in dirty sweatshirts and torn jeans. When there's a knock at the door for little Veda, though, it's a tiny Marlon Brando hollering her name.

I realize most kids are ashamed of their parents, but it's totally unwarranted here. I don't see Bert building model airplanes, and Mildred doesn't wash out used Ziploc bags. No, at some point in her short life Veda was left alone with A Ballad of Reading Gaol and two ounces of opium. I'm not saying kids have to be outside playing stickball all day long, but clearly something is wrong when they spend Christmas on the couch comparing their debasement to a three-legged unicorn.

Instead of Mildred trying to shelter her daughter, then, she should be calling an exorcist. That's what I'd do, and I know how loose those dudes can be with their hands. Because what other explanation can there be when Mom and Dad are out of 50s TV and daughter's spouting Tennessee Williams?

Of course, I realize these little melodramas aren't made for logical dudes. Halfway through Camille, nobody appreciates it if you suggest she might appreciate the dry heat of Arizona. We rest easy when Tara burns down knowing Scarlett must have put the insurance papers in her safe deposit box. Here I think there's a similar solution.

So adios, Mildred: I'm abandoning your sad slide into victimhood in favor of my own empowered ending:

VEDA stands at the door holding eight pieces of Louis Vuitton luggage.

VEDA: That's right, mother, I'm ashamed! Ashamed of you, and your sad white uniform. And if that's sinful, then let me be damned for it!

MILDRED slams the door in her face and smiles.

MILDRED: Butcha are, my dear; ya are.

What's that, Bradley? You'd defend yourself, but you're sitting naked in a federal jail cell right now, like you have been for twenty-three hours of every single day for the last ten fuckin' months, while the government tries to come up with something to charge you with? Okay, thanks!

I'm not particularly politically active, but once in a while I hear something that really tans my hide. Today the Americans for Truth, a grassroots organization dedicated to fighting the homosexual agenda, provided startling evidence that gays are infiltrating our public schools to recruit new players for their team. One of their members spotted this display at a local high school:


Now, I don't know about you, but I think this is pretty damning evidence that the homos are ruling the roost. I mean, our high schoolers are in those formative years when they haven't yet decided what college to go to, which career path to take, or whether they'd enjoy being orally serviced by clouds that look like shaved testicles. What are we telling them here?

As the parent of a teen myself, I know how kids today desperately want to be "with it" and "hip," and I know that when there's "new wind blowing" they want to be part of it, whether it's learning a groovy new dance step or having anal sex with a dude named Steffon. What hope do their Christian values have in the face of a colorful flag?

Taunted by this blatant propaganda, I can no longer remain silent: damn those homosexual activists and their fancy metaphors, driving our children to unnatural acts with their Sharpy markers and skill with cardboard. I pray that our children remain strong, but even I feel my resolve buckling under the demands of that lumpy cloud. The mailman's walking up my path now, and it's going to take all my gumption to hold my flannel robe closed while I ask him if it's hot enough for him today.

Louis Garrett never thought his little hobby would come to much. He collected female mannequins, and naturally he needed underwear for them. At some point he realized he had far more underwear than mannequins -- these things happen in Missouri, you know -- and he pondered long and hard. "What can I do with all these panties?" he asked himself.

Then one day it hit him: He'd make a quilt. Out of panties. He'd make a panty quilt!


The burly biker wasn't much of a seamstress when he started, but he soon picked up the skill. And almost before he tied off that last knot, his little art project was all over the media. In some circles, perhaps, his feat was celebrated, but most news outlets seemed to snigger between the lines, prompting some questions:

• Do Americans really need to see a biker's collection of women's panties at their breakfast tables?
  
  
• Should newspapers be prompting amateur forensic analysis over our morning coffee?
  
  
• Couldn't they have blown up the photos so we wouldn't have to search our apartments for anything that would magnify?
  

Am I saying that this tawdry tale is a sure sign that responsible journalism is dead? No! Because while reporters everywhere were leaping into the feeding frenzy, one newspaper paused to ponder the bigger issues. The Hannibal Courier-Post wrote:

To not upset too many people, the photo of the colorful quilt was run inside the newspaper in black and white.

Bravo, Hannibal Courier-Post! This story is far less creepy if you think the underwear comes from Amish chicks.

Throw In The Occasional Chicken Burrito And You've Totally Got My Life

Yawn. Sure, grandpa -- tell me again about how, when you were a kid, there was this really scary movie about a runaway silicone implant.

If there's one thing I do really well, it's identify and categorize the screams that I hear coming from outside my apartment. Long ago I realized that this was a very important field to master, because it comes in handy at least a few dozen times a day. As everyone knows, if you hear somebody being attacked and you don't do anything about it, YOU ARE PARTLY RESPONSIBLE, and all the newspapers will publish editorials calling you thoughtless and wondering what kind of a cowardly monster you are. Honestly, here in New York we read about these uncaring assholes more than we read about overpriced fusion cuisine.

Unfortunately, like rocket science, brain surgery, and masturbation, it's not quite as simple as it seems. You have to learn how to filter out all the non-emergency screams that you'll hear in your typical Brooklyn apartment.

Say you're sitting on your couch, for instance, and you hear the shriek of a banshee from beyond the grave. Ask yourself: Is somebody being repeatedly stabbed, or did a Vassar grad just run into one of her sorority sisters? If your experience is limited, use your intuition. Did some poor soul just get flattened by a semi, or did a hipster learn that the neighborhood bodega is out of Brooklyn Lager? Try to guess the motivation: if you screamed like that, would it be because a pit bull latched onto your leg, or because you're a fledgling fashionista and you spotted a girl wearing the kickiest culottes?

As I said, it isn't easy, but here in Brooklyn you need to be able to identify all these screams or you'll be running back and forth to your window more than an ex-gay when the Pride Parade passes by. If it means the Post prints one less condescending editorial accusing New Yorkers of --

Oops, gotta go. Either it's a crisis of unimaginable proportions or my neighbor is walking the World's Cutest Labradoodle again.

I just read this great blog post about gender identity stereotyping in the Happy Meals at McDonalds. Apparently when you buy a Happy Meal they ask if it's for a boy or a girl. In the case of the photo above, the boy would get a cool little car and the girl would get a fuckin' pony.

Got that? This is what your clerk is really saying:

CLERK: Hi, and welcome to McDonalds! Today we're going to inextricably link your gender identity to your choice of cheap plastic toy. Do you want a cool little car that you can drive all up and down your legs while going "Vroom vroom vroom!", or do you want to repeatedly run a comb through the mane of an effeminate horse?

I don't know about you, but if I had a daughter who picked the effeminate horse, I'd cry myself to sleep that night.

I don't get this. Why do they think children don't deserve a choice? It's sad, and it's degrading to all involved. If little Bobby doesn't like that Kurt Rambis bobblehead doll, it's like he's bursting out of the closet with a Cher record in his hand. And if little Katie doesn't like that iCarly makeup kit, she's seconds away from buying a Subaru.

If McDonalds is so good at generalizing, why don't they serve adults based on their outward gender expression? Burgers for the guys, salads for the chicks. Hell, I'll bet some adults would be too chicken to argue, but me, I'd tell that clerk what's what. And they can go ahead and question my sexuality if they want, but they'll sure shut their small-minded mouths when I ask for extra dressing.

The National Organization for Marriage is totally freaking out about a recent study that says families are moving out of San Francisco. They're insinuating that the gays are responsible for it, like we're scaring them away. Ha! What hypocrites. They didn't say a word when we were all scared out of Iowa by fat people wearing suspenders.

Black Guy Locked Out of House Doesn't Get Shot By Cops

Grammatical Declaration of the Year: An apostrophe means Here comes an S!

No. Do you have an Asshole costume? It goes through Tribeca.

Sigh; he must be sooo proud. Five years after beloved TV therapist Dr. Phil's oldest son Jay married a Playboy model, another apple is dropping next to the same tree. According to CeleBitchy, Jordan McGraw is canoodling with Crystal Harris, the figure model also known as Hugh Hefner's fiancée.

I know the Dr. Phil compound must be buzzing with excitement this morning. Me, I'm over the moon. I just know those two kids are going to make the most wonderful family . . . after, you know, her sugar daddy dies. And maybe in a few years there'll even be a blessed event. I can already picture the baby shower, and Crystal opening a gift of crotchless diapers.

Anyway, call me Mr. Romantic. I just can't stop singing that old homespun ditty about a young man's fancy in springtime:

I want a girl
just like the girl
that most American males masturbate to.

Back in 1917, George Wesley Bellows' sketch of The Shower Bath was a huge hit with mainstream America. Time magazine can't quite explain the appeal.

The Shower Bath is full of a lot of naked businessmen who have just been trying to exercise. A scrawny little man is standing by the pool snickering at a brawny tub-of-guts who looks like Bully Boy Brewster. A bony oaf on the springboard is telling a dirty joke to a bald-headed codger with a pot belly. Goggle-eyed boosters paddle about in the pool or rub their misshapen haunches with towels. Near the showers is a scales for them to weight themselves on.

A clue to its popularity comes in a note accompanying its recent exhibition:

Jonathan Katz, in an extraordinarily clear and interesting catalog essay, reveals that the print sold out in three editions, suggesting more than a niche appeal. He also discusses the sexual mores of the period, and the fact that hetero-identifying men might maintain that identity and have liaisons with other men, as long as they maintained the male role.

We look again at the picture, and now we get it. Now we know why this was 1917's version of Big Mouth Billy Bass.

WOMAN #1: Look in the middle there. There's a banker, just like my Wally, out for some exercise but entranced by the wanton cavorting of some skinny queen. Look! His face shows sheer befuddlement, but that erection says "You go, boy!" Isn't it hysterical?

WOMAN #2: Ha. Men!

Sigh. I never met her, but I'm a little sad today about Liz Taylor passing away. So far that's the only symptom of aging that I've run into: great people keep leaving, and the people who replace them aren't quite up to snuff. Liz goes, Megan Fox comes. Richard Pryor goes, Lisa Lampanelli comes. Teddy Pendergrass goes, John Legend comes.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a Broadway show. When it opens, I'm surrounded by Vanessa Redgrave and Laurence Olivier and Maggie Smith, and a couple years later I come out onstage and see James Belushi standing there.