A new respect

I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying this third season of "Deadwood". The plot is moving lightning-fast, and the writing is sharper than ever. Something creator David Milch excels at is adding new characters each season who are compelling -- both integral and well-written (not to mention well-cast, which "Deadwood" refines to an art). And this season is no different, as we welcome Gerald McRaney (above right) to the party.

Yeah, I know, he was intro'ed last season at the tail end. Sure, we ment him then, but he's stirring the drink now that the third season's well underway. The beauty of this show is that you need an actor with spiritual heft and intimidation to walkm into this impressive repertory and make us believe you have any shit going on that will frighten Ian McShane at this point. Well, in the patois, mission fucking accomplished.

Who knew that McRaney had such fucking chops? I have to admit that he pretty much made himself irrelevant by participating in dreck like "Major Dad" and "Simon and Simon." But whoa! Fuck me! Along comes relevance!

Homeboy can act! Motherfucker has been waiting for David Milch to tell him what to say all his career. And thank Christ for that, because if Deadwood has had any kind of consistent subtext, it's been actorly reclamation. Look at the list:

-Ian McShane
-Jeffrey Jones
-Kim Dickens
-Powers Boothe
-John Hawkes
-W. Earl Brown (the guy played Meat Loaf on VH1 for fuck sakes!)
-Garret Dillahunt (a.k.a. "Evil Erik Seims")
-Brad Dourif
-Keone Young

And add McRaney to the list. I'm forgetting piles more; there are too many contributors to the week-in, week-out greatness. But I guess you already know that, because you watch the show every week. San Francisco cocksuckers!

My "Weekend Update" audition reel

Host Germany played Argentina today in the World Cup, and won in a shootout, 1-1. It should be noted, though, that Argentina was harboring most of Germany's best players.

Rocking out with one's cock out

Last night I went and saw my buddy Jon Kapps (right) and his new band Vizio (sp?) play at 169 Bar under the Manhattan Bridge. They were pretty sharp. Four dudes and one chick, and all the dudes wore cigarette jeans, grey eight-button tweed vests, Cons/Vans, and pompadours of shaggy hair. They looked to me like they had some well in absorbing the Franz Ferdinand/Interpol thing and co-opting it as their own. Also a smart move -- a vaguely Jessica Simpson-ish cutie brunette on lead vocals. Very orige.

I told him immediately afterwards that he had to ditch the other bandmembers... dead weight, and all.

Ruining your life

Let the flip-flop backlash begin in earnest! Yes, the loathesome thong portrays a sloppy, asinine image, as the referenced A.P. story offers, and signals an over-relaxed outlook on life by the wearer.

It's as the SaladBowl has always suggested: Flip-flops are unhygienic, slobbish, and a Ginsbergian howl by the bearer that states, "I no longer care about my appearance in any way, shape, or form, thank you, and now I'd like some pleated slacks from Eddie Bauer to go with my Hot Pockets and Coldstone Creamery gelato."

Boy, I love the shit out of this strip

Darby Conley is an anthropomorphic hero of mine, like Patrick McConnell ("Mutts"). I'm a huge fan of whimsy -- have I mentioned that in the last 31 years? I love the way he renders the first panel of this "Get Fuzzy" so gently, the way Satchel breaks the box slightly.

Advocacy

As another solid argument for the widespread employment of tinfoil hats, I now have Wham!'s "Last Christmas" running on constant loop in my head.

I certainly didn't do this to myself -- I'm speaking to you, Vladimir Putin, with your Soviet mind-control satellites.

Thee-ah-tuh review: "The Lieutenant of Inishmore"

Edward Clapp scored us tickets to go see Martin McDonagh's "The Lieutenant of Inishmore" at the Lyceum Theatre for my birthday, and last night was the night. McDonagh is being lauded all across town for the big splash he made with 2005's "Pillowman" -- and Edward certainly dug that work, which made going to "Inishmore" a cinch. All I ever saw of McDonagh was his Oscar-winning short film "Six Shooter," a dark comedic piece punctuated by sadness and bursts of violence (and these are, of course, his hallmarks).

This thing starts off awfully twee and esoteric, with a pair of broadly-accented Irishmen lamenting the death of a dearly beloved cat -- not because of any affinity towards the pet, but because of the potential ire of the owner. Surely enough, the hellbent owner Padraig (pronounced "Poy-rick" -- who the fuck figured that'd be how you say that name?) shows up and plies his IRA-like knowledge of torture and ultraviolence in laying waste to anyone associated with the feline's demise.

For a goddamn stage play, it gets a SHITLOAD more gruesome than that last sentence can even suggest.

Considering the weird set-up and the sheer profusion of mayhem -- which you have to see to believe -- McDonagh must be a feckin' genius, because he manages to wrap this fucker up with a little tight bow with a pitch-perfect O. Henry ending. This is one of those shows you have to see to believe -- a true marvel of stagecraft.

Seriously, get out there. Do it.

This summer's newest cute ani-"pal" buddies... Dolphin & Kitty!

Dolphin & Kitty are swimming through the Caribbean one lazy afternoon, looking for silly adventures...

Dolphin: Hey Kitty, I'm hungry -- we should stop for some mackerel or something soon.

Kitty: Meow! [audience coos and awws]

Dolphin: I'll assume that means yes. I guess you cats will eat anything.

Kitty: Poopie!

Dolphin: Yeah, about that...

Kitty: Meow!

Dolphin: Right -- "Meow." "Meow -- poopie"... "Poopie -- meow." That's like, all I ever hear from you.

Kitty: Poopie! [audience laughs]

Dolphin: I get it! With the catchphrase! I mean, I ask you if you want some mackerel for lunch, and instead of saying, "Well, no actually, Craig, I'd like some crappie, or a nice cod, thank you," I hear only "Poopie." Did you know my name is Craig, Kitty?

Kitty: Poopie! [audience awws]

Dolphin: It's not "Dolphin," it's Craig. Can you even say "Craig"?

Kitty: Meow! [audience oohs]

Dolphin: How are you even standing on my back? We're thirty feet under water, and I haven't surfaced for a breath in 23 minutes.

Kitty: Look, Craig, what the hell do you want from me? You want a Congressional Medal of Honor for holding you breath that long? Or maybe, just maybe, we could swim for 45 minutes or so without having to hear about how your magazines keep getting delivered to the wrong door. That sound good?

And thus thorny, uncomfortable silence ensues, as Dolphin & Kitty swim onward to more cute adventures in our planet's oceans!

Review: "Withnail & I"

"We've gone on holiday by mistake!"

"We must have the finest wines available to humanity, and want them here, and we want them now!"

I'm coming in late to the party, because I only just heard of "Withnail & I" a few months ago, reading interviews with Richard E. Grant during the press period for his directorial debut, "Wah-Wah." This is supposed to be one of the big cult flicks of the 1980s, like Alex Cox's "Repo Man" -- and I'm happy to say that it is, in fact, great.

Only the Brits could have made a movie like this, I imagine. Bruce Robinson, the auteur (and man responsible for writing "The Killing Fields," among others), crafts this tale of a wasted duo who, existentially and pharmaceutically, wouldn't wait for Godot even if he was dealing them barbituates. This is shot through with such a dark, bent, late ’60s, tune-in-drop-out nihilism, informed by Robinson's own time spent with a coterie of similarly-wasted actors during that same period. Paul McGann and Richard E. Grant (especially Grant, conducting on a clinic with his first big role) are great in embodying Robinson's alter egos, a signature film duo for the ages.

And the best thing is that the fucker is full of quotable lines. "I must have some booze! I demand to have some booze!"

Sand on my ass

If you ever get the chance to spend nine days in Cherry Grove, NY, do so. At your earliest leisure. It's a primarily gay community (read: entirely gay) on Long Island's south shore barrier beach, Fire Island. There are a bounty of pleasures to be had from such an experience -- deers, rest, sunshine, tits, cocks, sunburns, charcoal grillerie, alcohol, meth-fuel asslove on the dunes AND MORE!

Me and the missus have made a habit of going to the beach for a week every summer for the past four years... it's our one reliable annual vacation from the hurlyburly (apologies to David Rabe) at the exact right time. What's really fascinating is to visit a place out in the hinterlands of Long Island and realize that everyone to the left and right of me are all Manhattanites -- the very situation that I used to be irritated by, standing out on the outside, back in my blue-collar school days in the Hamptons. What's also fascinating is to be the only straight couple anywhere within three miles, counting the communities of Cherry Grove and the neighboring (and more famous) Pines. There's something reassuring about being in the sexual minority, but it's hard to say what.

No, scratch that -- me and the wife feel queer-approved out there, a status we both yearn for.

A homo-beach might lead you to draw the obvious conclusion -- plenty of nude sunbathing, because there aren't any straight mouthbreathers (besides me) to scare chicks into stringing their tops back on (sorry, no file art). Even after years of grownuphood, I'm still not entirely cool and collected around the publicly-displayed, unadorned female figure, even one that is sapphic in its leanings. In fact, it's tough for the Ball'n'Chain when I can't walk more than eighteen yards without saying "OHMYGODDIDYOUSEETHESIZEOFTHOSE?!" Maybe one of these years, when Evil Bill has eaten enough saltpeter to sink the Bismarck, I'll be cool enough to let it roll on.

Of course, there's like 71-times more naked dudes swinging their tanned weiners in the surf, so that's a bit of a buzzkill. And what's with all the show-ers, anyway? Are the grow-ers a dying breed? *weep*... That fucking Atlantic water is cold!

When the sun sets, Evil Bill loves to grab a Stella Artois and the camera to shoot deer laying low in the dunegrass. Sunsets are the magic hour on Fire Island -- time to chargrill, roll a fatty (for all wife-al members of the contingent), and start to feel groggy from sunpoisoning.

Now that real life is ticking on back in the Windy Apple -- and my watch stopped Monday morning, as if to punctuate this fact -- it just serves to reinforce that all time spent working in an office, showering, feeding cats, designing newspaper pages, and wearing shoes is time spent in HELL, serving dark, sulphurous masters for baleful purposes whilst you stub your spirit out like a poorly-filtered Pall Mall cigarette.

I learned this from the stack of "National Geographic" magazines from 2004 in the shitter.

First hundred pages review: "The DaVinci Code"

The beach house we stayed at had a copy of Dan Brown's little known book "The DaVinci Code." So I picked it up. And I read a hundred pages to see why everyone went crazy about it.

It's not very good. It's a series of staccato four-page chapters filled with cardboard-thin stock characters spouting "book" dialogue.

I have no desire to finish it up to see what the fuck a "sacred feminine" is. I don't recommend this book unless you've already combed through the stack of "National Geographic" magazines from 2004 the landlord keeps in the poop-room.

But first, a word about evil

There's plenty of wrapup about tits and cocks and sunburns to come in the following days (you'll see) -- now, it's time to celebrate the opportunity to be evil.

The goatee pictured above can only mean one thing -- Evil Bill! Oh, he's released! On the world! Pure evil! My evil dupli-ganger! Terror and fear! Boogah! Treachery!

Evil Bill loves the things I hate. Celery? Evil Bill loves it. Open-toed sandals footwear for men? Evil Bill is a staunch supporter. Nepotism? There's nothing Evil Bill enjoys better than to see people circumvent the dues system via patronage. Free-association comedy? Evil Bill will sit rapt for hours, enjoying every minute of it.

Ah, but for only one week a year, the wicked doppel-cate Evil Bill gets to roam the earth... and it goes to fast.

The whole damn place goes to hell

Area man busts ass all day, and for what? I try to get a little R&R in the gayest place on Earth, and all people seem to do is behead Marines while I'm away. And win Stanley Cups within tobacco-harvesting American states. Purely, this is going to take some working on to make better next time.

I'ma hafta find a better babysitter for the species next time I duck away for a week or so.

And yes, I'm old-school in my affinity for the Habs.

And that concludes the broadcasting day...

Join us again on Sunday, June 25, when we resume our season with a scintillating summer line-up of repetitive ideas and half-assed concepts, just as soon as we get back from a week in rehab! See you then, America!

My needs

My needs frighten people. Sicken others. Repulse even more. Titillate no one. My needs must be attended to. I retain a staff of two people to see to my needs, a man and woman who were born deaf and colorblind -- the perfect antidote to the insanity of my needs.

I used to ask a neighbor to help me attend to my needs, but he got tired of putting peanut butter in his hair to get the chewing gum out. At one point I used the services of burly furniture movers, but they quit on me when their heads got caught between the bars five times too many. My grandmother was the first to assist me with my needs -- the horrid, fascinating needs -- but her aim got worse with her age.

My needs have driven me from house to house, county to county, never staying in one place for too long before the denizens got wary of just what my needs entailed. There were many laws broken, and yet more written, to sanction my deliciously decadent needs.

I once derailed a train full of baby formula by parking a tanker truck loaded with 3,000 gallons of coconut oil onto the tracks. All to support my needs... oh, my deliriously debauched needs.

There was this other time where I had to sink yacht full of deep-fried bowling balls in the Strait of Hormuz -- again, all in the name of my needs.

I impersonated a petty tyrant of a Central American nation for 12 years, just to fulfill those same needs -- those that men flee from and women weep over.

Yes, the same needs as described above.

Tomotes

I was thinking about my school this morning, and how feeble a learning institution it was. The Student Resources office plastered the walls with homemade posters for a late-night movie series it was showing in the basement one spring semester, consisting of such classic midnight movies as "Attack Of the Killer Tomotes."

What? Don't remember it? It's a classic!

A fucking college, with spelling errors writ large on its walls. No wonder they shuttered the fucking place.

Be it e'er so humble

Hey, what do you know? There's another violent racial altercation back on my home and native land of Long Island. This latest attack was the same old thing -- white, better-heeled teens beating a couple of Mexican immigrants minding their own business, for whatever reason people tend to do these things.

The pair of immigrants were fishing off of Rocky Point where they were set upon by the four yutes, who had nothing better to do than darken the already smeared reputation of Long Island. This follows the incidents at Farmingville, Shirley, and Montauk, as the article notes, all resulting in death, severe beatings and/or property damage.

What's causing such suburban unrest? Long Island is a quiet place that's not more, really, than a bedroom community for commuters into the New York metro area. Lately, there's been this xenophobic fixation from people who should be otherwise wiser -- racial tensions rising from the arrival of this latest wave of Latino immigrants... who are here, of course, to fix the rooves and clean the pools of the very same people who despise them, for totally specious reasons.

They leer at my daughter in front of the 7-11!

They live 20 to a house... but who knows how many people are in there!

I don't feel safe -- they're in this country illegally!

The voices sound like people bitching for a return to Jim Crow. Shameful.

Today's E.T. birthdays....

...include "Party Machine's" Nia Peeples, "Beverly Hills Cop's" Judge Reinhold, "Fame's" Irene Cara, and this New York blogger, best known for throwing up on Jack Nicholson at Robert Towne's Mulholland Drive residence during the "Chinatown" wrap party back in 1974. Can you guess who he is? He's celebrating 31 years of boorishness today!

Lucky Louie

So far, I've not read anything about this show -- it popped up after "Entourage" last Sunday without a lot of heraldry. The underrated Louis C.K. , he of just about everything you can imagine, wanted to move his standup act to a more formal sitcom framework, or as he puts it, "Like 'Everybody Loves Raymond' with swearing."

The first episode started off conventionally enough, save for the live studio audience being a disconcerting element. After fifteen minutes or so, the cast was going full tilt with the cussing and the blue language, and the show's prospects perked up a bit. There were a few great punchlines (when's he's caught pleasuring himself to tabloid photos of Jessica Simpson, he defends himself by saying, "I'm not jerking off to her music"), but more giggles than anything else. It is a lot of fun to hear abrasive New York comedian Jim Norton call our lead character a "dousche," a sobriquet woefully underused on network TV.

I will come back for the next showing, because I'm such a fan of C.K.'s work and am interested in watching him subvert the sitcom into a nasty and crude little pretzel of impropriety.

Buy my book

Coming out this fall -- a special guide from Your Man About Town. I especially recommend it to prying, annoying busybodies who sound off about things of which they have no conception.

(Limited time offer: The book will be offered as a pair-deal with "Stuff Another Fucking Piece of Butter Poundcake Into Your Fat Gob, You Stuck Pig.)

Kevin Aviance

What the fuck? You can still get gay-bashed in New York City? In 2006?

This is deplorable, a sign of bad times returning. I just read that the FBI is releasing figures showing that violent crime is on the rise (in the U.S., anyway). Growing socio-economic inequality greases the skids for increased violence within the depressed classes. Couple that with a top-down condemnation of homosexuality from both church and state in America, and bingo -- instant hate-crime.

Another appalling thing about this crime is that it transpired on a well-traveled block on the Lower East Side, and the beating wasn't interrupted by anyone. Not a single person. No one lifted a finger to help... shades of Kitty Genovese. The right mix of bystander apathy, fear of the wolfpack, and (a presumed) anti-gay resentment in passersby doomed Kevin Aviance to a broken jaw and busted-up body.

Pride Day is right around the weekend, a beautiful public display of what New York has so much of that other U.S. cities lack -- tolerance and openmindedness. But with the New York Police Department not even able to abstain from laying truncheons on anti-Republican demonstrators in 2004, this does not bode well in terms of protecting our citizens from hate crime -- especially when silence from our national government practically condones it.

Puding

A gift from the warm and generous Seimsbrahams at my party last night -- some substance called "Dr. Oetker's Puding."

It appears to be a confection that resembles pudding -- but as we know, this is actually puding, which I believe is pronounced "poo-ding."

By looking at the back of the package, we see... nothing, actually. It's written in a fairly foreign tongue which looks neither Romantic nor Germanic in origin, so I can only surmise it might be Eastern European, or one of those quasi-Euro/Russo languages.

And if one were to go by the little flag in the top-right corner, this confection has a tendency to "muz aromali." Applying a layman's translation, I can only assumes that means it "smells like muz."

Even more intriguing is the spectre of the product's creator, Dr. Oetker. Since when is pudding... er, excuse me, puding, formulated by a medical doctor? I thought we could leave this kind of thing to Duncan Hines. No, I suspect something a little more sinister about the figure behind the genesis of this particular puding product. I believe I have found a photo of the doctor himself, at right. There's reason to suspect that this puding was a key element of the Third Reich's master plan.

Or maybe that's Dr. Oetker's brother, Gary, I'm thinking of. It's easy to confuse the two.

Fete

They came, from places all around, for one purpose... to pay tribute to me. This is mere moments before we filled the place up and rocked the bitch until 3 A.M. (sorry, neighbors!)

Above is the Lipbomb unwrapping the phizzat pasta salad she whipped up the night before.

There's more liquor in my house than there is any need to be -- pop-pop is going to get his bag on for the next week and a half on Sapphire martinis. Hold all my calls.

Wheel

Lying on the ground in front of J&R Camera on Park Row: What the fuck is it?

I have no idea.

Plotlines

"Entourage" is cranking up this Sunday. Hey, what kind of new plots do you think they'll tackle this season? Maybe something about stem cells? Perhaps, they'll get hassled at the border coming back from Tijuana? Maybe Vince's National Guard cousin from Queens will get orders sending him to Karbala?

Or, more likely, it'll be a season of scoring pussy, shooting gold balls off of rooves, buying Aston-Martins, and generally NO DRAMATIC TENSION WHATSOEVER.

Hokay, just checking. Why is this even considered a show, and not a commercial?

What they DON'T want you to know about Proposition Pie

There are some things you might want to know before you go to the polls this Election Day. Our opponent doesn't want you to know that his voting record indicates that, time after time, he's on record as supporting blintzes, napoleons, rugelach, jelly rolls, and cheesecakes -- but never once for pie. Our opponent's endorsement of Propostion Pie is the craven Business As Usual Politics of pandering.

Be smarter than that -- when you go to pull the lever, make sure you say "No" on Proposition Pie, and "Yes" on Proposition Ice Cream. There's a new way of thinking, and a new way to eat. After all, don't you owe it to your children -- and the future?

(Paid for by People For the August Reign of Flagellex, the Hideously Unyielding.)

Vote "Yes!" on Proposition Pie

If you're like most Americans, you love the taste of wonderful, hearth-baked confections. When you go the polls this week, we urge you to vote "yes" on Proposition Pie to make sure that all Americans have equal access to delicious blueberry, raspberry, mixed-berry, cherry, and pumpkin pies.

It doesn't matter if they have a graham cracker crust or a flaky pie crust, make sure you do the right thing for your palate -- and your country.

(Paid for by Citizens For the Pitiless Rule of Elasmoblast, Merciless Dominator of the Negative Zone.)

Zarqawi

Well, the Post ran crazy with their post-Zarqawi killing news coverage, as evidenced by the above. Does NewsCorp know no boundary?

Their audacity does open the door for more creativity for us, though:

Illogic

With the city being drenched in rain and all the last two months, people are husting down the street with large golf umbrellas and rubbery rainslicks. But please explain to me, dear reader, why the same women of this burg who go to great lengths to cover their torsos and heads from precipitation wear goddamn flip-flops on days like these? Am I missing a Jenga piece here?

If the clean rainwater is no good for your hair and shoulders, how can the foul broth of oily runoff, dog urine, feces, and vomited-up pad thai be any better for your instep and calves?

Evidence

This one is called Proof Of Life.

Whirling dervish

The wee-fay bought me this fine, fine Nikon Coolpix for my birthday -- just what I've always wanted. Now, I can go crazy like a Japanese tourist.

This one is called General Grievous in Front Of the True Crime Library.

Langwich

These letters in today's New York Times about the national spelling bee winner come from educators -- educators, for crissakes! Read on:

To the Editor:
Re "For New Jersey 8th Grader, 'Ursprache' Means Fame" (news article, June 3): We have come a long way in internationalizing languages. The winner of this year's national spelling bee won by correctly spelling the German word Ursprache, while the German word Weltschmerz eliminated the runner-up.
Granted that these words are listed in our dictionary, as are words from many other foreign languages, but to take those words that are pronounced with the language of origin is a bit inappropriate, as it requires the contestant to identify the language and then know the nuances of its pronunciation, as was the case with Weltschmerz. Future spelling bees should be limited to words in our dictionary that have been anglicized before being incorporated into our language. Would a German spelling bee include recently adopted English words? I doubt it. Given the richness of our language, why must we resort to words taken from modern foreign languages to challenge our best spellers? Maybe this is a wake-up call for a greater focus on teaching foreign languages to our youth.
Alfred S. Posamentier
New York, June 3, 2006
The writer is dean of the School of Education, City College, CUNY.

To the Editor:
Re "Spelling Champion Crowned" (news item, June 2):
Watching the finale of the Scripps National Spelling Bee was deeply depressing.
It was a sad spectacle to watch eager children reciting the correct spelling of words that are ridiculously arcane and utterly useless in the course of human events and often purloined from other languages far afield from English.
Much more edifying would be a contest to make up new words undreamed of by dictionaries and of real use. Look at what William Shakespeare, the champion neologist of all time, was able to accomplish. Just from the first three letters of the alphabet, he came up with the first known use of the following words: accused, arouse, assassination, bandit, barefaced, bedroom, besmirch, bloodstained, cater, champion, circumstantial, courtship, countless and critic — just to name some of his inventions. Shakespeare didn't care about his "Ursprache" — and more power to him.
Gary Schmidgall
New York, June 2, 2006
The writer is a professor of English at Hunter College, CUNY.

My day

Allow me to introduce myself -- I'm the devil. There's been a lot of noise about today being June 6th, 2006... which somehow translates into the numerology "6-6-6" to western cultures. Or idiots.

This kind of dot-connecting is totally idiotic and arbitrary. There is no return to earth of this devil -- accompanied by his hoary legions from the stank-ass abyss -- planned for this day. No, this is just any other Tuesday. Feel free to buy some grapes, or take in that new "Omen" remake which is banking heavily on lameass idiot gimmickry tie-in shit to make a few dollars.

Me? Well, today, I'm actually looking for a library to check out a copy of that V.C. Andrews book -- you know, the one with the kids trapped in the attic? The devil hates to pay for softbacks... they're a waste of cash.

Holy dogshit!

Get a look at my ’stache, you little prick! You ain't never seen anything like it. This furry little fucker can lift a bus AND do my taxes, asshole.

Go ahead and try to grow your own -- you'd just fuck it up, you little dipshit. You always disappointed me. You're weak -- just like your mother. She could never handle this much bush under the nostril.

Fety is awfully important

In fact, fety should always come first.

Amendment

"Cheered by conservative supporters, President Bush gave a push Monday to a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage as the Senate opened debate on an emotional, election-year measure that has little chance of passing.

'Our policies should aim to strengthen families, not undermine them,' Bush said in a speech. 'And changing the definition of marriage would undermine the family structure.' "

Um, how?

HOW, GODDAMMIT?! TELL ME HOW GAY MARRIAGE AFFECTS ANYONE BUT THOSE GETTING MARRIED!!

Tod's

OK, so I'm prolly going to lose a few people with this one: Yesterday, me and the Wifebalm were shopping uptown (like, in the 70s uptown) for conspicuous consumables that I was to buy myself on the occasion of my birfday. I've been jonesing for a pair of Tod's driving mocs for a few years now, and I figured that my 31st was as good a time as any to take the Nestea plunge and drop a few ducats for some shweet footwear.

But like I said -- we're farther uptown than we are accustomed to being, certainly in a retail sense. The other folks walking around the Tod's showroom are already toting Vuitton shopping bags and Hermés bags, so they seem to know what they're doing. I cruise around the loafers exhibiting interest, but no floorpeople bite.

I'm a scum-putz, obviously, and my money is useless.

I have to go to the counter to ask for help, and the woman gives a half eye-roll when she steps out to give me a hand. I show her the suede shoe I'm digging and ask, sheepishly, about how to clean it if it gets rained on. She looks at me worldessly for a second with a glare that suggests I just crawled out of a peat bog like the Piltdown Man.

"Um, you DON'T get these wet. Or any other leather from here either, for that matter."

After being diminished to the size of eight-inches by an anorexic William-and-Mary grad who sells shoes on the Upper West Side, I politely asked to see a pair of said shoes that I would be promptly be using as suede galoshes like a moron.

Yes, I bought the goddamn things, and they're great. Fucker.

2007 Oscar Preview

[NOTE: This is a lost segment of the transcript from next year’s Academy Award ceremony, falling roughly two-and-one-half hours into the ceremony. It is still not clear why this will be omitted from the live broadcast.]

VOICEOVER: We now return to the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles for the 77th annual Academy Awards.

BILLY CRYSTAL, HOST: One of our next two presenters was recently featured in the pages of the Greater Akron Law Journal, and the other jumps up and down on a mattress next to a glass of red wine. Here are Dame Judith Dench and Seann William Scott!

[SCOTT and DENCH approach the telescoping microphone. After an uncomfortable moment spent looking at each other waiting for a cue to see who should read first, DENCH leans forward.]

DENCH: Since time immemorial, humanity has sought only one thing – the power to destroy the sun.

SCOTT: Here are the nominees for “Best Actor in a Motion Picture.” [Screen behind him begins showing the nominee khyron.] Steven Bauer, for “The Murderous Hour, Consisting of 60 Deadly, Fatal Minutes.” [Camera finds BAUER in the audience. Applause.] Daniel Baldwin, “Beyond Beneath the Planet of Friday After Next: The Voyage Home.” [Camera finds BALDWIN, applause.]

DENCH: Jonathan Silverman, for “A Life in Kabuki: The Bruce Jenner Story.” [Camera shows a stock photo of SILVERMAN, as he was unable to attend. No applause.] Jon Voight, “Don’t Tell Mom The Pakistani Prime Minister’s Been Assassinated.” [Camera finds VOIGHT in the crowd, and quickly jumpcuts to ANGELINA JOLIE, dourly chewing on her left index fingernail. Wild applause.] And… Robert Patrick, for “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? 2: Equine Fury.” [Camera finds PATRICK, talking to woman sitting next to him. Applause.]

SCOTT: And the Oscar goes to…

DENCH: [Struggles with the seal, but finally tears it open.] Daniel Baldwin, for “Beyond Beneath the Planet of Friday After Next: The Voyage Home.”

[The Kodak Theatre erupts in applause, making it apparent that BALDWIN was the house favorite to win. BALDWIN gets up from his seat, shakes the hand of his director, some of his brothers, his mother and a few other people before bounding the stage.]

BALDWIN: Well… whoo! This is certainly… [Applause, again from the audience] Thank you, thank you… I never expected to be up here, I’ll tell you that. Well, I… I’d like to start off by thanking the Academy. I’d like to especially thank the late Karl Malden [Gestures heavenward with the award, as the screen cuts to a visibly agitated shot of MALDEN in the back of the house.] Karl, this is for you. I wish you were here tonight to share in this. I’d also like to thank my agent, Milton Krapf from ICM – boychik, wherever you are, I love ya. I have to thank my director, the great Terence Malick… Terry, you in the hizzie? [Scans the aisles.] A lot of people said he was taking a risk by casting me in the role that Conrad Bain had originated. I hope this shows the critics they were wrong. Oh, of course, I have to thank my brothers Billy, Alec, Stephen, Gregor, Linus, Sven, Vitali, Jorge, Basil, Gary, Jeroen, Hideki, Arpad, and Shmuel. I’d like to thank the nations of Togo and Benin for being so kind to the production of this film, even though we shot it in Topanga Canyon. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the work of my peers in such films as “Kenan and Kel’s GoodBurger,” “Gleaming the Cube,” and “Ghoulies” for being such an inspiration. I’d like to give a special thanks to… [the ORCHESTRA begins to pipe up over his speech, the kill-cue from the producers.] Stop playing! I may never get a chance to get up here again, so this is my time! STOP PLAYING! [They stop.] Thank you. So I… ah, yeah, so, I want to thank James Seward for his 1867 purchase of Alaska. I’d also like to thank nature for abhorring a vacuum. I’d like to thank a watched pot for not boiling, and I’d also like to thank Edna St. Vincent Millay. I have to give a special, heartfelt thanks to Presto Magix. And I want to thank the one person who started me down this road, my mentor, the whole reason I’m here – Detroit Lions football great Sir Quentin Crisp, who bought me my first can of stew and taught me the full, true meaning of the Federalist Papers. Thank you!

Time Zone

You're asking me? Well, it so happens that my time zone will kick your time zone's ass. What the fuck does your time zone have? Auckland? Hyderabad? You can't put up next to my zone -- good ol' Eastern Standard Time.

I'm a wise, old man and I've seen a lot of places. I've gotten a lot of ass all over the world -- people always ask me, "Brian, which time zone is the best?"

No fucking question. Eastern Standard Time. It's the gold fucking standard. Food tastes better here. Wine is sweeter. The whiskey tastes stronger, the days are sunnier, girls are prettier... there's no goddamn question.

You throwing Greenwich Mean Time at me? I laugh. China Coast Time? Fuck is wrong with you, son? Alaska-Hawaii Standard? I'll belt you in the lip, you little homo.

I... it's just that... oh, I'm sorry. I'm not feeling myself lately. I don't mean to be so cross at you. Things are really fucked up right now. Edith walked out on me three weeks ago. She fucking walked out.

After 26 years of marriage, she bolts. We've had some fucked up times, but they were long past. Y'see, back in the ’80s I had sort of... a... what you'd call indiscretion. Midlife, and all that. We were on the outs for close to two years, but we patched it up. We had kids to think about. Edith was always good about that. I think she really made an effort to work past it.

But three goddamn weeks ago, she drops a bomb. I'm poaching two eggs, getting ready to go downstairs and open up this light bulb shop, behind me, that we run, and she says a bunch of shit all ending with the word "divorce."

Fuck am I supposed to do now? I'm an old man. The kids are out in the world, they don't need me. Edie don't either.

Fuck me. Maybe this goddamn Eastern Standard Time is a fucking train wreck, after all. Maybe I should get my ass to Hyderabad, where the lawyers can't find me.

Feel the burn

Sometimes, I think the only thing that fucking sit-ups are good for is making it easier for me to keep my stomach sucked in all day at work.

To the right: A candid shot of me from lunchtime, earlier today. I like pink.

Inspirado III

"I have had it with motherfucking Robocops on this motherfucking plane!"

Hull integrity is breached

When asked about his family, soon-to-be-father-of-four Kevin Federline says, "My kids are going to have to learn what a real job is. You don't have it easy with me."

And, ironically enough at the same exact moment his mouth uttered those words, the known universe buckled under the strain of its own weight, spewing black holes and neutron stars across all of its galaxies, rending entire systems asunder. The residue of nebulae and clouds of fiery, hellish gaseous matter then collapsed into the destructive maw of the spreading singularities, ending all reality as we know it.

Fund allocation

This is a good one -- the Department of Homeland Security is slashing anti-terror funds going to Washington and New York, in a growing trend of reallocating bucks to other so-called "target" cities.

"Which cities are those?" the gentlereader might ask. Well, they cite such cities as Louisville, Charlotte, Omaha, and Jacksonville as being at risk, and the monies held back from D.C. and New York will be redistributed in part to them.

Never minding the absurdity that New York and Washington were the only actual two places in the U.S. that were attacked, what new riemannian calculus was employed that turned up Omaha (as in, Nebraska!!!) in the same breath as terrorism?

Last time I checked, there were no Jews anywhere near Louisville, Omaha, or any other flyover "targets."