Get Yo Fat Ass Back Here

Happy New Year

Grammar Kween

Whatever you do, do NOT put your feet on the wall while taking your trash with you. One or the other--but for the love of Christ almighty, don't do both.

To cover your bases, I would suggest also refraining from putting your feet on the wall or on the sheet music for that song, "Take Your Trash With You." Better not to take chances, you know?

So what if Aaron's leg is broken twice over? It was for the art. My art, specifically. So, you know...all about me and all. What? It'll heal. Jesus.

Don't Worry, They're Clean

I was tricked. MouthyMuse3 enthusiastically passed along a lovely pair of black boxer briefs, claiming they were a freebie acquired at her corporate PR office (she also educated me; corporate publicists do not, apparently, spend all day IMing me, stalking crushes and lamenting life...who knew?). Though she is a gay man, she is, as the pre-op kids say, still a girl but not yet a man, and has no use for men's underwear. But I digress.

It was without hesitation that I accepted, even after questioning the legitimacy of this new underwear designer, "Ellen" (like "Cher" but, judging by the fun font, decidedly less serious about herself). Imagine my surprise when I put two and two together and got one--namely, one fun-loving talk show host with lesbian tendencies whose logo'd swag currently includes promotional men's underwear; what else would a lesbian do with men's underwear but give them away?

The offending underwear were promptly filed in the "only if no other human being has even a chance in frozen, homo hell of seeing me in them" section and I thought nothing of it.

Until the next morning.

9:30am came faster than expected and I hurriedly rushed around getting ready. My last task of the morning (after flogging myself but before leaving the house) was to pack a gym bag. Clean laundry's been in short supply, so I was thrilled--THRILLED--to see a fresh pair of snazzy black underwear, only the "Jockey" label in the waistband showing. And on my way to save the world I went.

Fast forward to that evening as I wrap up my workout at the nucleus of homsexualism. I am a ball of nerves as the current #1 (there are several dozen) gym boyfriend is near me at his locker. Black briefs are a godsend for my body type, hugging and squeezing while slimming and hiding. The day couldn't be better. Until I look down. And see Ellen staring at me (sans Izzy). Embarrassment. Shame. Internal ridicule. And alas, snickering by one gym boyfriend. Note to self: gym boyfriends almost always disappoint and are as humorless about other men's brushes with lesbianism as they are about their own bodies.

I can't wait to wear them again, probably without pants, and probably to work, so as to complete the circle of judgment--from home to 'third place' to workplace. I am a boy, not yet a lesbian, for only a little while longer.

Ahead of the Curve

NYMag.com is the new Gawker.

Facts I am Prepared to Accept, Volume I

Best said via photography (of the cell phone variety) in the 8th Avenue/14th Street A/C/E/L subway station (yes, I take the subway).

Sometimes There's Nothing Left to Say

The world is boring me at the moment. Stay tuned. It will get exciting again, they tell me.

Why Writing is Preferable to Agenting

Fewer conference calls.

Make-Up Work

New posts soon. Recovering from four days in the suburbs. Catching up on smoking after a four-day avoidance.

He'll Ruin The Hills

I object to Spencer not because he is the most useless person in all of Southern California (a notable accomplishment, indeed), but because he is the worst actor in all of Southern California (again, notable).

The magic of The Hills is the fulfillment of the lowest possible expectations--of humanity and thespians alike. Dude, it's improv. There aren't any lines to read. Get it together. For Lauren's (career's) sake. For our sake. For our culture's sake. Please stop ruining The Hills. Just be the douchebag you are, not the douchebag you want to be.

Tub(by) of(f of) KFC

I shall never again think that "New York" is the most gratuitous direct object of the subject/verb combination "I heart." "KFC" wins--by a breast, a leg and a (very large) thigh.

Crazy Like a Fox

Enjoy. It gets really good between sections 60 and 100 or so. Some pure, unintentional (and therefore) comedic moments.

And yes, trust me, she does have tapes.

It's quite clear that there are two stories here: one is the tale of an employee conspired against by her colleagues and bosses. The other, more salient story is of course the Giuliani connection. Judith, ever the narrative maven, has seen the value in using the latter to prop up the former, which is at debatable on the merits (and the facts in some places).

It was no accident that last week's bizarre Harper's Bazaar piece was released the same week as Kerik's indictment and it is no accident that this filing comes the week after the same indictment. Judith Regan needs $100 million like I need another large Pinkberry original. She operates and thinks in narrative (quite well, as anyone who has profited from her media projects can tell you), as profile after profile has gone through great pains to show and subsequently explicate. For the heroine to prevail, she has to win something in an arena where money is so prevalent that it has no value. She has to manipulate the only thing that Rupert Murdoch and Rudy Giuliani value: power.

Maybe she's not so crazy after all.

I Don't Really Look at Warhols That Much

People who "don't watch television"--as opposed to people who happen to not turn on the tv much, sans quotation marks--deserve scorn and derision tantamount to the praise and nobility they expect the rest of the world to heap upon them.

A lot of telelvision is bad. Unconscionably bad. A lot of it (enough to fill a thinking man's Tivo each week, at least) is good. Artistic, cultural and political things happen and are reflected upon us collectively through the medium. Those who "don't watch television" are, of course, the precursors to a post-millenial generational cleavage that will in some distant year proclaim loudly to their friends over espresso and Sartre texts (in the native French only, please) that they "don't use the internet." They are, for various sundry and unfortunate reasons (unreflected narcissism in all its various forms), far too self-involved to seek out emotional or intellectual resonance through populist media for fear that they will be judged by their adoring fans as one among the populi. They are, in short, concerned more with appearance than substance. Not unlike, um, TV.

I've Fallen in Love...

...with Judith Regan all over again. The first time required a lot more emotional, mental and psychological fortitude on my part, much of which shall never be spoken of again. But this is truly a gift.

Guest of a guest's PR clinic could learn a lot from Judith's post-OJ existence.

Shoulda, Coulda...

I totally would have run the NYC ING Marathon today, but my neurotic Jewish friends forgot that last night/this morning marked the end of daylight savings time and I overslept thanks to a unfortunate alarm clock glitch.

What's that? We gained an hour so I should have awoken an hour earlier than I intended and perhaps even had time for a hot breakfast sandwich from Starbucks before the start time? And you think my not running the marathon had nothing to do with a zany Seinfeldian alarm clock misadventure? Perhaps you think it had something to do with my abject failure to run a mile in under 20 minutes, even with the spry countenance of someone clocking only 16 years on the ole' body odometer? Or maybe you're thinking that I had as much chance at running a marathon as the kid with the after-effects of fetal-alcohol-syndrome and the symptoms of autism with whom I crossed the finish line during my last Presidential Physical Fitness Test ever in 10th grade?

No, no. That's fine. I really, really, wanted to relive that trauma. Maybe Salon's smugly condescending, illogical, out-of-touch commentator, Edward McClelland, knows what's best: Running (one foot in front of the other at a quickened pace) is best left to the experts. There is no personal gain in fulfilling an attainable but difficult-to-achieve goal that supersedes the ego of others among us whose egos depend on feeling wholly and overwhelmingly special. Forever and ever.

Does anyone even read Salon anymore? My deal breaker was somewhere around Debra Dickerson's last miserable, breathtakingly unconsciously self-unaware column. The whole enterprise reeks of everything that is wrong with liberal politics today. It OOZES unfathomable condescension and incompetence (I dare you to try to read any 'advice' from Cary Tennis without wanting to punch a baby) from a film critic whose tastes lie somewhere between contrarian and curmudgeonly to an ever-rotating stable of contributors who make telling jokes about patchouli-aroma'd, birkenstock-wearing liberals far easier for the mouthbreathing set than it should be. It's a brand of politics best left by its adherents in the 60s from which they come. It's a shame that Joe Conason, Glenn Greewald and Sidney Blumenthal are probably too concerned with actual writing to consider the context which their association with Salon ascribes their otherwise well-crafted arguments.