M.W. Hemingway

2003-05-21T14:13:00.000-04:00

An email from a friend:

So, you've probably heard that the infamous NYT reporter wants to write up his experience of lying and fabricating.

My suggestion for a title:

You Can't Spell Blair
Without L-I-A-R

2003-05-14T17:19:00.000-04:00

So back when I was working at the American Spectator, the editor of that publication got it in his head that it would be a good idea to have Ted Nugent as a regular columnist. I thought the editor, who was very visonary and smart guy was off his rocker. I was right. The resulting article was probably the most ridiculous thing piece of magazine journalism published that year, "Xtreme States of America":

"I want to be extremely happy. My balls are Xtremely [sic] sensitive. I want to be extremely free... I am extremely alive. I sleep extremely soundly... Homosexuality is extremely weird. Jerry Garcia is extremely dead. Pimps, whores and welfare drudges are extremely disgusting."

...And so on for another 600 words. Of course, Ted probably won't like this comparison, but at least it answers the question "When is Homosexuality is extremely weird?" When Rosie O'Donnell, former publisher of McCall's-cum-Rosie gets her own column in The Advocate and the latest installment is titled "The Yellow":

"So Michael Moore and Eminem won Oscars because the art they make is pure yellow... No one knows where the yellow comes from... Fame stole my yellow... I filled my craving with food--getting madder still with my expanding girth and my inability to make more yellow."

...And so on for another 600 words. Feel free to email me with suggestions of words that could be substituted for "yellow" that would either make this column more amusing than it already is, and having said that the column contains the most unintentionally hilarious line in the history of journalism. "You're alone in the dark watching Michael Moore make yellow but to scared to admit you saw it there. Shame on you."

link via the indispensable Gawker

2003-03-12T01:09:00.000-05:00

I just bought a new gee-tar:

2003-02-07T02:29:00.000-05:00

New piece by moi on the web. A review of Neal Pollack's new book, Beneath the Axis of Evil. So far the reception by Neal's loyal fans has been understandably mixed.

Well, I almost submitted this as the review. Which is really more of tribute than it sounds like...

2002-07-17T12:33:00.000-04:00

Oh also, in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Toby Young includes a list of words that Graydon Carter has forbidden from being used in Vanity Fair, adding more legitimacy to Bunnie's ongoing crusade against 'journalism words' like 'Snarky' and 'Toney'. They are as follows:

aka
bed-sitter (for apartment)
boasted
boite (for restaurant)
chortled (for said)
chuckled (for said)
cough up (as in spend)
doff
donned
eatery
executive-produced and such like
flat (for apartment)
flick
freebie
freeloader
fuck (okay for exclamation, not for having sex)
funky
garner
glitz
golfer
graduate (v)
honcho
hooker
joked (for said)
moniker
opine (in any form)
paucity
pen
plethora
quipped
row (meaning fight)
sleaze
no diminutives for titles of movies, books etc., i.e. not Prince for The Prince of Tides
tome (for book)
wanna
weird

Okay, 'paucity' and 'opine' are excellent examples of journalism words, but what's up with 'golfer'? What's that make Tiger Woods? A 'duffer'? 'Linksman'? That's just weird. Oh wait, sorry...

2002-07-17T11:57:00.000-04:00

So I'm reading a fantastic new book How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, a memoir of an upper middle class Brit who had a brief but spectacular career flame-out at Vanity Fair, a few years back. In fact what caught my attention was the blurb on the back--I knew I had to read it:

"Toby's a piece of gum that stuck to my shoe five years ago and that I still can't get off... I basically forgot to fire Toby Young everyday for two years."
--Graydon Carter, Editor-In-Chief, Vanity Fair

For any hack out there who's ever dreamed of being put on retainer by a New York glossy, this book is a must read. Awfully self-deprecating and down to earth for a book that should really be bitter and gossipy, it paints a pretty unkind picture of the upper echelons of NYC's social circuit and journalistic circles.

But there's an interesting blog-related tidbit about Charlotte Raven, everyone's favorite America-hating Guardian columnist/blogosphere punching bag. It seems she got her start in journalism by having an affair with Julie Burchill, a rather famous and notorious british journalist (who also happens to less-than-coincidentally be a Guardian columnist).

As soon as the two started sleeping together, Charlotte and Julie began plotting to turn the magazine that Julie had been editing with with Toby Young (The Modern Review, which along with Might was one of two oft-missed pop-culture magazines that had brief moments in the sun during the 90's publishing bonanza) into a radical feminist rag. Rather than let this happen to his beloved magazine, Young convinced the staff to help him scuttle the magazine's final issue to press without Julie knowing, including an editorial in which he said that the magazine was closing up shop because Burchill was having a lesbian affair with a contributor. The cover read "That's All Folks!" (So you can clearly see how Young's memoir lives up to it's name).

The British press had a field day, and Burchill and Raven moved on to the greener, but heavily fertilized, pastures of the Guardian.

2002-07-16T16:15:00.000-04:00

Okay, so maybe Ted Williams really did want to be frozen.

Still, I can't help but paraphrase Tom Hanks here: "There's no cryonics in baseball!"

(FYI: I've been mildy annoyed during the whole Ted Williams hoo-ha because people keep using the words cryogenics and cryonics interchangably. They're not; cryogenics is the the legitimate medical science behind freezing and preserving things like tissue samples, whereas cryonics is the kooky Uncle-Walt's-head-in-the-freezer-until-we-find-a-cure-for-what-killed-him-a-hundred-years-from-now nonsense.)

2002-07-16T16:08:00.000-04:00

Think I'm going to call up my father, the retired colonel tonight and say, "You think you're tough cause were in the 'Nam? Well, big deal, I live in Washington, D.C."

On the plus side, despite the rise in blowgun attacks, the city is finally on top of the the transvestite prostitute epidemic. One thing at a time people...

2002-07-03T16:00:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, but Friday was my last day on the job. My computer situation has been spotty since then (damn dial up connections)... I start writing my book in earnest in the fall, but until then, if anyone asks, I'm doing "freelance and consulting work," in the great euphemistic tradition. But you, gentle reader, know better than to believe such an obviously mendacious statement, so I present--

My Typical Day As a Semi-Employed Writer in Washington D.C.:

0930-1000hrs: Wake-up. Slowly.

1005hrs: Scratch chin in bathroom mirror. Think about shaving. Don't.

1010hrs: Put on flip-flops and stumble downstairs to coffew shop half a block away.

1012hrs: Stub toe on curb. Wish I'd worn real shoes.

1015-1100hrs: Buy large coffee, bannana and Washington Post. Sit on sidewalk patio of coffee shop reading Post before it gets too hot. Marvel at how many good looking girls work in nearby Senate office buildings. Also, make a point of saying things to complete strangers like "Boy, how bout this heat? Of course, it's the humidity..." just to remind them that I'm not working and they are.

1110hrs: Return home, and turn on TV. Start watching The View. Normally, I know better than this, but I've just spent almost a year at a Think-Tank working primarily on National Security and Mid-East issues. Today's guest on The View is respected terrorism expert Steven Emerson.

1115hrs: Realize all your work is for naught when ditzy host (which one? Hah!) asks Emerson "What's a jihad?" causing such astonishment I spit coffee all over the place.

1130hrs: Hosts on The View begin taunting producer/den mother Barbara Walters about her age with an insincere jocularity that can only be learned in broadcasting school. They ask the septuagenarian if she'd date a younger man, prompting one of them to say "I bet you'd date a 68-year-old." Which is immediatedly followed up with the comment "I bet you'd do 69." The reaction to this, is as you can imagine, horrifyingly summed up by three simultaneous events 1) the audience groans and catcalls, 2) in a flash of pure anger rarely seen on TV, Babs throws something at the offending host and 3) this sums up a mental image that causes me to regurgitate whatever coffee I didn't just spit out.

1131hrs: Turn off TV, need to get out of house. Decide to go to the gym.

1200hrs: Hit the treadmill and throw some weights around. Complain bitterly to management because the only magazines they have laying around are back issues of InStyle and American Cheerleader.

1300hrs: Take extra-long shower after working out. Still thinking about Walters. Can't... get.. clean...

1330hrs: Walk a few blocks over to Bunnie's house to wait for exterminator to come. She's busy working, and the reasons for doing her this favor are summed up in a tri-valent nutshell 1) I genuinely feel sorry for her as she's got flea bites on her legs the size of the moles on Abe Vigoda's back, 2) this might indebt me to the three attractive, savvy women who occupy this particular townhouse, and 3) she knows I'm just laying around and can't give her a good reason to say no.

1430-1830hrs: Try and write something, for-the-love-of-all-that's-holy, anything. Why am I such an untalented hack @#$%?!

1830hrs: Get distracted by Simpsons rerun that I've seen a zillion damn times already so why don't I really just turn the damn thing off and do something productive already...

1900hrs: Eat.

2000hrs: Drink.

2400hrs: Sleep... and resolve to be more productive tomorrow.

2002-06-27T12:33:00.000-04:00

the end of something
(with apologies to tony pierce)

bunnie foo foo and i live a few blocks apart. we have jobs a few blocks apart. she gives me rides to and from work in her car. except that friday is my last day on the job and there won't be too many more rides for a while. which means i'll miss out on moments like this:

"did you just use the word 'snarky'?"

uh oh. damn, i did. inexcusable.

"but it's okay because i was using it in a specific journalism related context."

"you know i hate words that only journalists use like 'snarky', 'toney' and 'pernicious'."

"what's wrong with pernicious?"

"i just don't think it's very exact."

"i think it is. that's what i like about it."

"think it's a three dollar word where simpler ones will do. like dangerous."

"but i don't think it means quite the same thing."

"well, what's it mean to you?"

"it's kind of like insidious."

"so use 'insidious' instead."

"so pernicious is a three dollar word, but insidious isn't? i think you just don't like the word."

"i think only sad men use it."

"so i'm a sad man?"

"no, not you..."

but I am sad...

"... I just think it's a small penis word."

damnit babygirl, why you gots to taunt me?

"what?!"

"i just don't want you to use it. so from now on, that's what you'll think of. pernicious, small penis. pernicious, small penis..."

"whatever."

fuck, you've got me. i can't ever use that word again. now wipe that wicked grin off your face--you're only encouraging me, sweetness.

it's raining. i stare past her to the window. rivulets of water run down the glass, from drop to drop, seeking out other water before running down to the street below. she glares at me. i'm reminded of a line from a poem i once read "the air inside the car is like the breath a woman holds..."

the car comes to a stop. i hesitate, then swing the door open and bound up the stairs to my apartment.

2002-06-26T17:10:00.000-04:00

I don't usually attach much significance to lists, but since everyone always asks what it's like to work at a think-tank, today I present:

Things I Lost Or Didn't Know I Had After Cleaning Out My Desk From My Job At A Think-Tank

1) Military-style dog tags with my name printed on them that came as part of a press kit for the book Rules for Corporate Warriors

2) 1 stock certificate indicating I own a paltry two shares of CISCO stock (I thought I only owned one)

3) Application for Private Investigator's license in the District of Columbia (don't ask)

4) 16 back issues of The Weekly Standard; 4 of Reason; 3 of The Economist and New Republic; 2 of Forbes FYI, Fast Company, Harper's, Policy Review and National Review; 1 of The Robb Report, Commentary, The Atlantic Monthly and The American Prospect

5) 1 unpaid, unopened gas bill post-marked September 11, 2001

6) 1 unpaid, unopened gas bill post-marked January 14, 2002

7) A collection of natural gemstones including Russian Amazonite, Blue Quartz, Umbu Agaete, Jade, Red Jasper, Hematite, Snow Flake Obstchan and about a dozen others...

8) 2 different drafts of a screenplay I've written, rightly doomed to never see the light of day

9) 2 pairs of headphones

10) 1 empty Jameson Whiskey box

11) 1 unused invitation to a cocktail reception with Zbigniew Brzezinski

2002-06-26T15:54:00.000-04:00

"I don't wake up and get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day."
--Linda Evangelista

While everybody is talking about WorldCom, how could I have missed the other big financial scandal of the day? I'm sure laid-off WorldCom workers will take great comfort from knowing that even supermodels are abused by their employers.

I'm still waiting for Supermodels Are Lonlier Than You Think to weigh in on this pressing issue.

2002-06-26T15:07:00.000-04:00

I got an email today from someone I barely know. I'm supposed to meet up with them next week. I explained to them that my schedule was wide open. Friday was my last day on the job--I was taking two months off this summer before I started writing my book full-time.

He shot me an email back saying that he also expects to have the rest of the summer off--he works for WorldCom.

They're laying off 17,000 workers.

I didn't say anything because I doubt it would make him feel better, but I was laid off last summer as well. This was in no small part because the owner of the publication I worked for was heavily invested in Global Crossing.

I suppose I could whine about what it feels like to be used by wealthy mutinational corporations, how it feels to be pissing into the macroeconomic wind--but I won't. When I got laid off, I had savings. I scrambled all summer to find a new job, weathered the storm and now I am doing well, maybe better than if I had kept my job, which I loved.

I hope my new acquaintance can do the same, while we figure out what's wrong with corporate culture. I don't believe in more regulations or government oversight; I believe in accountability. This kind of fiscal presdigitation is an outright crime whether it is intentional or brought on through incompetence and negligence. After Enron and Global Crossing, I hope the WorldCom investigation doesn't turn into another show trial. But I don't have any answers; I only know the frustration. I'm pretty sure WorldCom could raise the missing $3.8 billion dollars if all their laid-off employees started swearing jars.

In the meantime, he will have to keep busy with his other pursuits. And as soon I get him a subscrpition to Martha Stewart's Stock Newsletter, he'll never have to worry about losing his job again.

2002-06-25T15:30:00.000-04:00

Memo to Musicians: Don't Be Free But Be Cheap

I don't know how this is possible, but this article manages to be entertaining and obscenely self-righteous at the same time... then again what could I expect from an aging hippie rock star who decides to rant in The Nation about the commercialization of music. Specifically, John Densmore--drummer for The Doors--wants us all to golf-clap because he hasn't sold the rights to any Doors songs for use in commercials. (But if you're feeling masochistic or are a big Doors fan, the article has some amusing moments and a few good anecdotes).

Unfortunately, it's not quite the open and shut case that Densmore would have you believe. I agree it is probably a bit of baby-boomer memory rape to hear the Stones shilling for Microsoft or *gasp* The Who selling SUVs (Need I remind everyone The Who once put out an album called The Who Sell-Out?). But so what? To quote Joe Queenan: "The Baby Boomers were not the first generation to sell-out. But they were the first generation to sell-out and then insist they hadn't."

I suppose if you make enough money off of royalties and can afford not to sell the rights to your music because you feel it undermines your artistic integrity then fine, that is a decision I respect a great deal. But don't insult me, as Densmore does quoting his bandmate Robby Krieger: "When I heard from one fan that our songs saved him from committing suicide, I realized, that's it--we can't sell off these songs." Well, that fan obviously wasn't listening to 'The End'--but bad jokes aside, I hate the notion that millionaire artists view the work they do as being on such an elevated, almost spiritual level. Lots of bad things have happened to people listening to Doors songs, too. Songs have a specific import because the fans give it to them, not necessarily because they were created by geniuses.

My point is that the average Banker is probably a much better human being than the average rock star; it's unfair for an artist living in a society that spins off enough surplus wealth to create things like rock stars to denigrate the act of making money. I also don't think you can unversally declare that the comercialization of music is bad; to my mind, for up and coming artists the exposure provided by commercials far outweighs it's perceived "corruption." This is mitigated by the fact that whoever is choosing the songs for commercials these days has great taste: Modest Mouse, Apples In Stereo, Low, Hooverphonic, Red House Painters, Handsome Boy Modeling School... all featured in recent comercials. These are all broke, mid-level bands for whom a six figure check for a commercial might be the difference between whether they break-up or make quality music for years to come. And there even seems to be a bit of rehabilitation project for to generate interest in overlooked artists--Nick Drake, Galaxie 500 and The La's have a new generation of fans thanks to car commercials and Gap ads. I guarantee you won't hear any of these songs on the radio...

Then again if radio got more adventurous and actually started playing such a diverse amount of music, there'd be fewer classic rock stations and maybe the few that are left wouldn't play the same three Doors songs eight times a day. In which case, the royalty checks might shrink and Densmore might actually have to sell the rights to 'L.A. Woman' to Budweiser in order to make ends meet instead of floating by as a classic rock cog in the big-gubment-undemocratic-regulatory-hell-corporate-death-spiral that is modern radio. And maybe then he wouldn't be on such a high horse that he's making me acrophobic.

2002-06-25T14:03:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted a picture in a while so, go visit this site dedicated to bizarre LP covers. I especially like the 'Big Hair for Jesus' collection.

2002-06-25T10:48:00.000-04:00

I don't know what it is about heavy metal music--maybe there's a common bond of pretension between metal and classical music and obviously Metal employs a lot of classical/operatic imagery--but whatever it is, there's definitely a comon bond between the two seemingly disparate forms of music.

First there was Apocalyptica, a string quartet dedicated to Metallica covers. Notably, their cover of 'Enter Sandman' , was used to high comic effect during the credit sequence of Neil LaBute's underrated, if disturbing little film Your Friends and Neighbors. (While I'm discussing underrated actors a la the previous post, why Jason Patric didn't get an Oscar nomination for this film is beyond me, he was great at the mysogynistic doctor--and to add a tangent to a tangent, did you know Patric is Jackie Gleason's grandson? Me either).

But back to the weird nexus of heavy metal and classical music... However, Apocalyptica (Damn another digression--'Apocalipstick' would be a great name for a female punk band. Any takers?)... as I was saying Apocalyptica is quite tame compared to Rondellus, a band devoted to medieval and renaissance music, hailing from Taillinn, Estonia. Nothing remarkable about that, except that they've just put out an album of Black Sabbath covers. Okay, fine you say--but aside from the tradional instrumentation (when it comes to playing the psaltery and organistrum, I'm all thumbs), the album is called Sabattum, and all the lyics have been reworked and are sung in Latin.

Listen to their haunting version of Verres Militares, better known as War Pigs.

2002-06-24T13:27:00.000-04:00

There's a new movie coming out in the next year or so, called Spun. And it would have caught my attention because it stars, in my humble opinion, the most underrated new actor out there, along with the most underrated veteran actor in hollywood.

Then again, I probably would have clued into any film that was filmed in my old stomping grounds of Eugene, Oregon where I went to college. Which would make sense because the film is about Methamphetamine addicts, and Eugene is right smack in the middle of the I-5 corridor between Seattle and San Francisco, the major pipeline in this country for propagating white drugs (and white trash for that matter). Anyway, the film looks very cool--you can check out a very NC-17 trailer of it or visit the official site of the movie, where among other things you can watch a rather hilarious film of Mickey Rourke instructing you on how to cook up your own Amfetadrine Dope.

But on a completely unrelated note, while looking for info on the movie, I stumbled across this blog by some young punk from Eugene. He's apparently friends with Will de los Santos, screenwriter of the film, who is in turn friends with Ron "The Hedgehog" Jeremy who passed through Eugene last year, leading to this little anecdote:

Will De Los Santos introduced me to Ron Jeremy the other night. We went over to his hotel room, at the best western; and hung out til 4:30 in the morning. He's a totally funny guy.

The funniest thing he said was "Al Sharpton looks like a black version of me"

Too funny. And too true.

2002-06-24T10:28:00.000-04:00

While I understand that personalized license plates probably shouldn't be obscene, it doesn't mean we have to put up with Captain Killjoy's annoying letters either. If some guy in Wisconsin wants to have a plate that reads 'P Galore' who cares? It's not a reference any young child is going to get, and everyone who does get it will either laugh or think the driver is a cad.

Killjoy even says in his letter that when he originally saw Goldfinger he had to explain to his late wife and sister why everyone was laughing when Pussy Galore was introduced. Which amused me to no end because I remember seeing one of the last Bond flicks with my mother, I distinctly remember when one of Bond's amorous flings (who was tutor supposedly teaching him Danish at the time), referred to Bond as a 'cunning linguist'. My mother immediately started jabbing me in the side and asking me why everyone was laughing. I was mortified at the time, and never did tell her. I guess I can laugh about it now...

2002-06-18T16:47:00.000-04:00

By popular demand, more Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Films. And don't forget this one --Triumph at a Bon Jovi Concert.

2002-06-17T17:50:00.000-04:00

Who's Deep Throat?

Oweing to the fact that I spent my high school years with a tattered copy of The Great Shark Hunt in my backpack, I ended up a writer/journalist (and a drug ridden alcoholic--just kidding, Ma. Hah! Just kidding again... like I'd ever let my mother read this).

But despite the hyperbole and eye-rolling that accompanies any inquiry into the veracity of Hunter Thompson's reporting, at the very least his writing on Watergate was magnificent. And I recall an interesting detail from the book (though I'd have to go home and double check to make sure that this is all 100 percent correct)... Basically, I remember from the book that Pat Buchanan was the only member of of the Nixon White House who would give Hunter the time of day. And according to Hunter, they were more than friendly--they used to get trashed together at Buchanan's apartment, which I also think was actually in the Watergate.

Anyway, I guess my point is that if this was going on, it would only add fuel to the fire to John Dean's assertion that Buchanan might be Deep Throat. Basically, my reasoning here is that if Buchanan was willing to throw a lunatic like Thompson's a few bones on Watergate, who know what he might have told more credible reporters like Woodward and Bernstein? Or maybe Hunter's much more sly than we think and is somehow mixed up with Deep Throat, and all the drugs since then have been just a matter of self-medicating because he can't stand the pain of living with such a big secret... I know, not likely.

Of course, for all of Dean's speculation, he completely omits my #1 Deep Throat suspect--Ben Stein. That's right, everyone's favorite law-professor-cum-game-show-host was in fact a speech writer for Nixon at the time. What's more, Carl Bernstein grew up in the same neighborhood as Ben. They were quite friendly and graduated from the same high school a year apart (to further wig-out political scandal buffs, Matt Drudge graduated from the same high school, albeit 20 years later). And let's face it, it's just not a scandal anymore if a celebrity, even one of Stein's comparitively dim wattage, is involved.

Of course, we have to ask ourselves, was Deep Throat even telling the truth? Or should we believe as G. Gordon Liddy does, that the break-in was really an attempt to cover up a call-girl ring being run by the DNC? While that theory is still a longshot, before you scoff, I give these authors some credit--this book makes it sound much more plausible than you'd think (it is regrettably out of print). In fact, Silent Coup alleges that John Dean himself instigated the burglary... Which would kind of undermine his credibility in naming Deep Throat, wouldn't it? Dean has sued both Liddy and the authors of the book for alleging that his girlfriend at the time (now Mrs. Dean), was part of the call-girl ring that was being run by the DNC for Democratic VIPs, and that the Watergate break-in was instigated by Dean to destroy evidence that his girlfriend was involved. Now despite the lawsuits, Liddy continues to parrot this theory that Watergate was a cover-up for the cover-up, that Dean just let rumors run rampant rather than publicly come forward with the knowledge clearing Nixon but admitting his girlfriend was a whore, thereby spawning a massive political scandal inadvertantly--which given what we know about the level of government incompetence makes a frightening amount of sense if we look at Watergate strictly in karmic rather than factual terms. Though it should be noted Dean hasn't been able to disprove anything Liddy has said, making any of the libel charges stick (but this could have less to do with the truth of the matter than the fact that, if you haven't figured it out by now, Liddy maybe crazy but he's a genius and legal savant who made an entertaining mockery of all of the lawsuits).

Yes, these Thompson/Stein/Silent Coup theories are all highly unlikely--I mention them only because they're highly entertaining. Man, discussing all this is soooo much more fun than Enron.

2002-06-17T10:39:00.000-04:00

So my father didn't bother telling me that the Wall Street Journal did an article on the frontpage of the Marketplace section about his business and the new newsrack designs... He's quoted and there is a picture of his product.

2002-06-17T10:14:00.000-04:00

So I wasn't really aware that there was a DC blogger party, well, I think because I don't read too many other blogs. I think I personally know just about everyone that reads this thing, and I've made little to no effort to pubicize it, I started it just to keep myself from being too bored these last few months on the job... Still it was very strange to look at the pictures from the event and realize that without having read their blogs I either knew everyone there personally or there was about one degree of separation.

One of the attendees, Radley Balko has found me out and said some nice things about this solipsistic little venture of mine. So backatcha, fool. No seriously, I know him both through mutual friends and the fact that I inherited his job when I first moved to town three years ago. He's a good guy who's been doing some damn fine reporting lately for both Foxnews.com and Tech Central Station.

2002-06-14T17:11:00.000-04:00

My best friend works for the the Republican Jewish Coalition, so I can vouch for the veracity of this.

2002-06-14T16:59:00.000-04:00

I don't really read the "lad magazines" as they call them (of course I would be happy to work for one, now that there's a vacancy). But every once in a while they come up with something mildly clever.

2002-06-13T15:41:00.000-04:00

I hope that the people being directed to this, via Bunnie Foo Foo, realize that 1) no, I don't harbor any particular lesbian fantasies, I only posted the thing below (which I did not write) because it amused me, precisely because it exposes the absurdity of the whole lesbian thing, and 2) this.

2002-06-13T14:22:00.000-04:00

Sadly, I can't think of better explanation:

I think this was the same party where the two girls started making out and a friend explained to me the root of the lesbian mystique: "You like chocolate cake, right? Imagine one chocolate cake, and then imagine another chocolate cake. Now imagine those two cakes kissing."

2002-06-11T11:28:00.000-04:00

Surfing update: So I talked to my father last night about surfing on the east coast. He said he used to surf North Carolina when he was in the Marines stationed at Cherry Point. The surfing is not good, you have to paddle like hell to catch a few small waves--but not impossible. He says, though, that if you keep an eye on hurricane season it can be great. He said that once there was a hurricane about 800-1000 mile SE of North Carolina, there was some of the most amazing surf he's ever seen... Steady 15 foot swells, one right after the other. And they were so long that if you paddled far enough out, you could ride them until you were too tired to ride them anymore. Unfortunately, once the hurricane got much closer the waves were choppy and useless.

But yeah it sucks. I can dream though, right? Besides if Jetblue is $200-300 roundtrip to Long Beach, even I can find a way to take a surfing vacation...

2002-06-11T10:43:00.000-04:00

I've indulged in my fair share or Canada-bashing over the years, but help me they are funny, funny people. Meet Hotdogboy. He likes to make films.

2002-06-10T17:09:00.000-04:00

What the @#$%!? PriceWaterhouseCoopers Consulting, has undertaken a $110 million dollar rebranding project to change it's name to "Monday". Aside from yet another corporation trying to trademark a small piece of the way we communicate, have they not seen Office Space?

2002-06-10T16:08:00.000-04:00

Free Booze or Free Boobs? If that's the choice that democracy offers, the state of affairs around the world might be better than we think. I've got to get over Czech Republic soon..

2002-06-10T15:18:00.000-04:00

So last week in my column on what is wrong with Crossfire, I wrote:

And if you're a respected journalist like Novak staring peevishly at your coffee-stained tie, you've got to wonder just what the hell Begala and "Crossfire"'s other new liberal co-host, James Carville, are doing on the show in the first place. Novak has been an ace reporter for decades, and the other conservative host Tucker Carlson, while comparatively inexperienced, also earned his corporal's stripes as a print reporter. Carville and Begala have never been anything but the most partisan and shameless political operatives, hardly the sort of riffraff that the Fourth Estate used to hand over keys to the executive washroom. Begala actually refers to Clinton on air as "my boss" and Carville is such a braying jackass he might as well be the official Democratic mascot.

Today, in The New York Times, There's a great article "From Spin Doctor to Reporter to Anchor" on how George Stephanopoulos is now the anchor of This Week, after Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson were forced out:

William Kovach, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists in Washington and a former editor of The Atlanta Constitution and The Atlanta Journal, described the appointment as "depressing."

"His career has been as a partisan," he said. "Partisanship itself is fine in politics, but not in a journalistic forum."

In an interview, Mr. Stephanopoulos said of questions about his objectivity, "My basic message is judge me by the work. Judge me by the interviews I've done and the interviews I'm going to do. If you think I'm not fair, tell me and we'll talk about it."

Well, I'm glad somebody is crying foul about this trend in broadcast journalism. As for Stephanopoulos' response to charges of bias, it's not encouraging. In fact, it sounds downright Clinton-esque.

2002-06-10T11:39:00.000-04:00

So I've been saying that I want to take up surfing, trouble is that the mid-atlantic region isn't the best place to do it. Still, if the weather's right, like the above day at Virgina Beach (Home of the East Coast Surfing Championship) it doesn't look half bad.

Fortunately, I have a cousin with a beach house on the North Shore of Oahu, and well I got pounded pretty good by a Gi-normous wave last time I visited him and it scared the crap out of me. But hey that was what 10 years ago? Time to get back on the saddle. And I can practice on the rinky-dink waves around here first. Besides, I taught him to snowboard in Oregon--he owes me a few pointers.

2002-06-07T17:29:00.000-04:00

So it just occurred to me that this is the best sports weekend ever. The Tyson/Lewis fight, Belmont Stakes, World Cup, NBA Finals, NHL Finals, interleague baseball... I need cable.

2002-06-07T15:23:00.000-04:00

My father's company makes, among other things, ultracool modern redesigned newspaper racks. After months of sitting in a warehouse, The Washington Post is finally starting to put them out. Right now there's one right in front of the Post's office downtown, about three blocks from where I'm typing this. So now whenever people ask me about my family I can say, hey you know those new newsracks around town? My dad makes those. I'm strangely proud...

2002-06-07T14:55:00.000-04:00

So I can't find a better picture, but I'm staring at the actual cover of last week's Newsweek jaw agape. If this girl is in fact, emblematic of a well-adjusted teenage American girl then everything is right with the world (as for the article itself, it strikes me as dubious, using pop-psych pablum to debunk the prevailing pop-psych pablum--after all this is Newsweek). Without sounding too hairy-palmed, I just want to say that this picture is petty much the actual embodiment of my perfect girl when I was in high school... and the article doesn't make her come off too bad (for the Bunnie Foo Foo approved coolness quotient, she hangs with the croquet club. Also she surfs.)

Anyway, I'm glad someone wrote this article, just about every experience I've had with high school kids in the last few years has been positive (aside from my nephew, alas). The kids are allright.

2002-06-06T17:37:00.000-04:00

New writing by yours truly. Catching the Crossfire.

2002-06-06T16:52:00.000-04:00

My friend from college, Ed Madrid is a weird guy, but also quite ingenious and talented. He's been a total recluse since college ended, not returning calls, and living in his parent's basement. Which helps justify the fact that he's an amazing artist. Without telling us, apparently he's been having shows in the pacific northwest and a gallery in NYC is interested in his work--digital prints on canvas. You can see more here.

2002-06-06T13:02:00.000-04:00

I like that the White House's official statement on this rumor is "total crap."

2002-06-06T12:45:00.000-04:00

Well, I knew very bad men were behind Steven Seagal and Kevin Costner movies... Still, I'll sleep with the fishes before I see Battlefield Earth.

2002-06-06T12:09:00.000-04:00

Subtle design overhaul and link update. Let me know what you think -- now that you have my email (hopefully Bunnie Foo Foo won't send me any homosexual themed internet postcards).

2002-06-05T11:42:00.000-04:00

I think Admiral Pershbar's infamous Daschle piece has been ripped off--by Dana Milbank no less.

2002-06-05T11:38:00.000-04:00

Can't we at least wait until kids survive puberty until we start questioning their sexual identity? And why am I not surprised that assbag Rosie O'Donnell is behind this...

2002-06-05T11:34:00.000-04:00

Sorry, for the lack of posts yesterday... I was working on a piece that I hope will be up shortly. In other news, apparently on the new Memento special edition DVD, there's way you can watch the film in chronological order. Also, a DVD of one of my favorite TV shows was released yesterday, along with The Doves album finally being released stateside. I've got some shopping to do.

2002-06-03T18:08:00.000-04:00

I read this a somewhere a year or two ago, but rather bizarrely, legendary rocker Bob Mould of Sugar and Husker Du fame, has been a writer for the WCW--yes, pro wrestling. Excerpts from an interview with Bob Mould:

I've been a wrestling fan since I was a kid. In the mid-'80s, I learned the business well, and in the fall of '99 became the creative consultant at WCW. It was a great seven months, and a helluva learning experience.

What new ideas did you bring in?

At the time, the WWF was a raunchy, T and A toilet-humour kinda place, and I said, "Maybe if we don't copy them, we'd do a little better." Try to make the characters more human and compelling. Then they hired some of the guys from the WWF to write. So I still tried to contribute, but they would only listen when I'd say, "Hey, let's chain the chick to the cage, and put some ecstasy on a pole and whoever reaches it first can have a date with her." And they'd go, "Oh, great idea!"

Ecstasy on a pole?

Yeah, I think they ended up using Viagra.

via Slatch.

2002-06-03T18:03:00.000-04:00

God save the Hell's Angels.

2002-06-03T17:36:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine in college got so drunk at a Black Sabbath concert he was held down by paramedics and force fed activated charcoal tablets, allegedly to prevent alcohol poisoning. Much to our horror (and Mike's amusement) he was hacking up black fluids for a week afterward. Anyway, my point is that charcoal tablets are how you beat a breathalyzer. Don't get creative.

2002-06-03T17:14:00.000-04:00

Writing for the Weekly World News must be a fun job:

"Don't let the dignified beard and stove-pipe hat fool you -- the only thing Honest Abe wanted to emancipate was women from their clothing."

2002-06-03T14:07:00.000-04:00

As a native Oregonian (just in case Bunnie Foo Foo didn't know where I'm from), I feel compelled to point out that this is the same county where the Rajneesh cult parked their Rolls Royces.

2002-05-31T10:25:00.000-04:00

So NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue was asked whether the major sporting leagues were ready to accept gay athletes. Tagliabue's response:

"That's a baseball question," Tagliabue said. "I'm not comfortable with baseball questions."

Damn! Snap! Why you gotta harsh the boys of summer? Where's the love?

2002-05-31T10:14:00.000-04:00

So Ben Affleck has apologized to the Red Sox and yet still manages to be a total cad:

Affleck apologized and told Merloni: "You've got to let me take you out to dinner or find some supermodels.''

2002-05-31T10:01:00.000-04:00

Well, you knew it was inevitable. Sad thing is that I will see this. Though when not confined to the decency limits of television I can only imagine how disgusting it's going to be.

2002-05-30T15:05:00.000-04:00

Because my parents got in an argument driving through Pennsylvania, I ended up spending three days in Amish country (looong story).

Suffice to say, my mother, for whatever reason, is fascinated by the Amish and has been to Amish country three or four times in the last decade. They struck me as backwards, hypocritical freaks. Their houses aren't wired for electricity but their shops have electric cash registers hooked up to car batteries. They reject comercialism and the outside world, but fawn over midwestern tourists who pay big money for quilts that they flog for sale with an enthusiasm that would make Ron Popeil blush. And now I learn their kids even deal drugs and engage in bizarre sexual riutuals, but the coup de grace:

"There will be bootlegs that they'll watch on somebody's TV running off a car battery in the closet," Walker said. "For a community that isn't supposed to watch movies, boy, has everyone seen Witness."

2002-05-30T13:22:00.000-04:00

I'm just going to post this, though credit for digging it up and bringing it to my attention should go to Admiral Pershbar and Bunnie Foo Foo:

The Pentagon's Oldest Reporter
Has a Great Story of His Own

By GREG JAFFE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

ARLINGTON, Va. -- More than 500 reporters cover the Pentagon. One is Raymond Cromley, sole representative of Cromley News Service.

Mr. Cromley, 91 years old, has a cubicle in the Pentagon press room outfitted with an old Royal typewriter without a ribbon, a 1971 World Almanac and 17 toothbrushes in a plastic cup. At Pentagon press briefings, he scribbles notes on 3-by-5 index cards that fit neatly into his shirt pocket. His picture hangs on the wall with those of all the other Pentagon correspondents.

Mr. Cromley hasn't written a story in years. "He's been here longer than I have," says Glenn Flood, a Pentagon public information officer since 1978. "Though I can't say I have ever really worked with him on a story. I am not sure any of us have."

Mr. Cromley shuffles through the Pentagon in goggle-eyed glasses and a frayed sweater. He drives himself there each morning from his home in nearby Alexandria, Va., in a 20-year-old yellow Mercedes-Benz sedan and swims laps at the Pentagon Officers Athletic Club. He checks the stock tables in the newspapers piled in the press room and collects the daily press releases. Index cards filled with his scrawl pile up on his desk. But his typewriter goes unused. So far as anyone can tell, including Mr. Cromley, he wrote his last column in 1996, though it isn't clear that even that short piece on the federal budget was published anywhere.

One very cold morning two years ago, just a few days before Christmas, then-Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon stood at the press-room lectern in front of the few reporters who hadn't bolted for the holidays. "The numbers are dwindling here," Mr. Bacon said. "Mr. Cromley, we're always glad to see you." Mr. Cromley jotted notes about some arcane changes in the military's housing allowance. He didn't write a story.

While other reporters jockey for the attention of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Mr. Cromley never asks questions. Pentagon insiders can recall only one time that Mr. Cromley even spoke at a press conference. It was in late February this year, and Mr. Rumsfeld was deflecting questions about civilian casualties in Afghanistan. "There has never been a conflict where people have not been killed," he told reporters.

"I was bombed," Mr. Cromley called out, his voice barely registering over the din in the briefing room.

Mr. Rumsfeld glared at him and asked, "What'd you say?"

"I said I was bombed," Mr. Cromley said.

"You were?"

"In World War II. Yes, sir."

Stories about Mr. Cromley's past abound at the Pentagon. One employee insists he's a millionaire several times over. Another says he was a member of the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA. Yet another says Mr. Cromley was blacklisted during the Red Scare. He says none of that is true, and that he has always been a Republican.

The truth of Mr. Cromley's life dwarfs these tall tales. It also helps to explain why he has become a reporter without portfolio.

In the 1930s, Mr. Cromley, son of a California rancher, enrolled at Cal Tech in Pasadena, where he studied physics with some of the great scientific minds of his time. He became friendly with Albert Einstein, who frequently visited the campus and played violin and viola at student gatherings. "He was the lousiest viola player you ever heard," says Mr. Cromley.

Mr. Cromley graduated with a bachelor of science degree in physics in 1933 and moved to Japan in search of adventure. On a train there, he met a young medical student named Masuyo, fell in love and married her. They had a son, Donald. Mr. Cromley says he started writing for The Wall Street Journal in Tokyo. A few days before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, he was arrested along with other U.S. journalists and put in solitary confinement, where he says Japanese guards interrogated and tortured him. American war planes dropped bombs near his prison during the Jimmy Doolittle air raids on Tokyo in April 1942, he says.

Two months later, Mr. Cromley says he was released in a trade for Japanese diplomats who were being held in Washington. He returned to the U.S. with two-year-old Donald on the Swedish ship Gripsholm. "The Japanese wouldn't let me bring my wife," he says. "She was a doctor and they were in too much demand. Leaving her behind was the hardest thing I ever did."

'Dixie Mission'

Back home, Mr. Cromley's parents took Donald while Mr. Cromley joined the Army. Because he spoke Japanese and some Chinese, he was assigned by the Army to a military-intelligence unit. In July 1944, he and a small contingent of U.S. Army and intelligence personnel embarked on the top-secret "Dixie Mission" to meet up with Mao Tse-tung, according to several historical accounts and government records.

At the time, Mao was the charismatic young leader of the insurgent Communist Party, which was challenging the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek. Still several years from assuming control of China, Mao was holed up with his army in a complex of caves near the city of Yenan. In an effort to prevent civil war in China, President Roosevelt was desperate to persuade the Nationalists and Communists to form a coalition government.

For more than six months, Mr. Cromley says he lived with about a dozen other U.S. intelligence officers in a cold, drafty cave near Mao's. Their main job was to build an intelligence network that would tell the U.S. more about the Communists' military capabilities and aims, according to several historical accounts. Often Mr. Cromley ventured into Yenan, where he says he arranged to meet sources at the Chinese Opera. "The main virtue of the Chinese Opera was that there was so much shouting, no one could hear what you were talking about," he says.

He says he eventually befriended Mao and danced with Mao's wife Jiang Qing during a Chinese New Year's celebration. "She was a true beauty. She had a wonderful singing voice," he says.

As World War II was coming to an end, Mao asked Mr. Cromley to send a message to President Roosevelt. On Jan. 9, 1945, Maj. Raymond Cromley, acting chief of the Dixie Mission, sent a cable to U.S. military headquarters in Chunking. According to historical accounts, it said Mao "wants to dispatch to America an unofficial group to interpret and explain present situation and problems in China. ... Mao will be immediately available for exploratory conference in Washington should President Roosevelt express desire to receive them at White House as leaders of a primary Chinese party."

The cable was intercepted by Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley, according to historian Barbara Tuchman. Mr. Hurley, who opposed having Mao meet with the president, didn't relay the message.

The lost cable was "one of the great ifs and harsh ironies of history," Ms. Tuchman wrote in her October 1972 essay, published in Foreign Affairs, titled "If Mao Had Come to Washington." Had Mao made the trip, Ms. Tuchman suggested, the U.S. might not have blindly backed the Nationalist government in China and aroused anger and mistrust in Mao. The Chinese might not have made common cause with the Soviets and, Ms. Tuchman wrote, "it is conceivable that there might have been no Korean War and no expansionist Chinese Communism." Even the war in Vietnam might never have happened, she wrote.

For years, Mr. Cromley wondered what had happened to the cable. Today, he says, the decision not to pass it to President Roosevelt was a "terrible error."

When the war ended, Mr. Cromley returned to Japan for his wife. He found her dying of tuberculosis at her parents' home in Tokyo. He spent several months with her as she wasted away and, after she died, he returned to the U.S. alone.

He rejoined The Wall Street Journal in 1946 and covered the Pentagon and State Department. In the 1960s, he joined the Newspaper Enterprise Association, where he eventually became a syndicated columnist on military affairs and national security. He remarried and had four more children.

In 1967, with children aged 2, 4, 7, and 9, Mrs. Cromley died suddenly of what her family believes today was toxic-shock syndrome. Mr. Cromley kept writing, often taking his children to his Pentagon cubicle. The children explored the sub-basements and skated hallways in their socks. Mr. Cromley hung up signs they made -- "Important Man Working" and "Don't Disturb Daddy" -- and they watched him bang at his typewriter with two fingers.

Sometimes he took his children on assignments. "He took us partially out of necessity ... and partially because he wanted us to know what was happening in the world," says Mr. Cromley's son William, who is the second of three sons and today restores houses on Capitol Hill. William, now 42, remembers speeding with his dad into Washington to cover the riots following the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Months later, William stood with Mr. Cromley at a civil-rights rally as H. Rap Brown yelled at his dad: "Are you a journalist, a spy or a cop?"

William says, "I was eight years old and it was terrifying."

One-Man Operation

In 1975, Mr. Cromley retired from the Newspaper Enterprise Association and formed a one-man operation called the Cromley News Service. He sold his column to about 200 newspapers, and his children helped mail the twice-weekly dispatches. As the children grew up and moved away, Mr. Cromley dutifully mailed them his columns. He sent them as well to his eldest son, Donald, now a 61-year-old architecture professor at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y.

By the mid-1990s, Mr. Cromley's column had become sporadic and his clients were dwindling. Then, in 1996, at the age of 85, Mr. Cromley badly injured his leg when he slipped on the ice while picking up his column from the printer. He spent a few days in the hospital and several months recuperating at home. When he returned to his job in the Pentagon, he discovered that his remaining Cromley News Service clients had moved on. But he kept going to work anyway.

He says he's just on an extended hiatus from filing stories. "I would like to continue writing, but I have broken off so many connections that it is difficult," he says. After such an eventful life, though, retirement is out of the question. "To sit around in an old-man's home is not me."

Son William says, "My dad sees no reason to stop doing what he is doing just because he stopped putting it on paper. He loves to talk, tell stories and listen. The Pentagon gives him something to think about and talk about."

Mr. Cromley was amused when Mr. Rumsfeld, at the age of 68, returned to the Pentagon's top job after a 24-year hiatus. "He doesn't remember me, but that's OK -- I remember him. He's a class man," Mr. Cromley says. He likes to joke with his fellow reporters and the Pentagon's legion of spokespeople. One spokeswoman, Cheryl Irwin, playfully tells people that she and Mr. Cromley are engaged. "Be careful," Mr. Cromley told her, "I've outlived two wives."

Bryan Whitman, who oversees the Pentagon press operation and assigns cubicles and press passes, says he hears occasional suggestions that Mr. Cromley's cubicle and press pass be revoked because the reporter no longer reports.

"I don't know for a fact that he's not writing and I don't really want to know," Mr. Whitman says. "As far as I am concerned, he is a working journalist employed by Cromley News Service."

2002-05-30T13:19:00.000-04:00

Imagine -- and admittedly at this point it takes a lot of imagination -- President Al Gore. Imagine two better-functioning voting machines in Florida, and imagine President Gore.

Then imagine the news of the past two weeks about reports coming into different parts of the federal government about the likelihood of Osama bin Laden launching a major assault in the United States. Imagine an FBI agent informing Gore's attorney general about Middle Eastern students in flight schools not interested in learning how to take off or land. Imagine earlier intelligence reports projecting a new terrorist strategy of flying airliners into buildings.

Imagine President Gore.

Then duck.

The sad thing is that I pretty much agree with this whole column. There has been a double standard. However, I don't think it necessarily highlights that the Bush administration has made some big mistakes in the National Security realm (they have) so much as it makes the Democrats look helpless.

It's just shocking to me that the Democratic party is so utterly devoid of a coherrent national security vision. If nothing else, viable Democratic challenges and criticism of Bush's national security policy would keep the administration on it's toes. And that my folks is what democracy is about.

2002-05-30T10:46:00.000-04:00

The lede says it better than I ever could:

LOS ANGELES (Wireless Flash) -- Jerry Mathers may have played a pain in the butt on the 1950's TV show "Leave it to Beaver" but now "The Beaver" suffers from a real pain on his butt -- psoriasis.

2002-05-29T16:33:00.000-04:00

I don't know if you've seen the video of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog harassing Star Wars fans, but if you've seen it floating around the web you'll know doubt remember the Wizard with the Fillet O' Fish who shows up halfway through. Well, the good folks of Something Awful tracked him down, got "New York's Unofficial Wizard" on the phone for nearly 20 minutes and posted the results. Hilarity ensues:

SA: Have you ever launched a magic missile?

The Wiz: Uhh, mostly I just summon the elements of earth, wind and fire...

2002-05-29T16:12:00.000-04:00

Tough being a Red Sox fan. Even tougher if you're a no-talent assclown like Ben Affleck who should keep his mouth shut:

''It's awful easy for a guy to go up there in the box and rip you,'' Merloni said. ''What does he know about this team? What does he know about anything? Some guys are upset. It's not just me.''

Merloni said he ''got Pearl Harbored'' by Affleck, referring to one of the actor's recent movies.

Trot Nixon, who was told that Affleck criticized his batting ability against lefties, joined in Merloni's protest. Asked his opinion of Affleck's acting, Nixon said, ''He absolutely [stinks]. Matt Damon made you what you are, slick.''

2002-05-29T16:02:00.000-04:00

Ahhh, the perils of being a Jewish astronaut:

"The rabbis I have written to are amazed the question has been asked," said Rabbi Konikov. "We are told to observe Shabbat every seventh day, but if you are orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes, do you do it every seventh orbit?"

Of course Pigs In Space are still not kosher...

2002-05-29T11:39:00.000-04:00

What's that Lassie? Timmy's fallen down a well? No... The barn is on fire? I have prostate cancer?

And here I thought that dogs were just being friendly everytime they stuck their nose in my crotch. Now they're doing it because they're highly trained medical technicians. One bark means bend over, three barks means turn your head and cough...

2002-05-29T10:56:00.000-04:00

As if I needed to say it: I'm glad I'm not Catholic right now. Then again, "The Altar-Boy" would make a good pro-wrestling sobriquet.

2002-05-29T10:40:00.000-04:00

Uh oh. Siouxsie Sioux is admitting that most of the early punk bands weren't very good. Still that's no excuse for the author to "shuffle off into the night, back to our squat to skin up a spliff and listen to the new Little Feat album."

2002-05-28T16:52:00.000-04:00

An asp in the grass is a snake, but a grasp in the ass is a goose.

2002-05-28T16:32:00.000-04:00

Cool. The FAA only fines you $4,000 for operating "a civil aircraft for which there is not currently in effect an air-worthiness Certificate." Though I would not recommend flying at 16,000 feet in a lawn chair.

2002-05-28T15:12:00.000-04:00

Wow. I'm going to go home and put a grape in the microwave.

2002-05-28T11:44:00.000-04:00

Ahh, the American dream. Immigrant in search of college scholarship makes patriotic themed prom dress out of duct tape.

2002-05-24T17:06:00.000-04:00

I'm laughing so hard I'm crying... If you have a windows media player, you have to check out Triumph the Insult Comic Dog harassing Star Wars fans waiting in line for Attack of the Clones to open on Conan O'Brien. It truly is hysterical...

2002-05-24T12:45:00.000-04:00

There's absolutely nothing more painful than listening to a conservative discourse on pop-culture. I mean what the hell is this column? I watched Buffy for a while (my roommate's band had a song featured in one of the episodes so I ended up watching it for a couple of seasons after that) and I really don't know what the hell this guy is talking about. Sure Buffy is a pretty rich vein of satire and social commentary. But the main thing about the show, is that it is entertaining and fun, two things this column is not. It's roughly the difference between a funny joke and explaining at length what makes it funny. If you write about about culture you need to be aware of this line in the sand at all times. If you take yourself too seriously--and conservatives have a real problem with that--it just falls flat. Then they bitch and moan about losing the "culture wars"--well, take a hint.

Still, could the National Review writer's overly-earnest interest in Buffy be because Sarah Michelle Gellar is pro-Second Ammendment?

2002-05-24T11:40:00.000-04:00

There's a new film adaptation of Bartleby the Scrivner? This I have to see. Even cooler, it stars Crispin Hellion Glover (aka George McFly in Back to the Future), the world's most intriguing freak. Though his books and one man multimedia shows are not for the faint of heart, he's done some great films--despite the fact it stars Keanu Reeves, River's Edge is a truly underrated, if disturbing film. And he's done a lot cult/experimental films that are good--I'm told that The Orkly Kid, about a boy in Idaho that's obsessed with performing an Olivia Newton-John song at a local talent show, is the holy grail of cult films. Trouble is, it's about as easy to find... They couldn't get the rights to the song from everyone's favorite Austrailian disco diva so it wa never released. Supposedly, he beat out Sean Penn for the role. Weird. Anyway, I hope to see it some day.

2002-05-24T10:54:00.000-04:00

Where's Willie Horton when you need him?

2002-05-23T18:20:00.000-04:00

First they find Chandra Levy, now the Lindbergh baby?

2002-05-23T18:11:00.000-04:00

One day when I was working for USA TODAY I had to call up Jim Bouton and get a quote. Bouton is the author of Ball Four, widely considered to be the first sports "tell-all" (it sold around five million copies and is still in print 30 odd years later). Bouton was very nice and extremely funny when I spoke to him, so I'm not surprised he has the definitive word on Jose Canseco's upcoming book:

"To top what goes on in the news everyday, he would have to find a professional athlete who has killed three or more people,'' Bouton said. "And on the medical side, he'd have to find not just steroid use, but somebody who is now pitching with cloned body parts. Other than that, he's behind the curve.''

2002-05-23T15:19:00.000-04:00

This is a fantastic column about Politics in Hollywood. And the stuff about Oliver Stone 'Dancing with Dionysus' and being loopy for lesbians is priceless.

2002-05-23T14:25:00.000-04:00

* Hayden Christensen is in final talks to star in Lions Gate's SHATTERED GLASS for writer/director Billy Ray, C/W Prods., Baumgarten Merims Prods. and Forest Park Pictures. It's about the true story of Stephen Glass, who from 1995-98 was a twentysomething whiz-kid journalist writing for publications ranging from the New Republic to Rolling Stone. It was later revealed that he made up sources and quotes, fabricating 27 of his 41 articles.

Now I can't wait for David Brock: The Movie. It's got everything--bad journalism, buggery, insanity, politics...

2002-05-23T13:55:00.000-04:00

My old boss, who's a bit of a nut, if a beloved one, here in Washington has had a bunch of embossed business cards printed up that say "The Management requests that you leave. Please Leave Quietly. Thank you." So now whenever he sees one of his friends at a retaurant here in town he has the maitre'd go over to Bob Novak or Robert Bork and hand them the card... I can't imagine how the more self-important people here in town handle that kind of practical joke. It has to be amusing.

2002-05-22T17:05:00.000-04:00

So Marshall Wittman just came into my offfice again today, "I can't get that song out of my head," he says. And he starts singing the song, which is frightening enough to hear a middle aged neoconservative think tank expert rapping, except he's changed the lyrics to be about Chandra Levy. Truly disturbing. But he made me laugh anyway.

2002-05-22T16:12:00.000-04:00

Sorry, comments for my online poll below can be sent to mwhemingway@yahoo.com.

2002-05-22T14:45:00.000-04:00

Damn, this is the coolest thing I've seen in a while. A search engine that visually maps your results and how the sites are related to each other. Behold, Kartoo.

2002-05-22T12:17:00.000-04:00

I guess I'll do an online poll here--and find out who reads this thing. I need a new guitar. This is the guitar I want to buy, I like the way it feels, it's affordable and it produces an amazing array of tones (The Edge plays one all over his new record). But my question is, is it too ugly?(the one I want is Blue):

Of course I could always go with my second choice:

2002-05-21T17:24:00.000-04:00

Since Coke owns Jesus, apparently it's not Islamic enough to sell in Bahrain or Iran. I'd like to buy the world a Zamzam.

2002-05-21T17:20:00.000-04:00

My older sister's deadhead boyfriend claimed that he scored a 1200 on the SATs coming down on acid. Even though I got a much better score sober, I didn't believe him. Maybe I should, since as drug induced feats go, it's not nearly as difficult as pitching a no-hitter.

2002-05-21T10:59:00.000-04:00

So again, speaking of me being ahead of the curve, I just read this story on Romanesko's Media News:

Official tells Kentucky newspaper: I now own your name!
The water district board chairman in Inez, Kentucky has told Mountain Citizen publisher Roger Smith to stop using his newspaper's name because it now belongs to him. Smith says the newspaper inadvertently let incorporation papers lapse in the secretary of state's office, and John Triplett -- the water district boss -- filed the paperwork to claim the name for himself. "There's no theft," says Triplett. "It was just available." Smith says he'll keep the Citizen name. "It's on our window and it's on our paper. I'd like to see them try to take it off."

I am so cool--I did this very same thing in college. Well, actually my best friend and roommate did it after I graduated, but it was my idea. Still, I want some of the glory.

2002-05-21T10:54:00.000-04:00

I thought I wasted my college career getting a journalism degree. Turns out it's possible to get an engineering degree and waste it just the same. Though, I am amused...

2002-05-20T13:09:00.000-04:00

I wrote this story on a federal law that prevents students with drug convictions from getting financial aid a year and a half ago. You'll have to take my word for it, though. I'd link it, but the old American Spectator website is dead--all I have to show for it is a tattered Xerox of the piece I wrote. Sniff, sniff.

I might also add that my headline "Turning on and Dropping Out" was a lot better than the clunky "Smoke a joint and your future is McDonald's" that Salon went with.

2002-05-17T17:32:00.000-04:00

Holy Smokes. Two death row inmates are trying appeal their sentences because the judge who convicted them was busted for pot twice and admits using the wacky weed regularly during the same period he convicted them. But he swears it never carried over into the courtroom.

Now I don't think it's much of an issue, lord knows how many attorneys and Judges are alcoholics--but the Judge was busted in part because he was buying bud by mail and using office stationary. Forget smoking pot, the inmates deserve to have their sentences reevaluated because their judge was a moron.

2002-05-17T12:16:00.000-04:00

Judge Stephen Erber said McKenzie and the woman were members of a skinhead group, The Fourth Reich, living in "an ignorant and dangerous twilight world of hate, white supremacy, and latent violence".

He said the victim impact report painted a picture of a frightened, intimidated woman but letters she had written to McKenzie portrayed a different person.

"These show a woman who desires to obtain a pistol, wants to stab someone, and is not averse to having sex with a dog. They give credence to his wish to shoot the dog," the judge said.

Okay, the last time read I about someone having sex with a dog (a frightenly frequent occurrence these days), it also involved a Neo-Nazi. Is there some pro-dog humping passage in Mein Kampf or The Turner Diaries that I don't know about?

Oh well, if hot doggy action allows Mark Steyn to go to town like does in the column above, I say pass the chihuahua and vaseline.

2002-05-17T10:41:00.000-04:00

How to swear in foreign languages.

2002-05-17T09:59:00.000-04:00

According to a new biography, Neil Young was a staunch Reagan supporter...

2002-05-17T09:54:00.000-04:00

Marshall Wittman, who's semi-famous (or infamous, depending on who you talk to) inside the beltway just stormed into my office. "Mark, I'm going to tell you something and you have to promise to never hold it against me. I was driving my son to school and listening to the radio and I gotta tell you I like Eminem. I thought that this was one of the smartest funniest things I've heard on the radio in a long time. It's perverse sure, but..."

Just don't tell Lynne Cheney.

2002-05-16T15:18:00.000-04:00

“We probably ought to remind them they’re going to have a hard time eating their oil,” said Rice.

Tell it like it is, Condoleeza.

2002-05-16T12:13:00.000-04:00

I cetainly have libertarian symapthies and I am intrigued by drug legalization, I've yet to be convinced that it is entirely a good thing. However, certain issues are a no brainer when it comes to dealing with drugs and expensive, tax-dollar ad campaigns are clearly worthless. Even the current drug czar says so. And don't get me started on the if-you-smoke-a-joint-the-terrorists-have-won ads--it's just insulting.

While I'm sympathetic to the idea that what drugs you take is a matter of personal liberty, policy-wise, legalization is an unlikely possibility. Failing that, here's what you do--re-adopt the much of the Nixon administration's drug policy, the architect of which was famed social scientist James Q. Wilson (who also devised the "broken windows" theory approach to crime which was adopted by Rudy Giuliani and largely credited for cleaning up New York). Basically, drug penalties were linked to criminology, i.e. since dealing heroin or crack has more violent crime associated with it then dealing acid, dealing heroin or coke is associated with much larger criminal penalties (and currently federal laws that carry ridiculously stiff penalties for acid dealers in comparison to more dangerous narcotics). The idea is to focus on what aspects of the drug war cause the most crime, as opposed to the state drawing arbitrary lines about what drugs you can and cannot take. And it would force everyone to look at the hard data and acknowledge that pot is harmless.

Obviously, this is no rebuttal to the legalization arguments in terms of liberty, wasted money and the drug war's ridiculous expansion of the police state and federal government authority. But this would make things better than they are now, it's feasible in terms of creating public policy in the near future, and I think it might even be a step toward legalization.

2002-05-16T10:28:00.000-04:00

When a male polar bear and a human are face to face, there occurs a brief kind of magic: an intense, visceral connection between man and beast whose poignancy and import cannot be expressed in mere words. Then he rips your arms off.

Wow. A "Shouts & Murmurs" piece from The New Yorker that's actually funny. Hilarious, really. In terms of comedy, it's hard to go wrong with Polar Bears.

2002-05-15T15:01:00.000-04:00

I can't stop laughing at this:

2002-05-15T14:42:00.000-04:00

I saw this a while back and forgot to link it. People have too much time on their hands--there's enough bizarre masonic crap on money, you'd think they'd still be working on that.

2002-05-15T14:34:00.000-04:00

Sopranos coming back on September 15. Praise be!

2002-05-15T14:28:00.000-04:00

I had a sneaking suspicion that Tawny Kitaen and Chuck Finley deserved each other--according to papers filed by Kitaen, Finley is a boozing, steroid using, pot smoking, violent racist.

And well, you have to consider the source, but I hate to say it, but I'm not shocked by much of anything pro athletes do. It doesn't help that Jose Conseco is writing a tell all about about steroids, women and drugs in baseball.

2002-05-15T14:21:00.000-04:00

Well, you don't have to be a feminist to be shocked by this story. And weren't women supposed to be treated more equitably under communism?

2002-05-14T12:16:00.000-04:00

Okay, so blogger doesn't like certan kinds of HTML and won't let me fix it. "Safe mode" my ass... Anyway, I was screwing around with an application on this site which is very cool. A contest for the coolest web application that takes under 5k in bytes.

2002-05-14T12:06:00.000-04:00

*   *       ***   ***                     ****                      *
*   *         *     *                     *   *
*   *  ***    *     *    ***              *   * *   *  ***   ***  ***    ***
***** *   *   *     *   *   *             ****  *   * *   * *   *   *   *   *
*   * *****   *     *   *   *             *   * *   * *   * *   *   *   *****
*   * *       *     *   *   *   *         *   * *   * *   * *   *   *   *
*   *  **** ***** *****  ***     *        ****   ***  *   * *   * *****  ****

2002-05-14T11:44:00.000-04:00

Strangelets. This is so Sci-Fi I don't know what to say--clusters of pollen-sized subatomic quarks with a density ten millions times greater than lead, hurtling through the universe ripping through the earth's surface at 900,000 miles per hour, impacting with the force of tons of TNT. What's more, unlike just about every other atomic anomaly, these are thought to be very stable particles.

2002-05-13T16:55:00.000-04:00

Juvenile of me, I know, but this is an actual Family Circus cartoon: