In Honor of Britney...

Van Halen, doing 5150.

Unfortunately, Most Guys Have Already Seen Her Finishing Move

I really thought an offer from Playboy would be as weird, stupid and shameful as it gets.

I was wrong.

(The Huffington Post: Alycia Lane Offered Job at WWE)

And now, for absolutely no good reason -- The Rock.

No Room at the Inn

You're not going to believe this, but I'm forgoing my usual M.O. (Ridicule. Make snide jokes. Repeat.) in favor of actually advocating unity and reconciliation.

When it comes to presidential politics, America's Evangelical Christian contingent has basically been left out in the cold this time around. It happened because the far-right fundamentalists forgot a basic rule of physics: To every action there's an equal and opposite reaction.

So how do we prevent an eventual and inevitable backlash in the other direction?

My latest column can now be found at the Huffington Post.

(The Huffington Post: "Losing Their Religion"/1.30.08)

Beat It

The story of the day, compliments of CNN.com:

"Fishermen Beat To Death Endangered River Dolphin (CNN) -- Fishermen in Bangladesh beat a rare river dolphin to death because they had not seen 'this kind of creature before,' according to local news accounts."

I guess it could be worse.

They could've begun worshipping it and appointed it their exalted ruler.

Incidentally, does this mean we now have an excuse for beating Exxon Chairman Lee Raymond to death.

Ted Kennedy Doesn't Care About Women

So, New York feminists -- who if I know anything about my adopted home probably count Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda among their upper echelon -- are accusing Edward Kennedy of betraying them by endorsing Barack Obama for president.

The New York chapter of the National Organization of Women, apparently freed up from having to cook dinner, issued an official denouncement of Teddy the Red-Nosed Senator yesterday.

"Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy's endorsement of Hillary Clinton's opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard."

Yes, yes.

Because killing a woman wasn't enough of a slight.

(Please note that in the interest of good taste, I excluded a joke which referred to the National Organization of Women as "NOW -- as in 'Now shut up and go do the dishes.'" It's okay -- you don't have to thank me.)

Listening Post

It's rare that I post a homemade video, but for some reason this one really caught my eye.

There's something mesmerizing about the mood that it manages to capture with such stunningly unassuming images. When coupled with the music -- Start Over, from one of my favorite unknown bands, Abandoned Pools -- the effect is kind of hard to put into words.

It paints a perfect picture of youth, in all its simple majesty -- and makes me nostalgic as all hell.

A War Without End, Amen

There's a reason I love Arianna Huffington as much as I do, and it's proven once again in her smart, scathing rebuke of last night's State of the Union Address.

Not only does she assail George Bush for continuing his catastrophic presidency's tradition of obfuscation and outright bullshit, as well as point out the hinted-at horrors yet to come from a potential McCain White House, she also manages to reference Dr. Strangelove in the process.

Read on.

(The Huffington Post: Bush and McCain's Displaced Ardor for War/1.29.08)

Why So Serious? (Post-Script)

A follow-up to Monday's column in the Huffington Post (HuffPo: "John Gibson's Truly Tasteless Joke, and Why You Really Shouldn't Care"/1.27.08)

I've written at length before about the slippery slope involved in allowing any offended party the powers of censorship. For some time now, a trend has been developing in this country, one which dictates that all someone has to do is claim aggrieved status and shout it loud enough and to the right people and it'll almost certainly make whatever happens to be offending him or her go away.

Don Imus makes makes a crack you think is racist -- regardless of whether or not it was aimed in your direction? Pitch a fit and get him fired.

Paris Hilton says something cruel toward gays on a videotape you were never supposed to see to begin with? Start a petition.

John Gibson makes fun of the death of Heath Ledger? Off with his head.

Please understand, all three of the people I've just mentioned rank about as high on my list of likes as, say, colon cancer. The question remains though, who gets to decide what's offensive and what's acceptable art, humor, gossip, etc?

I bring this up because in my diatribe against Gibson's ineffectual idiocy, I viewed his comment not as an insult to any one group, but rather as generally insensitive. Apparently, not everyone has taken it that way. A quick look at the comments some have posted in response to my editorial would seem to indicate that some in the gay community considered it a slam against homosexuals specifically. I hope I can be forgiven for not seeing Gibson's tasteless joke in this context, simply because Ledger himself wasn't gay and to the best of my knowledge Gibson never implied as much. (For the record, there's no doubt in my mind that Gibson and his audience giggle like Beavis and Butthead at the entire premise of Brokeback Mountain, but once again, trying to bully them into evolving will accomplish absolutely nothing besides maybe eliciting a wholly insincere apology.)

Most interesting of the comments though, is one which not only rails against Gibson's "homophobic rants," but also includes a link to a petition being circulated by perpetually pissed-off gay-rights group GLAAD as well as a list of Fox News's advertisers, ostensibly ripe for boycott, provided by -- Perez Hilton.

Now if you can already see the laughably jaw-dropping irony of Perez Hilton demanding that someone have his forum revoked for being generally offensive, feel free to stop reading.

For everyone else, the balls on Hilton -- the erstwhile Mario Lavendeira -- are positively staggering.

This is a guy who makes a living, and a depressingly nice one at that, drawing semen stains on celebrities, models and anyone he damn well pleases. He literally lives under the protection of the first amendment and the imprimatur provided by a satirist's ability to claim that it's all one big, mischievous joke. No harm, no foul.

Fact is, Perez Hilton needs to shut the fuck up and sit this one out.

As for the overall belief that Gibson was specifically ridiculing the gay community in his targeting of Ledger, I'm not sure that's the case. Gibson was simply being what he always is: a juvenile asshole. In the interest of full disclosure, I could very easily be accused of having mocked the death of Kanye West's mother, Donda West, a few months ago (Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, Deader/11.12.07). I wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight if you called me an insensitive prick based on those comments. However, if you insinuated that I'm racist or sexist because I made an admittedly crass joke about the death of someone who just happened to be a black woman, I'd think you were an idiot.

Gibson wasn't making fun of gay people -- he was making fun of Heath Ledger.

And to those who think otherwise and insist on turning this into an opportunity to shout loudly about their own particular cause, I can only repeat the words that almost every girlfriend I've ever had has said at one point or another.

It's not always about you.

The Mark Has Been Made

I'm a big fan of The X Files and therefore love a good creepy, well-thought-out conspiracy theory. I love it almost as much as I love heaping scorn on the bat-shit lunacy that is Scientology.

So you can imagine how much I'm enjoying this.

Behold, "Anonymous."

Sweet Dreams

I realize I'm a little late to the party on this one, but it's not as if I get some kind of Bat-signal every time one of America's TV news talking-heads makes a colossal ass out of him or herself. I'd never get anything done.

Earlier this month, CNBC's Erin Burnett -- who's been dubbed, in thoroughly professional fashion, the "Street Sweetie" -- penned a column for Men's Health magazine, supposedly detailing the eight ways in which a potential suitor might impress her and, one would imagine, melt her cold, cold heart.

Unfortunately, though not unexpectedly, it reads like The Narcissistic Bitch's Guide to Gold-Digging.

I admit that Erin Burnett is positively gorgeous -- an opinion confirmed in the tawdriest of manners by imbecilic boob Chris Matthews's inability to talk to her on-air without foaming at the mouth -- and if her almost impossibly over-the-top list of turn-ons is some kind of Kaufmanesque joke, she's also the coolest woman on Earth. But it's not beyond the realm of possibility that she's completely serious when she insinuates that the simple gestures she longs for all involve the use of an American Express Black Card.

Well, never one to deny the desires of a beautiful woman, I want to not only take the lovely Miss Burnett up on her challenge -- I'd like to offer my own list of the eight things she might do, in turn, to win my little-boy heart.

I've already taken the liberty of mailing my entire wallet as well as the contents of my 401k and a couple of hits of ecstasy I found buried in my medicine cabinet to Erin's Park Avenue address.

As for my requests -- they are, needless to say, made in spirit of Erin's own list.

Ladies first:

(Men's Health: Erin Burnett's "8 Ways to Impress Me")

Now, mine:

1. Life's a Beach I'm a big fan of long walks on the beach, my feet sinking into the sand as cool waves swirl around my heels. If Erin would buy me Hawaii, that'd be awesome.

2. Pleased to Meet Them Music is one of my passions. I'd truly appreciated it if Erin would get the Replacements back together, including bringing Bob Stinson back from the dead, and pay them to play in my living room -- nightly.

3. The Better to See You With I can't imagine a more wonderful evening than one that involves Erin and myself curled up on the couch, her rubbing my feet and my tired XBOX hand, watching her on television. This is why Erin should buy me a 70" plasma-screen HDTV.

4. Forever in Her Debt Since I plan to shower Erin with gifts of all shapes and sizes, buying her anything her heart desires, I can only ask that she pay off all my credit card bills and give me her own cards to use -- you know, just in case of emergency.

5. Please My Palate Too Like my scrumptious CNBC goddess, I'm a big fan of great food. It's for this reason that I'd like Erin to kill Rachael Ray and bring me her heart. Then go out and buy me something -- anything at all.

6. Family Ties I agree with Erin that there's nothing more important than family. If she really wants to impress me -- and I know she does -- she'll tattoo a giant image of my beloved Grand-dad on her stomach so that her pubic hair becomes his beard. If by some chance she's fully waxed, that's okay -- Grand-dad needed a shave anyway. I expect her to have the work done at High Voltage Tattoo in Los Angeles, pay for it, then buy me the studio and engage in a threesome with myself and Kat Von D.

7. Like a Prayer I consider myself a very spiritual person. I wake each morning with a smile on my face and a song of praise in my heart, grateful for the new day that God has given me and the bounty of treasures -- material and rarefied -- that he's bestowed upon me. I put my life in the caring hands of Jesus Christ and accept that there is no obstacle too daunting for the one true God. He will reward those who believe in him and punish those who defile his divine name. Unfortunately, he tends to take his time with the whole punishment thing, so I'd like Erin to buy me the Roman Catholic church, execute Benedict XVI and have me elected Pope under penalty of death.

8. Put Her There Nothing, and I mean nothing compares to life's simplest pleasures, to wit, a nice cup of tea just before bed. This is why there's no better way for Erin to prove her undying love -- than to let me teabag her.

Erin, if you're out there reading this, I'll be awaiting your response -- or your lawyer's anyway.

Nun of Your Business

As always, I love it when I don't even have to try.

Case in point, this little Monday morning gem from the Associated Press:

"The Benedictine nuns of Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery in Phoenix are renting out rooms during Super Bowl week for $250 a night, plus $50 extra for each additional person.

"It's a different twist for us in the sense that we've never opened the monastery for an event like the Super Bowl," said Sister Linda of the Benedictine Sisters of Phoenix. "It's just a different clientele than we're accustomed to."

Though the sisters won't impose a curfew, lodgers at the monastery will have to abide by a few rules: no smoking, no rowdy behavior and most importantly, no alcohol.

"I would think that God's got to be excited about the Super Bowl as well," Sister Linda said. "He wants people to enjoy life."

That, incidentally, is the same rationale I use to justify my affinity for barely-legal Asian porn.

Listening Post

LOVE. THIS. BAND.

(Plus I just have the biggest crush on their ex-guitarist, Charlotte Hatherley.)

This is Ash -- Burn Baby Burn.

Why So Serious?

By now you've probably heard that Fox News's single most concentrated dose of human pussy neutralizer, John Gibson, is under fire for making a couple of rude on-air cracks about the death of Heath Ledger.

Some are even calling for him to be fired (which of course isn't going to happen).

The question is -- why bother?

I'm skewering Gibson, by suggesting that everyone just ignore his ridiculous ass altogether, right now at the Huffington Post.

Feel free to take a look.

(The Huffington Post: John Gibson's Truly Tasteless Joke... and Why You Really Shouldn't Care/1.27.08)

Strike That, Reverse It (Part 2)

(Strike That, Reverse It: Part 1/1.19.08)

"I was just thinking what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the writer from the artistic process. If we could just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we've got something here."

-- Tim Robbins as Griffin Mill, The Player

In the almost three months since the Writers Guild of America went on strike, leaving Hollywood in limbo, I've tried to remember a dispute in which both sides of the argument had, at one point or another, been so thoroughly full of shit. I haven't come up with a thing so far.

Since my early days in Los Angeles, beyond the strike threat that once held my entire workplace hostage, I've grown up considerably, my views on unions evolving right along with me. At 25, I was too self-absorbed in general and certainly too overwhelmed by the difficulties of my daily struggle at work to appreciate the necessity of an entity put in place to guard against abuses by the kinds of managers that existed at KCBS. I would eventually come to realize that something, anything, had to function as a thorn in the side of a management team whose otherwise unchecked impudence was slowly killing us all. Although I had no desire to join the WGA myself -- despite its constant protests -- I began to regard it as an unfortunate but necessary evil.

And when placed against the absolute evil of KCBS's mindless and heartless "leadership," it was almost always the lesser of the two.

To this day though, I can't help but look upon any union with a slightly suspicious eye, fully believing that organized labor has itself been allowed to grow dangerously unchecked; anyone who doubts that it's by and large become the very thing it ostensibly stands in defiance of -- corrupt and unfettered bureaucracy that doesn't really give a crap about anything but the perpetuation of its own authority -- needs to start paying more attention.

For the most part, the demands made by the WGA against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have been reasonable, particularly when it comes to residuals from new-media; the Guild got screwed back in the 90s when DVDs became the dominant format for home video and the writers wound up stuck with an antiquated and rather unfair deal that had been meant to apply only to VHS. The Guild doesn't want to make the mistake of being short-sighted this time around; it knows full-well that internet on-demand viewing is the future and if it doesn't stand up for a cut now, the producers -- who haven't exactly proven themselves to be extraordinarily benevolent in the past and who are now spewing bullshit by the metric ton about the supposedly hypothetical nature of the internet goldmine -- will shut them out completely in favor of raking in the dough for the Hollywood studios and the corporations which run them. Admittedly, writers for television and film don't make a fortune, relative to the producers and the upper-levels of the Hollywood hierarchy -- which is not to say that they're paid badly in general; they aren't, and don't let them fool you into believing they are. When the money to be made from their hard work is taken into account, the people in the Guild indeed deserve more, but there are still a hell of a lot of guys working at Jiffy-Lube who'd kill to take home what your average sitcom writer pulls in every few weeks.

That said, only an idiot would trust a corporation -- or any other entity that generates money hand-over-fist -- to be completely equitable to the creative types in the basement of the production line; corporations are about making money, and the best way to do that is to avoid spending it wherever and whenever possible. As far as the producers and studios are concerned, artists are little more than a burden; if they could figure out a way to get a TV show on the air or a movie in the theaters without using writers, directors and actors, they'd do it in a fucking heartbeat.

Which, unfortunately, still doesn't make a strike of this magnitude a great idea -- for anyone concerned.


By now, any union should know -- and it's only the arrogance of organized labor in general that prevents this -- that it will eventually reap the scorn of the innocents it affects. Put simply, the ones who walk off the job will be the ones who lose the sympathy of the public the longer a strike drags on. Your average American, particularly the Barco-lounging neo-lummox the television industry considers its bread-and-butter, operates under two pertinent assumptions: that he busts his ass every day at a job he doesn't much like and therefore only has so much empathy with those who aren't willing to do the same, and that at the end of his rotten day, all he wants is to crack open a beer, sit the hell down and be entertained by the magic box in the living room. While 99% of this country can feel a modicum of solidarity with anyone who's being screwed by corporate greed, the well of good-natured compassion dries up awfully fast when that person begins stepping all over America's collective toes by spoiling Leno and cancelling awards season.

While it would be fair to blame the producers as much, if not more than, the striking writers in this case, the former finds itself in an infinitely better position -- at least from a PR standpoint. All the AMPTP has to do is -- well, nothing. The producers need only sit back quietly and watch the WGA picket and protest and chant and enlist the help of pompous clowns like Rage Against the Machine and stage unforgivable "Bring Your Child to the Picket Line" rallies and eventually hang itself in the eyes of the public. The producers and studios know that the Guild will do their work for them, not only by shutting down popular shows but by choosing to picket their ostensibly innocent peers and friends who -- as in my own case years ago -- have no choice but to keep working to survive. (A perfect example: It's one thing to walk off the set of The Daily Show and The Tonight Show; it's another thing completely to picket those non-union employees who continue to work and, more importantly, the people like Jon Stewart and Jay Leno who've not only been good to you but who care enough about all their workers to keep them employed by staying on the air. Remember, in theory anyway, those on strike will eventually have to return to work and try to live in the very place they've spent months carpet-bombing.)

At some point, a strike becomes a form of terrorism: The innocent are held hostage and made to suffer for the sake of making a political point.

This is in no way meant to imply that a workforce should simply allow management to walk all over it; anyone can find him or herself in a position where a stand has to be taken, particularly in this era of unrestrained who-gives-a-shit-about-the-little-guy greed. Unfortunately, the necessity of a strike in no way negates the reality of what happens once that strike begins -- and then drags on for months.

Both sides have already lost on this one -- but when it's all over, the writers will likely have lost more.


(Update/1.28.08: This turned up in this morning's New York Times -- in its coverage of Sunday night's SAG Awards -- and it highlights perfectly what I'm talking about: "Christina Applegate, star of the ABC series 'Samantha Who?,' said in an interview on the red carpet that she was hoping that the actors union would not begin its own strike when its contract is up at the end of June. Noting that the strike has caused collateral damage to thousands of people in Los Angeles — seamstresses, caterers, dry cleaners and the like — she said, 'I don’t think we can hurt them anymore.'")

Listening Post: Memoir Edition

Over the course of this little experiment of mine, I've posted several excerpts from the manuscript which I've been shopping to publishers. One in particular featured at its center a song from PJ Harvey called We Float. This morning, I'm republishing that excerpt, but this time with the inclusion of the actual song. The following took place about two months after 9/11. I had been living in a hotel in New York City since the attack, covering the story for NBC. Immediately prior to the attack, I had been in rehab for a very serious heroin addiction -- one which forced me to leave my home in Los Angeles and go back to my family in Miami to seek help. My wife at the time, estranged and in the process of leaving me completely, remained in L.A. I was trying to patch things up with her, but the 3000 mile distance wasn't the only thing separating us.

I push my face up from under the water, inhaling deeply as I feel myself break free into the open air. My eyes open and the room comes into focus. I sit up and drape my arm over the big stark-white tub in my hotel bathroom, taking in the quiet serenity which is in such sharp contrast to the whirlwind of chaos in the outside world right now.

It's on.

We're at war.

You now have two minutes to reach minimum safe distance.

It was pretty much the grandaddy of foregone conclusions. Somebody had to pay for the attacks of September 11th, and as retribution goes, the military response seems to at least be pointed in the right direction -- for the moment anyway. The ability to wield this kind of might is an iffy thing though. The rational part of me -- the part not wanting to satisfy some kind of primal bloodlust by seeking swift revenge on anyone who had even the most incidental role in the attacks -- knows that it wouldn't take much to push our military machine off the tracks and right into some paranoid fascist oblivion; the old saying about conjuring up the devil then expecting him to behave comes to mind. Still, unless you're Susan Sontag or some other over-educated, Northeastern intellectual who's contemplative to the point of sheer fucking paralysis, it seems practically impossible to be in this city right now -- to experience both its heartbreak and its strength on a daily basis -- and not want to strike back with everything you've got. Call it the inevitable result of some of America's more inequitable and obscene foreign policy decisions; there's still simply no justification for what happened here. The furious need to make the guilty pay with their miserable lives may not make sense on every level, but sometimes you just don't care. Cue the Pantera; somebody's getting a goddamn beatdown. I may live to regret this opinion in hindsight -- when there's a lot more distance between myself and the heat of this moment -- but for now the fires of rage burn too brightly.

I pull myself out of the tub, towel off and wander out into the space of my hotel room, which has evolved quite a bit since my arrival last month. First of all, with no end in sight to my status as a mere freelancer, I upgraded to a suite. What the hell; it was as simple as a walk downstairs to the front desk -- in my robe and slippers no less. At this point, I'm a regular fixture around here; the guy standing still while the crowd moves at hyper-speed around him. Guests come and go, but I remain; just one of the family.

"Hey Arben," I whispered, looking around as if I were arranging a contract killing.

The guy behind the counter, an Albanian kid I'd bought a couple of rounds of drinks for at the hotel bar a few nights before, leaned forward, smirked knowingly and extended his hand. I gave it a quick shake.

"What can I do for you today sir?"

"How about some goddamned hookers."

He leaned back smiling. If you ever needed any proof as to the vast cultural dominance of hip-hop, all you'd have to do is watch Arben for about two minutes. His accent may be Eastern-European, but his lingo and gestures are pure South Central. Sjoop Dogg.

"Aw bro -- this is Jersey. You don't want hookers here. For that you gotta go into Mahnattan," he smiled, looking like he might break into a freestyle rhyme at any moment.

"Too fucking expensive; out here they give you a discount."

"You want discount hookers?"

I paused for a moment.

"I have a coupon," I said blankly.

Arben laughed, which made me feel surprisingly good. It's easy to take for granted something as simple as the ability to make another human being laugh. Of course stripping away every ounce of your personality for an extended period of time has a way of changing that.

"Anything besides hookers I can get for you?"

"Yeah actually." Now I really lean in conspiratorially. "Do you have to call the network for authorization to upgrade my room?"

"They're picking up the tab, right?"

"Yeah."

"I'm probably supposed to."

I just waited for a moment to see if that was the end of the sentence; it wasn't. Arben's smile returned to a subversive smirk.

"-- But because you bought drinks --"

"God bless you and the good people of your country," I said through a shit-eating grin. "I won't even tell anyone about the fat girl who blew you in your car the other night."

He shot me a why'd-you-have-to-go-there look. "We've got a suite open on five -- that okay?"

"Perfect."

That was last week. What should've been a simple move up one floor turned out to be a pretty serious undertaking, namely because I've spent the month since my arrival making quite the home away from home for myself. When I made the questionable decision to embark on this little adventure, I packed only enough clothes for about a week, figuring that if I actually did find any work at the end of the rainbow, it probably wouldn't be an extended tour of duty. Now that it's been extended indefinitely, I needed something to wear; so I took a break between shifts a couple of weeks ago and did what little our president asked of me as an average American citizen -- strong, proud and prone to completely ineffectual gestures which require no real sacrifice -- I went shopping.

I had to stock up on clothes for more reasons than one. As it turns out, my new body wasn't having most of what I brought with me. Everything now fit me like a tent, and I have to admit that getting a new and certainly sleeker wardrobe was preferable to the cheaper option: forcing myself to stuff my face with Twinkies and put the weight back on. I've even taken to hitting the hotel's gym lately to keep and perhaps even enhance my girlish figure.

I've also taken the opportunity to throw a little money in another direction -- one that's brought me a kind of joy I'd almost forgotten about. The CD section at the local Best Buy has become like a temple for me, as I revel in the healing power of music. It started almost immediately after I got out of rehab, and seems to get stronger with each passing day. I even shelled out a few hundred dollars for a mini-stereo system with a CD to CD recorder. It now sits on top of the desk in my room, adding to the image of this place as more of an apartment than a hotel suite. Hell, a place like this would easily cost me a small fortune in Manhattan -- and here I have a maid, 24-hour room service and a restaurant and bar right downstairs. As long as the bean-counters at the network continue their unbridled generosity, I could probably go on living like this forever.

I pop in a CD and crank the volume knob, watching the digital blue bars on the stereo's readout magically increase. Seconds later, the room is filled with the crushing guitar of Jimmy Eat World's Bleed American. That's another thing I love about this room: thick walls. I barely hear it when my cellphone rings.

"Hello."

"Hey."

Great.

"Hi," I answer back, genuinely surprised. "What's up?"

Kara doesn't call just to say hello anymore, so there's a pretty good chance that this conversation will end with me wanting to crawl right back into that bathtub -- this time accompanied by a hair dryer. I turn down the stereo to a reasonable volume and take a seat on the couch, mentally preparing myself. I'm also instinctively ready to ball up and make myself as small of a physical target as possible if necessary.

"Well, I want to know what you're going to do about the money you owe me."

And there it is.

Having already given her two checks totaling around a thousand dollars, my first thought is to answer obviously, "What money?" but I already know what this will get me. My response however is probably only slightly less combative.

"Hey Kara, I'm doing pretty well all things considered; thanks for asking. But enough about me, how are you?"

"Funny."

"It wasn't meant to be."

"My parents helped pay to move me out; I have to give it back to them."

"Well wasn't that a kind gesture on their part," I deadpan. "And my parents helped pay to move me out after your parents helped pay to move you out. They also saved my worthless life. In other words, on the payback priority list, the people who were actually there for me come first."

I recognize the spiteful huff on the other end of the line -- the one that takes the place of spitting out the word "typical," yet serves the same purpose. There it is again: bitter scorn. Yep, this conversation is almost certainly not going to end well. These days, my general disposition when it comes to my wife is overwhelming, paralyzing sorrow and sadness; for some unknown reason however, this morning I'm feeling feisty. She's being especially hostile, and I'm in especially no fucking mood to take it.

"Ah yes, the condescending sneer -- I know it well. You should patent that -- maybe get your own infomercial."

"I knew I was wasting my time," she says.

"You mean by calling or by marrying me in general?"

"Good one."

"Thanks, I practice in front of the mirror."

There's no denying that we each have a strange respect for the other's verbal sparring ability; it's part of what first attracted us to one another. Kara and I always knew and accepted that if the day ever came that we turned the heavy weaponry we normally point at the rest of the world on each other, the result would be mutually assured destruction. Now the doomsday scenario is here, and it sounds like Hepburn and Tracy in the middle of a meth binge. If sarcasm truly is the humor of the lazy, she and I are practically comatose.

"No, marrying you was a good learning experience," she shoots. "I mean, if I can put up with an irresponsible junkie, I can handle anything right?"

"Don't flatter yourself Kara -- you obviously couldn't put up with one for very long," I shoot back.

"Long enough to watch half the shit in my house disappear. Did you get it all back from the pawn shop before you left L.A. by the way?"

Ouch.

"No, some of it's still there. Swing on by and help yourself to it. Tell the boys there that I send my regards."

"No thanks, I made one trip there; that was enough," she says with utter contempt -- reminding me with absolute moral authority of the incident that broke the back of our relationship once and for all and prompted her to move out less than forty-eight hours later.

Well, you walked right into that one stupid.

I wince -- exhale softly.

That's the coup de grace and she knows it; the champ hits the canvas with a satisfyingly resonant thud.

As if to punctuate the deafening silence in the aftermath of her knock-out blow, the song on the stereo ends. I hear the mechanical click of the CDs shuffling, a pause, then the hypnotic rhythm and piano opening of P.J. Harvey's We Float.

I shake my head at the fates piling on like buzzards on a carcass. "Fucking perfect," I say.

"Look Chez, I didn't live with it because I didn't have to," she continues.

"So I guess you zoned out during that whole part about 'In sickness and in health?'" I say, barely above a whisper.

"I couldn't take it anymore."

In the background I hear Polly Jean Harvey's world-weary voice over the music:
"We wanted to find love.
We wanted success.
Until nothing was enough.
Until my middle name was excess."

"What do you mean anymore? It's not like you ever stood by me, offering all kinds of love and support -- or at least a fucking hand to hold. You spent months screaming at me that I was a loser, then you took off when I went to get help -- when I needed you the most incidentally."

"You have no idea; that was the hardest thing I've ever done."

"I can imagine Kara," I say, more defeated than anything else. "I'll give the Nobel people a call and make sure they short list you."

"Do you know what I did for two weeks straight while you were gone?"

I can hear her moving around her new apartment -- the telephone shifting. I imagine her getting ready to go to work. I say nothing.

"I cried," she says.

"I remember. I'm sorry."

"I know you are, but that doesn't change anything."

"Kara, I don't think I'm selfish because I wanted and needed my wife during a time that I was desperate and alone."

"No, you're selfish for a whole shitload of other reasons."

I can't argue with that.

Polly Jean sings:
"You shoplifted as a child.
I had a model's smile.
You carried all my hope.
Til something broke inside."

"I never stopped loving you. I was a slave to something that dug its claws into me and wouldn't let go -- for that I have absolutely no excuse. But I needed help and I got it. All I've ever asked for is a chance to try and make things right," I say.

"Yeah, but you did it to yourself. Nobody made you do heroin."

"You think I don't know that? Holy shit. I take full responsibility. My God, that's what practically made me a pariah in rehab, I wasn't willing to give myself a pass. Yes -- I get it -- addiction is like a disease in that it's degenerative and after awhile you have no choice but to succumb -- but nobody put a pipe in my mouth and a gun to my head to begin with. I did that all by myself."

"Yeah, but you don't take responsibility because you're not willing to accept the consequences," she says, making what I have to admit is a point worth pondering.

"That's a lovely zero-sum argument. The only way to effectively learn my lesson is to lose the person I care about most? I'm not sure the punishment fits the crime. I shouldn't have to pay for nine months of sheer stupidity for the rest of my life."

"You're so fucking thick-headed that you think everything should just go back to normal."

"Are you kidding me? There is no normal right now. We're three thousand miles apart and the world's in total goddamn meltdown," I say, standing and walking to the window to look out onto the devastated Manhattan skyline.

Polly Jean:
"This is kind of about you.
This is kind of about me.
We just kind of lost our way.
We were looking to be free."

"Look, you've got a lot on your plate right now -- you really can't be dwelling on this. Just do your job, stay healthy," she pauses, then adds with bizarre emphasis, "work the steps."

Hearing her mechanically parrot this phrase makes me chuckle as I continue to stare out at the city -- my adopted home. The words roll off her tongue as if the next thing out of her mouth should be, "whatever the hell that means."

"That almost sounded sincere," I say.

I hear her sigh loudly; she's had enough.

"I've put together an itemized list of what you owe. I'll e-mail it to you."

That's Kara -- all business.

"You wanted this, not me. You left -- and you took my heart with you. I think we're pretty much even."

"Just look it over and get back to me. I've gotta go."

She hangs up before I can say anything else -- specifically for that reason. I slap my phone shut.

Polly Jean's voice turns hopeful and dreamy:
"But someday, we'll float...
Take like as it comes."



(By the way, I've received a couple of e-mails inquiring as to the status of the possible book deal I mentioned a few months back. That's still in the works, although nothing is concrete at the moment. We'll see what happens; I should know more soon, but I'm not likely to talk publicly about any details until it's a sure thing.)

Sunday Sacrilege

Life Imitates XBOX

Damn.

I'm sitting here playing Rainbow Six Vegas on 360 -- fighting off a massive terrorist attack on a bunch of Las Vegas casinos -- when I click over to the news and what do I see?

The top of the Monte Carlo is on fire.

Uh -- sorry.

Good thing I wasn't playing Call of Duty 4; we might be under nuclear attack right now.

Wonder Twin Powers

My slow-but-steady rise toward inevitable world domination continues.

Yesterday's debatably clever piece on the Olsen Twins Emergency Hotline is in the feature slot today over at 23/6 -- the all-humor joint venture between the Huffington Post and IAC.

If nothing else, the post features a different bio picture of me -- for those who've bitched incessantly about the one seen on HuffPo.

(236.com: Who Ya Gonna Call?)

Appetite for Self-Destruction

Earlier this month, I posted a damn scathing little diatribe against former Philly news anchor and gossip page darling Alycia Lane. (Low Is Lane/1.08.08)

The latest issue of Philadelphia magazine features a pretty decent article profiling Lane's history and detailing what went on behind the scenes at KYW in the lead-up to her being fired for, among other things, allegedly punching a New York City cop.

One point brought up in the article, however, is worth elaborating on. During Lane's short-lived tenure at WTVJ in Miami, she was apparently taken under the wing of the station's former general manager, Don Browne. The author of the piece spoke with Browne about Lane and found that he generally has little to say about her that isn't complimentary: He calls her smart, a professional, a believer in the "old school" model of journalism.

While this seems to cast Lane in a much more positive light than she's been in lately -- the kind assessment wholly antithetical to what the public's been led to believe about a woman who sent bikini-clad pictures of herself to a married man and called a New York cop a "fucking dyke" -- there are a couple of facts about Browne's own personality which should probably be taken into account.

Don Browne hired me at WTVJ just a little over ten years ago; he had been pursuing me as a hire for a few years leading up to that. Not only do I respect and admire him -- he's been a die-hard Kool-aid drinking and dispensing prophet of the NBC canon for as long as anyone can remember -- I actually like him quite a bit; he's extraordinarily personable, if not more than a little intimidating. The bottom line is, he's by no means a stupid man or a bad manager.

Unfortunately, one of the issues that skeptics and cynics within the WTVJ newsroom felt obligated to point out during my time there was the "starfucking" environment Don Browne happily fostered. Arguably a solipsistic endeavor, he enjoyed surrounding himself with young, attractive on-air people whom he could slap with some "future of television news" tag and subsequently mentor, while they would in turn stand awestruck in the presence of the great and powerful Don until the whole thing turned into one big daily circle jerk of adoration and encomia.

Don hired a lot of outstanding on-air talent; he considered it his forté. But no one during my years at WTVJ -- the most rewarding and satisfying work experience of my career by the way -- questioned the fact that a pretty face and a couple of carefully placed buzzwords could win him over in a flash.

In other words, Don was never above being charmed.

And as you'll read, if there's one thing Alycia Lane has done well, it's draw from a very deep reservoir of charm when necessary.

Just something to keep in mind.

(Phildelphia: The Very Public Self-Destruction of Alycia Lane)

Smells Like Teen Spirit

I do my best to stay away from furthering too much conjecture around here, but sometimes a rumor is just far too good not to pass along.

The FBI has arrested a 16-year-old boy for allegedly plotting to hijack a Southwest Airlines jet. Agents say despite the fact that the kid was traveling alone and that he was caught carrying handcuffs, rope and duct tape, his chances of success were pretty slim.

Not a bad story so far, right?

And now, the punchline.

Early reports said that the kid had planned to divert the jet -- which was bound from L.A. to Nashville -- to Lafayette, Louisiana, where he was going to crash it into a Hannah Montana concert.

In a related item, I'll be out for a couple of days. I need to A) talk to Doc Brown about how my teenage self managed to turn up in the year 2008, and/or B) start a legal defense fund for this kid, because as it turns out, al Qaeda was right -- there really is a difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter.

(Houston Chronicle: Alleged Would-Be Hijacker Targets Hannah Montana Show)

Listening Post: Under the Radar Edition

Two bands that came and went far too quickly and quietly.


Failure

Ken Andrews is apparently rock's most ADD-afflicted eccentric. After the demise of Failure -- a band that was his brainchild -- he went on to form Year of the Rabbit, who released one of the best albums of 2004 then once again vanished. All the while he was producing records for Pete Yorn, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and A Perfect Circle. (He incidentally also used to play in an all-cover band which featured members of Tool.) Last year, he released a solo album, the excellent Secrets of the Lost Satellite, and even recorded a track for the Surf's Up soundtrack. This song though is the closest he's come so far to having his own mainstream hit.

This is Stuck on You.




Gay Dad

Yes my friends, the best band name ever. Regardless of that though, Gay Dad should've been massive. Their debut album made a decent-sized impact in Britain, but barely caused a ripple here in the states. Their second album was even better than the first; Transmission is now available on iTunes, finally, and I can't recommend checking it out enough (particularly the gorgeous and criminally overlooked All My Life, a song I once dedicated to my wife).

From their debut, here's Oh Jim.

Who Ya Gonna Call?

***ONE MIN SPOT/"OLSEN TWINS EMERGENCY HOTLINE"***
DISTRIBUTION: National
EMBARGO: None
RUN TIME: :55
MIXED AND READY FOR AIR 01/24/08
KILL DATE: Indef.

***TRANSCRIPT***

(Fade up from black to slow dissolves of various pix of Heath Ledger, opening strains of Coldplay's "Fix You" can be heard. Dissolve to shot of makeshift memorial outside Ledger's SoHo apartment. Mary-Kate Olsen walks into the frame.)

Hi, I'm Mary-Kate Olsen. You may remember me from New York Minute, Full House, those late-night masturbation sessions you tell yourself never happened, or maybe a couple of Anorexics Anonymous meetings in that grubby little church at the corner of Fairfax and Fountain, if that was, you know, your thing.

My point is, you probably wouldn't think of me and my sister Ashley as the kind of girls you'd turn to in a crisis.

But boy would you be wrong!

By now you've probably heard that I got the first phone call from Heath Ledger's massage therapist when she found him dead the other day. That's right -- she didn't call 911, she called me, Mary-Kate Olsen. You're probably asking yourself why, right? Well, it's because she knew something most of America didn't -- and hasn't until now. It's a secret that the most important people in the world have always known, and it can finally be revealed.

I'm talking about the Olsen Twins Emergency Hotline.

Just one call and the full power of the Olsen Twins swings into action, ready to help you get through even the toughest, most publicly embarrassing personal crisis. Ever asked yourself how Paris Hilton, Halle Berry or Brandy can crash a car and leave a person near-death, but still vanish from the accident scene like nothing happened? How Nicole Richie can pop Vicodin and drive the wrong way down the freeway and yet not lose that valuable photo shoot in People? What the hell R. Kelly's doing walking around free instead of doing 10 to 20?

That's right -- the Olsen Twins Emergency Hotline.

Me and my sister Ashley are here to help you when you need it most, and we're proud to continue a tradition that's been passed down for centuries -- dating all the way back to the time of Christ. It was Salomé who founded the first service of this kind, using what would have otherwise been a pretty useless talent for pole dancing to get the head of John the Baptist -- the first contract murder by the way -- and actually change the course of history!

Cool, huh?

Since those early days, strong, sexy women from Mata Hari to Mamie Van Doren have carried the torch and undertaken the awesome responsibility of solving the world's problems when no one else could.

Oh yeah, you didn't think it was just Tom Hanks calling us at four in the morning from the Hollywood Hills after he'd just killed and eaten a hooker, did you? The Olsen Twins Emergency Hotline has been the secret weapon of world leaders for more than a decade.

Why do you think Bill Clinton wasn't actually thrown out of office? Uh, us. O.J. acquitted of murder? Are you kidding? We're guilty as charged on that one. The entire presidency of George W. Bush, from the 2000 election to 9/11 to now? You're welcome. The Pats undefeated season? You betcha.

FEMA's response to Katrina?

Guess that'll teach Mike Brown for not calling the professionals.

I mean come on, you really didn't believe me and my sister got so rich off a crappy little sitcom, did you?

The bottom line here is that the emergency service that's been available to the world's elite is now being made available to you. Given that the cat's out of the bag after the whole Ledger thing, Ashley and I figure we may as well pad out the account in the Caymans, so if you've got a problem and no one else can help, maybe you can hire the O-team.

Just call 1-800-THE-WOLF.

That's 1-800-THE-WOLF.

The Olsen Twins Emergency Hotline -- because knowing where all the bodies are buried means you know where there's room to bury more.

(Phone rings. Mary-Kate picks it up.)

Hello?

Oh, hi Britney -- yes, we've been waiting for your call.

(Coldplay music swells. Fade to black)

***END***

Project Office Mayhem

Your assignment, as usual: Quietly put the following link up on every computer in your office, then crank all the speakers to full volume.

Mischief points: 3,000

(I'm Terrified of Pie)

Listening Post

Before there was Pearl Jam, there was Mother Love Bone.

And it was good.

Here's Stardog Champion.

Putting the "Fun" in Funeral

Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church's lunatic traveling roadshow is about to take on something a hell of a lot more dangerous than the families of fallen U.S. soldiers.

Hollywood.

My admittedly inconsequential thoughts on the subject also happen to be my first official column for the Huffington Post.

Feel free to take a look.

(The Huffington Post: The Westboro Baptist Church Condemns Heath Ledger/1.23.08)

Cross to Bear

So this morning, thousands of people poured across the border between Gaza and Egypt -- most of them through hastily dismantled barbed-wire fences or holes that had been torn in the wall separating the two countries.

What led to the this mass influx of Palestinian refugees from Gaza was the ongoing blockade of food, fuel and medicine being imposed against the area by Israel -- which is trying to teach the Hamas government a harsh lesson after rockets rained down on Southern Israel a couple of weeks ago.

I'm not going to delve too far into the traditionally lunatic Middle-Eastern politics of all this. I'll just say one thing, because there's really nothing funnier than governmental hypocrisy -- the White House has been pressuring Israel to find another way to punish Hamas, one it says won't involve making innocent people suffer.

Which is laughable when you consider two words: Cuban embargo.

Somebody call Lou Dobbs.

He'll get that border secure again.