Bitter, Resentful Unpublished Author Dept: Most Annoying "Deal" in Today's Lunch Weekly

Lord knows I’m not terribly interested in picking rotten fruit off the Publisher’s Lunch Weekly Deal Tree every week, but some of it is so low-hanging that it can’t help but smack you in the face and demand that you blog about it.

So here we are again, with me—a bitter, resentful unpublished author—bitching about the deals that have been made in the New York publishing world this week. You might think I’m going to single out Kathy Griffin’s just-inked deal for her memoirs. I’m not. You know why? Because there’s something even more hilarious that will soon be unleashed into the atmosphere, like a turd into a casserole dish. Witness:

Jackass co-creator and skateboarder Bam Margera's SERIOUS AS SH*T WATER, a collection of diary entries, travel journals, photos, stunt lists, drawings, collages and sex confessions, to Jacob Hoye at MTV Books, by David Vigliano and Michael Harriot at Vigliano Associates (world).

Yes, that Lunch Weekly blurb contained the words “jackass,” “skateboarder,” “stunt lists,” and “MTV books.” Whatever, that’s fine. This is all fine. I’m a fan of books and, sure, I’m glad (kind of) that Bam wrote one (kind of).

But can I just impress upon you how humbling it is for this nobody blogger and aspiring NY Times Bestseller List chart topper to know that, very soon, Bam Margera will be able to put the word “Author” next to his name, right next to “Sirius Satellite Radio Show Host” and “Inventor of the Garbage Juicer”?

Tranny Report: Rio!

You know, the best trannies are the ones that give you pause and make you carefully consider the truth about their below-the-belt genetics. Looking at the lovely Gracyanne Barbosa, queen of the drums' section of Mangueira samba school in Rio, I was thoroughly convinced, without reservation, that I was looking at a beautiful woman. Then I looked at her midsection and the myth was thoroughly busted. Those have to be the scariest abs I've ever seen--scarier than Madonna's arms. So scary, in fact, that the pink-clad Brazilian elf who is supposed to be standing beside her is crouching behind her plumage, fearing for his life and the life of his chiffon. He's right to be scared, I think; those abdominals look pissed.

Shootin' It: In Which Jimmy and Tim Briefly Discuss the Issues of Our Times

While watching the presentation of Best Actor at last night's Oscars, we are both struck by Mickey Rourke's melting leather face displayed on our new HD teevee, but for different reasons.

Jimmy: Mmmm. That is one fine looking man.
Tim: I'm sorry, what?
J: Mickey Rourke. He's fine.
T: Yikes.
J: What?
T: Are you serious? He looks all waxy and gross.
J: Oh please. He's cool as shit. Look at that damn pinky ring!
T: Uh-uh.
J: It's a gold-encrusted, diamond-sprinkled, crescent roll-shaped pinky ring.
T: Are you about to sing?
J: He shits ice cubes! And not small ones, either. Them bitches are freakin' glaciers.
T: Ok, I don't even know what that means.
J: That he's cool as shit!

This Guy is Gonna Bring Hip-Hop Back to the GOP

Michael Steele is the new Republican National Committee Chairman, and my new favorite GOP hero, beating out (narrowly!) Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor (a white man), who is so smarmy, so smirkily awful, such a freakin' wonderland of douchey Republican whiteness that you just know he f**ks teenage boys. Anyway, Michael Steele, who, despite the name, is (sadly) not a gay porn star, wants to reclaim hip-hop for the GOP.

Everyone knows that hip-hop was invented in the early '80s by Ronald Reagan in order to scare the nation's white folks into voting for him. Well, Michael Steele, in an interview with the Washington Times (somehow an actual newspaper), wants to take back the hip hop party from the libruls and make it Grand and Old. He says that his party is in need of what the kids are calling "urban-suburban hip hop settings." In other words, he got 99 problems but Ann Coulter, a bitch, ain't one.

The GOP must immediately pursue Steele's plan and hurry up before Eric Cantor gets caught f**king a Congressional page.

Ambitious German Skier Decorates World's Largest Coconut Cake

I’m so jealous of this guy. First of all, I love coconut cake. It’s delicious. But also, every time I try to decorate a cake with my snow skis, I end up having to call Jimmy at work and scream at him to get home quick, and to pick up some pliers, sandpaper, nail polish remover, and a few bottles of baby oil.

Bitter, Resentful Unpublished Author Dept: Most Annoying "Deal" in Today's Lunch Weekly

As a bitter, resentful unpublished author of a freakin' hilarious book about my two-year romp through Tokyo (visit the website!) that my agent was unable to sell because publishers are somehow convinced that the topic just isn't interesting enough (and because David Sedaris visited Tokyo recently and included a whole chapter about it in his latest book, so obviously the subject has been covered exhaustively), I'm well placed to offer my dismissive opinion on the latest deals reported on Publisher's Lunch's Lunch Weekly book deal roundup.

One particularly irritating deal reported in this morning's Lunch made me want to eat my own hand off:

Tao Lin's SHOPLIFTING FROM AMERICAN APPAREL, a novella about a young writer who is caught shoplifting from an American Apparel store, to Dennis Johnson of Melville House, in a nice deal, for publication in Fall 2009.

Wow. That. Sounds. Fascinating. Now, obviously it's dangerous to judge a book on title and descriptive blurb alone, and I certainly wish Tao Lin all the best (even though I don't, really) but JESUS CHRIST, TAO LIN, COULDN'T YOU HAVE SPENT MORE THAN FIVE FREAKIN' MINUTES THINKING OF A TITLE?!

-------

Publisher's Lunch really upset me today.
--------

Here's how the next year will unfold: I'll slave away on my next book, which will ultimately not sell because its title isn't banal enough (the manuscript will later sell for $1.35 on eBay, after I'm dead); meanwhile, Tao Lin will win the Booker Prize for his next novel, Shopping at Key Foods While Consulting My Grocery List.

Secrets of Lost Revealed: Sawyer is Junior Gorg from Fraggle Rock!

The teevee show Lost is full of mysteries wrapped in conundrums folded into enigmatic webs of baffling intrigue. And, of course, so was Fraggle Rock. It can't be denied that the long-forgotten children's show from the 1980s created by dearly departed Jim Henson prefigured Lost in so many ways: A group of creatures living in primitive circumstances, constantly plagued by monsters and other beings trying to kill them, always singing songs and playing makeshift bongos, periodically seeking solace from an all-knowing trash heap. It's amazing to me that no one has made these connections before me.


Lost cast (above) and Fraggle Rock cast (below). I mean, honestly, what's the difference?


Anyway, Sawyer from Lost and Junior Gorg from Fraggle Rock were clearly separated at birth. Either that....or they are the same person! This has wild and mind-boggling implications for the secrets yet to be revealed as Lost continues its fifth and, next year, its sixth and final season. Does the island sit atop the Fraggle caves? Are the Fraggles part of the Dharma Initiative? Will they emerge and sing a song about it? Will they be tortured by Sayid? Will Kate sleep with Gobo? (Probably yes.)

All will be revealed.

My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Life on Mars on Location in Greenpoint

Life on Mars is one of those new shows that I've only watched accidentally while trimming my cat Stella's nails or trolling the carpet for leftover weed. I know that it's high concept (guy goes to sleep in the '00s when dumb mustaches are resurgent and wakes up in the 1970s when dumb mustaches were simply rampant) and that it's some sort of police procedural. Other than that, I got nothing.

But! For the past few nights on my bike ride home to Greenpoint, Brooklyn there's been a film crew setting up shop at a bar on the corner of Russell and Nassau. "Ooh! I wonder if Tina Fey or Gladys Knight or Angela Landsbury is in there!" I thought, stars in my eyes. Well, last night I finally got the payoff when I saw Michael Imperioli, formerly of The Sopranos, and his freakin' retarded 'stache outside the bar where they were filming a scene.

As usual, my camera phone was there to capture the blurry magic.

My Cold Dead Heart Beats Again: Koala in Fire-Ravaged Australian Bush Drinks Water, Adorably

Amid the horror of the wildfires in Australia: a koala bear, a fireman, and a few bottles of water.

Note to the New Yorker: Make David Denby Shut Up

You know a new word is officially drained of its usefulness when it is uttered by a film critic for the New Yorker. And, though the word “snark” has been irritating for a while now, David Denby is hellbent on introducing it to the ascot-and-monocle crowd so that they can be insufferable in a whole new way. Denby has been out on an excruciating book tour to promote his new book Snark: It’s Mean, It’s Personal, and It’s Ruining Our Conversation, which is probably a direct quote from someone wearing lederhosen at Denby’s last cocktail party. In the book, he takes issue with the Washington gossip blog Wonkette, whose jaundiced take on the idiocy of Washington and politicians in general Denby thinks is “lowering the discourse” or some dumb shit—like Washington politicians haven’t already lowered it to levels that nearly obviate the need for satire.

Speaking for myself, one of the only things that has allowed me to get through the shitstorm of incompetence and the breathtaking stupidity of the federal government over the past 8 years has been the existence of a site like Wonkette, which has no qualms about calling Tom Delay’s replacement in Congress by her God-given birth name, “Dracula-cunt.”

Now, I’ve never really minded Denby. As film critics go, he’s not terribly offensive, and he has an appreciation for the male physique that I most certainly share (he is a New Yorker writer, after all). But he really has shown his ass during this whole Wonkette fight he picked. It’s bad enough that he has completely misrepresented the site in his book—claiming that they’ve poked fun at Ted Kennedy for almost dying, for example, when they hadn’t—and attributed a Wonkette post about Chelsea Clinton to “young women who may have hated Chelsea’s bland words as she went around the country supporting her mother’s candidacy” when if he had spent one MAN-second looking at the byline of the post he would have seen it was written by a MAN known as JIM NEWELL, aka A MAN. He also repeatedly claims, in press interviews, that Wonkette is owned by Nick Denton, owner of Gawker, Defamer, and other blog sites, when it is not. (It used to be, but it was sold. At least a year ago.)

All of which would appear to clearly violate Denby's Principle of Snark No. 5, which he outlined thusly in an interview with the LA Times: “Total disregard of routine journalism. No phone calls, no checking things out. Journalism should try not to slander people.” Um, yeah, David. And what routine journalism methods did you use before slandering Wonkette and making false—if harmless—claims about who owns them, hmmmm?

So, New Yorker, please grab David Denby by the ascot and place him in an undisclosed location where, as penance for being a dumb hypocrite, he must write a rave review—snark free!—of Hotel for Dogs.

Fashion is Important

It's Fashion Week again in the most fashionable city in the world, which means--hurrah!--more pictures of important hats. This one is called the Flailing Cephalopod, and it is surely the most culturally significant head covering of this entire season--perhaps even of our generation. Look how happy it has made its wearer. She's beside herself with enthusiasm and appetite suppressants. Later, she will celebrate her singularly smashing Fashion Week moment with a visit to Sing Sing Karaoke in St. Marks Place, where she will fall asleep while her fat friends sing "Love Is a Battlefield."

Of course, no individual has done more for American fashion than former First Lady Laura Bush. Am I right? She stopped by the show on her way to her dealer's wedding to say hello to her old coke buddy Liza and her favorite Dancing With the Stars contestant, Lisa Rinna, who unfortunately fell face first into a mud puddle on her way onto the stage but is totally fine now.

Been and Gone: The Cramps' Lux Interior

God bless him, Lux Interior was a beautiful nut. I got my love of shiny shiny black jackets from him, oh yes I did. He apparently had a heart condition, which is poetic, I guess, but obviously still very sad, as he was only--oh, shit, he was 62! Still, he was only 62.

RIP, Lux, you nasty, wonderful man.

Kathie Lee Wondering When She Can Stop Exercising with the Soup Cans and Start Eatin' 'Em

Longtime readers will remember that Kathie Lee Gifford is a fan of See Tim Blog and even referred to it on the 4th hour of the Today show during Sue Simmons F**k-gate last May, an event that made me blog-famous among colleagues, really close friends, and my literary agent for one blissful afternoon. So I have a soft spot for her and will post any high-profile picture of her making the rounds of elite media organizations, however unflattering, because this blog is all about the truth, even when it involves Sporty Spice and her weave.

My Cellphone Will Not Be Denied: Giant-Boobed Mannequin in Soho Shop Window

My friend Bambi and I were stumbling down Spring Street in Soho last Saturday, reeling from the experience of running into a manically texting Hillary Swank at Balthazar. (Celebrities are NOT supposed to be that tall. And who was that greaseball she was with?) Regardless, in our post-filthy-rich-dessert stupor, we were in no state to handle the window display at the Mystique Boutique shop just down the street. There was a mannequin there with boobs so big we couldn’t open our eyes wide enough to see them. Not only that, but the nipples on those boobs were poking through her top like dang heat-seeking missiles.



Now, those of you who know me know that there is nothing this gay man likes to do more at the end of a long day than to rest his head on a giant pillow of soft, plump boobs. But, really, this is just awful. Not only does this mannequin undervalue the subtle beauty of the female waist, it also sends the wrong signal to young girls about how big they can expect their nipples to actually get. Kids, they don’t usually grow this big. Look away!



And in a cheeky maneuver of poetic product placement, the below selection of retro t-shirts was featured on the floor of the display.



These kids at Mistique Boutique sure know what they’re doing.