Alluring Local News Screen Grab of the Day

You don't even need to see this local news story from the swamp somewhere. It's all there in the screen grab. The only possible thing that could make this better would be if this screen grab could talk and you could hear this adorable man warble his story. I'm glad his beard is growing back.

My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Sanity/Fear Rally in DC

That's right. I was there, bitches. With my friends. And we couldn't hear shit. You know why? Because too many other people were invited. The closest we could get was 7th street/avenue (whatever) and we just couldn't squeeze any closer. But we did see a lot of signs! And we did hear Ozzy singing crazy train! (One curious thing: Cat Stevens was on stage singing "Peace Train" during the same bit, which was a little shocking because isn't he an extremist fundamentalist Muslim who called for the death of Salmon Rushdie back in the day? Has he changed his, er, tune?)

Anyway, you can click the photos for a bigger, better view. (But you still won't be able to hear shit.)

































And, lastly, the below photo, shot at the Marriot hotel bar, of a blurry Colbert getting ready to unwind.

Pimpin' a Book That's Not Mine: Kristen Hersh's Rat Girl!

Some of you obsessive-compulsive fans of mine might remember that I recently wrote about Throwing Muses' early song "Vicky's Box" on my music blog over at Deadbeat Bohemians. (Just kidding! I have no fans.)

ANYWAY, I meant every word of that post and I love Throwing Muses lead singer Kristen Hersh for life. (Though I must admit I love her drummer Dave Navarro more because teenage love never dies.) And I've just found out (hat tip: HilaryWrites) that La Hersh has a new memoir out and I CAN'T WAIT TO READ IT!

Since I always find out about fun things to do after they've already happened, I missed Kristen's appearance at Barnes and Noble at Union Square, where she was interviewed for about an hour, read a few passages, and played a few songs. Thankfully, B&N (whose site, by the way, also sells my book, if you're interested) have a video of the event, which I've embedded above.

The memoir is apparently about the year that Kristen was 18 and her world exploded: record deal for her band, bipolar diagnosis, pregnancy, among other things. (Just like me!) From the passages she read at the event it sounds like she's just as awesome/crazy/hilarious a prose writer as she is a lyricist.

I can't wait for her next memoir, which will no doubt have a chapter covering the time she met me, in 1994, when I was working as a barista at a terrible Starbucks knock-off in London's Covent Garden. I waited on her, her man friend, and my high school crush Dave Navarro. They were just getting out of a radio interview, had stopped into my place of work for an American coffee, and I had a real hard time hiding my fanboy hard-on for all of them. Kristen couldn't order anything with caffeine in it because (she told me in the strictest confidence) she was pregnant again HOW EXCITING! I made her a decaf sugar-free caramel latte with whipped cream because she deserved it: she'd written "Two Step," for God's sake.

I'm sure that experience has as special a place in her heart as it does in mine. And Dave's.

Hawt Karaoke Picz

Back on Wednesday night, when most real ‘Mercans were hard at work on their tea party costumes for the Tax Day protest and feverishly looking up words like obamanation and fashist in the dictionary so they don’t get called out by the librul media for bad spelling when they descend upon the nation’s capital to be retarded, my friends Sarah, Roth, and I were at the Matchless bar in Greenpoint trying to figure out the best way to help Obama destroy America. Our consensus: karaoke singing!

So above you have Roth wrapping her stealthy pipes around “I Can’t Tell You Why” by . . . who is that by again, Roth? Some bearded ‘70s fucker, no? (Answer: several ‘70s bearded fuckers, the Eagles! I’m kind of disappointed it wasn’t Loggins and Messina.)

Next up was me, doing my famous rendition of Heart’s “Alone.” See how I’m pantomiming the lyrics “I wonder where you are tonight/no answer on the telephone”? It’s called art. (For more on my feelings about this song, visit here.)



And lastly but certainly not leastly, here is Sarah singing Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation,” which she dedicated to Jesus and Imelda Marcos.

Odious/Awesome People: A Photo Essay You Tube!

Folks, these two Texans are not only obvious patriots, they are also deeply in love. The silver fox on the left is Rep. Randy Neugebauer, the hero who, for the sake of the country and freedom fries, yelled "baby killer" at Bart Stupak the other day in Congress. The hot momma on the right is his supportive wife Dana (known in Texas circles as Rapid-Eye-Movement McGee). In the wake of the kerfuffle over his announcement of Bart Stupak's new nickname, Neugebauer cut a campaign ad requesting money so he can continue to call people baby killers and whatnot, in Congress, on the taxpayers' dime, in Jesus' name.

In the ad he appears with lovable, twitchy Dana, and I'd like to officially endorse her for her husband's congressional seat and/or President right now. This is a woman who knows how to appear in a campaign ad. She's dynamic! Impassioned! Awake! Her husband should obviously never be let out of the house again unchaperoned, but her? Let her serve openly. Elect this woman and her beady eyes and cotton mouth. Freedom demands that she serve our great nation in some sort of official capacity. ALSO SHE NEEDS MORE COCAINE.

Now, some of the stills in the below campaign video I've made for Mrs. Dana might make you think that Lady Neugebauer has dead eyes. YOU WOULD BE WRONG. Her eyes are alive like danger. She's sending coded messages with those things, messages that will be intercepted by all liberty-loving Americans in Sarah Palin's Alaska.

Draft Dana!

Shakira Wins First Prize in Germany's Golden Bambi Ass Shaking/Hair Weave Olympics

Shockingly, she lost the award for Most Creative Use of Niplets to Angela Merkel.

Hello Kitty and Friends Dispatched to Hong Kong Mall to Rescue Lost Shoppers

The three lost shoppers, flanked by Team Kitty, greet the public after wandering around an underground shopping mall hallway for hours without Facebook or Twitter access.
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Bill Clinton isn't the only famous person who can swoop into Asia to save/charm the laydeez. Hello Kitty has her powers, too. These three Hong Kong shoppers thought they were taking an elevator down to a special sale on barrettes, but they ended up in a tortuous dark hallway with no exits and no bargain bins. Even worse, because this hallway was deep underground (halfway to America!), they couldn't update their Facebook, Twitter, or Myspace pages with their "lost" status.

Thankfully, Hello Kitty, Japan's most licensed character by freaking miles, knows when there are shoppers in trouble. She made quick work of finding the sad subterranean Hong Kong ladies and returning them to ground level, where they showed their appreciation by making a beeline to the Kitty Lab exhibition celebrating Kitty's 35th anniversary and buying a bunch of dumb Hello Kitty bullsh*t.

Hello Kitty is next off to LA, where she will save Lindsay Lohan from herself.

Little House's Nellie Oleson to Save the Publishing Industry

Well this is great news. Usually reading Publisher's Lunch's "Lunch Weekly" book deal roundup makes me want to vomit, but today's list put a big smile on my face, because has there ever been a greater force for good in the world than Nellie Oleson from Little House on the Prairie? She taught a whole generation of gays how to be insufferable bitches, and for that she deserves our thanks--and our money. Check it:

Star of LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE Alison Arngrim's CONFESSIONS OF A PRAIRIE BITCH, a comic memoir of growing up as one of television's most memorable characters -- the devious Nellie Oleson -- with behind-the-scenes stories from the set, as well as tales from her bohemian upbringing in West Hollywood and her headline-making advocacy work on behalf of HIV awareness and abused children, to Kate Hamill at It Books, at auction, by Kent Wolf at Global Literary Management (NA).

This book will save the entire publishing industry, obviously. They will have to invent a new award for this book, because the Pulitzer is just not going to do it justice. This book will defeat the terrorists.

This book, in conclusion, will be a great excuse for me to dig my Nellie Oleson wig out of my parents' attic. For book parties.

Ostrich Tea Party Gets Out of Hand

This group of ostrich teabaggers is pissed. They are so tired of taxes, liberals, socialists, darkies, books, homos, evolution, abortions, elitists, and foreign countries they just can’t stand it, and it makes them want to eat cameramen. Of course, they’ve had their heads in the sand for the past 8 years, so you can imagine the shock to their system of all of this horrific government spending and gays having anal sex on the White House lawn.

Thankfully, these ostriches are funneling their anger and frustration into something productive: chaos and rioting. This always brings about great results, especially when the message is so cohesive and self-evident like theirs. In a word, it is: Obama was not born in the U.S. and is Hitler and loves killing babies and wants Hamas in his cabinet and is black and drill baby drill and fuck you. That will obviously fit nicely on a t-shirt at the next Republican National Convention.

Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger to Save Book Expo America's Annual Conference from Julie Andrews, Joe Scarborough

Well, God knows, the book industry needs a hero, so why the hell not? It may as well be Sully who swoops in to save BEA-NYC on May 30 at the Javits Center. Otherwise, who can we turn to among the other big name attendees? Julie Andrews, who has a new book out for young readers called Julie Andrews' Collection of Poems, Songs and Lullabies, which sounds just awful? Or maybe Joe Scarborough, whose new words-on-paper project is Up from Republicanism: How Conservatives Can Take Back America. (Hopefully with a foreword and afterward by Zbigniew Brzezinski (why so many consonants, Zbigniew? Jesus.)

Sully's memoir hasn't been ghost-written yet, so according to today's press release, he'll be "available to sign a promotional piece about" it, which sounds exhilarating, no?

After attending BEA, Sully will of course be on to his next series of heroic projects, including flying to Alaska to save Bristol and Levi's relationship and then going to North Korea to land a plane safely on Kim Jong Il's jumpsuit, for peace. Then he'll come back and take a job in the Obama cabinet, because, again, why the hell not?

My Camera Phone Loves Comedy/Literacy/Beauty Queens

My shitty camera phone and I attended the Behind the Book Comedy Night (a benefit to get books in the hands of kids in poor and underfunded NYC neighborhoods) last Saturday at the East Village Comedy Club and got some great grainy pics. And because I never pass up the opportunity to be photographed with beauty queens, I present to you me and Miss Metropolitan (she's the one with the tiara), who was there for some reason and will be competing in the Miss New York pageant soon (and, if all goes well, will go on to the Miss America pageant).

"So what's your talent?" I asked, hoping it would be baton twirling. "I sing opera," she answered, and I immediately felt unworthy to be in her presence, because, wow, that's an actual talent. Anyway, the comedians on hand were great, if slightly unnerved by the staid, largely white NPR-listening audience made up of folks who feel guilty about laughing at Obama jokes.


Godfrey, the black guy from 30 Rock who isn't Tracy Jordan, does a really great Indian accent.


Todd Barry at one point reprimanded us for missing our cue to laugh.


I have no idea who this guy was, but he was adorable. His set was waaaay too short, like 5 minutes. I'd been undressing him with my eyes and hadn't even gotten past his waistband.

This Young Gay Has Had It

I'm in awe of young guys like this, who, at age 17 (!), are channelling their energies into talking about getting married. In public forums! With freaking cameras! Then going back to school the next day! Jesus. When I was 17, I hadn't even said the word "gay" out loud, so beside myself with self-loathing was I, furiously jerking off to the cover of the Smiths' self-titled first album, and then telling myself I'd never do it again. Every. Night. (I was so passionate back then.)

Respect to guys like Whatshisname from Vermont above. He deserves a hand job from the captain of the football team or something.

GOP Unveils New National Mascot

This is exciting, as the unveiling of a new corporate mascot always is. Can you even remember what your life was like before the Expedia.com gnome or the Geico lizard came into the picture? So dark, right? Well, fasten your seatbelts, because the GOP is getting ready to unleash a new mascot that isn’t Michael Steele, and it will change the way you look at the party forever, especially in urban/suburban hip-hop settings: witness the Dogbat (pictured above in Newt Gingrich’s back yard, in Compton).

Now, the Dogbat—certainly a fearsome beast of liberty—wasn’t the Republicans’ first choice, it must be said. Their initial inclination was to go with the hippopotamus because it is majestic and hates homos. Sadly, it also looked too much like Rush Limbaugh, and the Republicans didn’t want to confuse people. Their second choice—a brown leather D&G handbag engulfed in flames—was also a no-go, since test audiences kept thinking it was Ann Coulter. So they settled on the Dogbat, which, though one person at CPAC last weekend thought it was Mitt Romney, has largely tested well with base Republicans.

As we all know, Americans love dogs and fear bats, so fusing these two opposing but complementary instincts into one mighty distillation of the Republican message is the most inspired act of rebranding the GOP has attempted since Ronald Reagan. So the GOP is now ready to introduce the Dogbat to the rest of the country, sit back, and wait for power to once again be theirs.

By the way, the Dogbat does not bark. It whinnies.

The Saddest Thing: Joe the Plumber's DC Book Reading

First-time authors have it rough, for sure. As a general rule, they aren’t media savvy, they are nervous and sweaty, and when they give a reading, they can pretty much bet on nobody attending unless they are some sort of sexy genius, like Sarah Palin or Malcolm Gladwell. As a Democrat who is sick to the eyeballs of dumb right-wing automatons peddling the same dumb tropes over and over and over about socialistic, America-hating gay liberals wanting the government to sodomize all American children while praying—hand over heart—to Satan and Stalin, I can’t help but look at the above picture of Joe the Plumber at a Borders in Washington, DC and find myself awash in schadenfreude. But as a human being with a beating heart and a measure of empathy, I can’t help but admit that this is the saddest picture of the morning.

Sure, Joe the Plumber isn’t a plumber and his name isn’t even Joe. Sure he says idiotic things on Fox News like that the election of Obama means the death of Israel. Sure, his opposition to Obama’s tax plan during the campaign was based on a fear for what it would do to a small plumbing business that he didn’t even have yet (and that would have actually benefited from Obama’s plan, had it actually existed). Sure he wears the SAME FUCKING OUTFIT EVERY DAY, because he’s a real American man, and American men don’t give a shit how they look. But, as hard as this may be to believe, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Joe the Plumber has feelings and that it is possible that, upon learning that his planned-for 3-hour Borders extravaganza was, in actuality, petering out after a limp-wristed 55 minutes, his heart probably sank into his ill-fitting britches. So sad.