Tonight, on Saturday Night Live, January Jones. Why do they have an actress from a show on that already got canceled had their season finale? Bad timing, no? Anyway, didn't her character get eaten by a dinosaur or some shit? If they bring her back, they're gonna have to work really hard to write around that one.

Umm, what else? Did you know the New York Times has a mag cover tomorrow about Megan Fox's boobs? I don't actually know if its about Megan Fox's boobs or not, but between the story about "douche" and Megan Fox getting a Sunday Times Magazine cover, one might begin to think that they're getting overrun by 14 year-olds. Clark Hoyt, now is the time to strike: with any luck, you will Miyagi crane-kick both of these pieces in the face next week. PA-POW!

Altarcations comin' at you at 2:30 PM tomorrow. I had dinner with Miss Nefler last night, and we were talking about her ideal engagement scenarios. One of them involved the Harvard-Yale game and a rack of Milwaukee's Best, and the other, I can't say, unless you know Tito. Do you know Tito? He's got the, yeah, yup. That one. So you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, right? A party-sized one. Exactly. Anyway. If you don't, and you're lucky enough to get her to tell you, you'll realize why she's the Best Weddings Expert Evar. Don't forget it.

Oh! One more thing. Maybe you might've seen that I got to publish something ridiculous yesterday. I pitched the post to this here site and they didn't pick it up probably because it sucks but mostly because I didn't bullet-point it for them or whatever. I could easily give a meta-meta take, but someone who pays me's head would most definitely (reasonably) explode, so, no. But: celebrity culture should be talked about honestly. And the truth of the matter—no matter how patently ridiculous a subject—just shouldn't be a victim to a vain PR agenda. Ever. Also, at least I didn't call anyone a "douche."

To take you out: Donnis! He's a rapper and he makes awesome songs and I discovered him and he falls into the #ThingsWeActuallyLike category, so here, download his record for free, and enjoy. Underdogs! Who can't like 'em, right? See you tomorrow! Come play in the comments.

Someone called me up tonight and she sounded panicked. "I was in a bodega and heard Julia Allison's voice over the radio. She's advertising for some computers, does she even matter anymore?" I wasn't sure and I'm still not sure how to answer that question other than to say "it's for Sony, she's taking over the airwaves, now, wow."

And now, art.

I am not an art critic. I know nothing about performance art or how to "deal" with it.

I also know nothing about the DJ Mayonnaise Hands person that emailed this to us is (he has something to do with the video) or why he exists or what he has to do with Julia "I Potentially Had Sex With Your Little Brother, Dave Eggers" Allison. In fact, I'm determined to know as little about this video as possible in order to preserve the incredible context in which I got to view it, which was without any. All I know is how it made me feel. I just, I don't know, I mean, okay:

Here's Julia Allison, standing outside a bunch of galleries in Chelsea. She's asking people what it takes to be an art critic and who should be an art critic.

I have no idea what the fuck is going on anymore.

The U.S. Marshals Service auctioned off 188 items seized from Madoff's many houses after he was arrested for duping his investors out of approximately $65 billion and perpetrating the largest financial fraud in U.S. history. Proceeds from the Madoff auction will benefit a fund for his victims.

Diane works for an organization of bankruptcy attorneys. She said "some of" the members of her group might be Madoff victims "but they would never tell me." Diane was surprised that the "vast majority of the stuff" at the auction "seemed drug dealer-ish." A nearby Marshall cracked: "that's because most of it is." Before and after Madoff's stuff went on sale, 409 items seized from other criminals were auctioned including several pieces of bling including a necklace emblazoned with the Mercedes logo.

The auction was held in a second floor ballroom at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers in Midtown where buyers sat in a large room under a recessed crystal chandelier. Many of the bidders were jewelry dealers and other auction veterans. Outside the ballroom, I overheard them discussing the theory that the Madoff items would fetch a premium because of their association with the disgraced financier. In addition to these seasoned auction veterans, the Madoff sale attracted first-timers who wanted to witness history in the making.

On stage in the front of the room, a crew from Gaston & Sheehan Auctioneers ran the show. Gaston & Sheehan is based in Pflugerville, Texas and their staffers lent an authentic Old South sheen to the proceedings. The emcee spoke in a rapid-fire auction patter and bid-spotters punctuated the air with shouts of "Yah!" when buyers placed new bids.

Deborah Pointer, the executive producer of Russell Simmon's "Def Poetry Jam" was there to purchase "some African masks" that belonged to the Madoffs for her collection. Mona Berkowitz attended the auction wearing a coat with a fur collar and a pearl necklace. She pointed out that many of the bidders who bough earlier items were "buying thinking it's madoff and it's not, Madoff was Jewish I don't think he had crucifixes."

Mario Ramirez, who works for the New York Aquarium Service brought an envelope filled with $3,500 cash, intent on purchasing Bernie's personalized New York Mets jacket. Ramizrez said he wanted the jacket because "I'm sure it's going to be worth something in the future, it's the biggest Ponzi scheme in the world and I was there for it." Ramirez said he plans to sell the jacket on eBay after next "season is over 'cause I want to wear it at the stadium." Ramirez said he's not worried about facing backlash while wearing a jacket labeled "Madoff" at Citi Field because "I'm taking my co-workers and they're pretty big guys." Following a bidding war, the jacket eventually went to an online buyer for $14,500. Most of the items at the auction sold for prices well above their estimated value.

Don Kruzer came to the auction with three friends from Washington, D.C. hoping to purchase "stuff for my Lake George summer home" from Bernie Madoff's house in Montauk. Originally, Kruzer came to New York to see James Gandolfini in God of Carnage on Broadway, but he included the Madoff auction in his trip after reading about it in the newspaper.

Kruzer, who works in the healthcare industry, was especially interested in bidding on Madoff's golf clubs and the duck decoys that he used to decorate his house in Long Island. The duck decoys ended up being fiercely bid for at the auction, going for $3,250-$4,750.

Lester Miller ended up purchasing the first Madoff item on sale at the auction, a fourteen carat gold "ocean motif" bracelet adorned with charms depicting a whale lighthouse, anchor, boat, sailfish, and lobster. Miller, a 77 year-old executive who works with a company that makes batteries for cell phone towers was wearing snakeskin loafers with a gold clasp. Miller has seven grandchildren, "six girls and one boy," who he's taking on a cruise from Mexico to Los Angeles next week.

Miller wasn't sure how many items he purchased at the auction or how much he spent, but he says he plans on giving the jewelry he bought at the auction to his grandchildren. Miller says he's "going to tell them" the story of Bernie Madoff "so they can see what happened to him."

With reporting from Sam Petulla

[Photo via Sarah Wali]

The terrifyingly prolific Sullivan took one of the 73 or so posts he penned before lunch to quickly frisk today's Wall Street Journal piece on Sarah Palin's web strategy for her Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Bullshit, Going Rouge (©McSweeney's, 2009). And what is Sarah Palin's web strategy for her book?

Among the features of this new strategy: buying Internet advertising based on Google searches of her name, and using Facebook as a key means of communicating with voters. Her team also has considered filing libel suits against bloggers who spread rumors about her family.

GAMECHANGER. Not exactly the VBS.tv campaign I was hoping for, but still: damn. Sullivan, however, took this opportunity to note his (and my) favorite part of what's otherwise a snoozer of a filing. Which was this gem:

Ms. Palin was particularly angry at bloggers and the media, associates said, for speculation that her baby Trig was really the child of Bristol, her daughter. At one point, according to people familiar with the discussions, Ms. Palin considered pursuing a libel suit against at least one blogger, the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan. Ms. Palin decided against such a move because of the publicity it would bring. Mr. Sullivan, in response, said asking "factually verifiable questions is obviously not libel." A spokeswoman for Ms. Palin didn't respond to email requests seeking comment.

Oh ho ho. Christmas came early for Andrew (though the trees stay year-round, thug). Sullivan's been a veritable thorn in many sides of many Palins, but naturally, Sarah's the big game. And let's be clear about this: people who have bloggers who write nasty things about them should never, ever, ever admit that they read that blogger. Because that blogger now knows they have a mainline to their target's face. And like she's gonna stop reading. What does Sullivan have to say about this? Besides hysterically prefacing what's probably his favorite block of text ever with the words "Money quote," he basically goes for the jugular while victory dancing on her face. This is basically the political blogger's version of the Dirty Bird, in a post titled Sarah Palin, Obsessive Daily Dish Reader:

Sources with access to Palin have indeed told to me that the Wasilla whack-job was an obsessive reader of this blog as it dared to ask factual questions about her past that could be easily answered. I have no way of knowing this myself, and regard it as odd that a vice-presidential candidate would be hell-bent on suing a blogger who, presumably, was merely making a total ass of himself in wondering if Palin's surreal account of her last pregnancy was factually accurate. Or is there something there - of some unknown sort - that she desperately wanted to intimidate and suppress? As Bubble would note: "Who can say?" What can Levi possibly mean that "she knows what I got on her?" The MSM won't touch this, of course.

Ho! We'll take some of that, please. Move it on your left, Andrew. Shit's bomb.

Meanwhile, if Sarah Palin or Bristol Palin admit to reading this website—operative term: admit—please give us a shout and let us know so we can dedicate a tag to them or something. In the mean time, here's the latest update on your son-in-law's your ex-boyfriend's Levi Johnston's penis.

Via Mark Lisanti and FilmDrunk, if you guessed "terrorists," than you guessed right. Also, you're boring.

Couldn't they have saved this one for someone better? I mean, yes, listen, people who kill other people are shitty and suck, but this is just great, like, artful-great. Like, okay, if NYDN publisher Mort Zuckerman were on his deathbed, this would've been awesome. If their Boris and Natahsa-esque gossip columnist Rush & Molloy were put on trial for being communists, again: incredible. But to waste this one on terrorists just seems a little, I don't know, blase?

Anyway. We can't help but see potential in you, Post. To whoever guessed correctly, take a bow, you get nothing except the knowledge that you're an expert of New York Post headlines and/or you still have a job at the New York Post. Mazel.

The entire press release is below, but first, some, uh, "highlights":

• The headline, or whatever you'd call it in this case: "Playgirl Levi Johnston shoot "in the can" says Playgirl spokesman Daniel Nardicio" He wishes.
  
  
• Johnston was put into three "different scenarios" that are "accentuating" what Nardico referred to as his "(natural) athletic qualities, movie star looks and natural sexiness." So, what? A hockey rink, a horse stable, and an oil rig, right?
  
  
• Wrong! They decided against the hockey rink because it wasn't "intimate" enough. But remember, he will still have posed with a hockey stick.
  
  
• Apparently, Johnston was self-conscious about the shape he was in "due to all the traveling" he's been doing, but was lots of fun on the second day.
  
  
• This, from some Playgirl marketing person: "...We were talking in the greenroom about gay categories: bear, cubs and Levi asked what his type would be-we decided a twink, but older, so we anointed him a 'twunk'." I just, I have no idea. I have no idea.
  
  
• "Playgirl is planning a line of Levi Johnston condoms, a DVD of the week with Levi, and a return to celebrity interviews in the now quarterly magazine." There were also jokes made about how Levi should've used a condom before. Except, not, because then he wouldn't have his cock in full view in Playgirl.
  
  
• Levi said Palin's invite to dinner was bullshit, or "a nice gesture but she didnt [sic] mean it".
  
  
• The best part: "As to just how much Johnston showed during the shoot, what exact specifics of the shoot are, Playgirl subscribers are going to have to wait for the late November release of the pics on Playgirl.com." Yes, because none of us can surmise that Levi only has one thing Playgirl's readers want to see, and it's not his SAT2 score.

The release is fairly spastic and insane. The best is that it comes from Daniel Nardico Productions, and Daniel Nardico is quoted in it several times. So he interviewed himself. Bizarre, but okay. Also, Johnston drew his hand for an AIDS charity, wonderful. But here's the part that gets to me:

"He's just a simple guy, thrown into a situation, making the most out of it and seemingly enjoying himself. From my time with him, I'd say his first priority is Tripp", adds Nardicio.

Maybe he is. But the overwhelming sentiment I got from the Fleshbot Awards where Levi accepted some crazy penis trophy was "sad."

A lot of people found Levi's presence to be just plain sad. Here's this guy, he's in the big city, surrounded by big city people who are fascinated with him. Why?

Is it because of his inextricable link to one of liberalism's biggest enemies? Or the sexual freedom he represents by embracing his current status as a boyish sex symbol in the pages of GQ and Playgirl? Or is it because this all carries some kind of strangely ironic, trashy cachet, as if to tell the rest of America, conservative, liberal, or otherwise: this person who got a girl pregnant, who's now become a New York media darling, we can do this. We can choose these people and this kid who's otherwise just a good looking teen dad, we've opened up the waterways of fame for him. And we have! Or maybe it's just that nobody even moderately famous has been so enthusiastic to show their penis to everyone else. Right now, Levi Johnston has the most famous penis since Lady Gaga, who had the most famous penis since Dirk Diggler. That said, listen to the audio. He does sound a little morose. And sadness runs deep.

Whatever it is, Levi's in the driver's seat of a very fast car, and so far, he's rounding the track at a very fast pace. Here's hoping the kid'll slow down and hop out soon. If he crashes, it's his fault, but it's just not something anyone wants to see, you know? He seems like a nice kid.

Daniel Nardicio Promotions
November 14, 2009
For immediate release

Playgirl Levi Johnston shoot "in the can" says Playgirl spokesman Daniel Nardicio

Yesterday Playgirl finished it's much hyped shoot of Sarah Palin babydaddy "son-in-law" Levi Johnston in 3 locations in NYC.

The shoot featured Johnston in 3 different scenarios accentuating his natural "athletic qualities, movie star looks and natural sexiness" says Nardicio

"he expressed some concern that he wasnt in as good shape as he was a few weeks ago, due to all his traveling" states Nardicio, "but we found him to be in great shape, playful, and on the second day particularly, really fun."

Johnston took time to outline his hand for LifeBeat Aids Charity, and to do a few interviews throughout the grueling day, with both Entertainment Tonights Fran Weinstein and Playgirl Editor in Chief Nicole Caldwell.

Johnston spoke of how Palin was "full of it" during Oprahs interview (to air Monday, and ET will tape Johnston watching it) and Palin's half hearted invite on Oprah to Thanksgiving dinner was "a nice gesture but she didnt mean it".

Nardicio spoke at length with Johnston during the week and found him to be a "man of few words, but when he spoke, it was usually funny, or adorable even".

The locations of the shoot were the Cooper Square Hotel, photographer Greg Weiner's studio in the East Village and Eagle's Nest studios on West 30th street. "We decided against the hockey rink as it was so public, not intimate enough" says Nardicio.

As to just how much Johnston showed during the shoot, what exact specifics of the shoot are, Playgirl subscribers are going to have to wait for the late November release of the pics on Playgirl.com

Nardicio and Johnston developed somewhat of a rapport, and the openly gay promoter and Playgirl Marketing guy states: "we were talking in the greenroom about gay categories: bear, cubs and Levi asked what his type would be-we decided a twink, but older, so we anointed him a 'twunk' ".

"He's just a simple guy, thrown into a situation, making the most out of it and seemingly enjoying himself. From my time with him, I'd say his first priority is Tripp", adds Nardicio.

As to who is next for Playgirl, Nardicio answers: "I've been speaking to a few people, but of course this will be a hard act to follow. Re-envisioning a classic brand takes some planning, and we still have a lot to do with the Levi material. But this experience with Levi has opened some great doors for Playgirl to get guys who were impossible to get before." "Suddenly guys who would never consider PG are coming up to me and saying 'Make me a Levi' " adds Nardicio.

Playgirl is planning a line of Levi Johnston condoms, a DVD of the week with Levi, and a return to celebrity interviews in the now quarterly magazine.

"we're already hearing the Johnston condom jokes- about how he should have used them before."

Starting Monday November 16th, Entertainment Tonight will be showing background footage from the shoot, debuting pics from the shoot, and interviews with Johnston, Tank Jones (Johnston's manager) Nardicio, and Levi's workout leading up to the shoot.

Levi has fielded offers this week for press, Howard Stern, Joy Behar Show and The Daily Show.

Oh, fuck it, fine. Here. This one's for the "ladies."

lllustration by Steven Dressler. Bottom image via Getty]

Lindsay Lohan and momager Dina have made it very, very clear that the order of protection they have against Michael means that he needs to stay as far away from them as he can. He's wiretapped conversations with Dina and tried to sell them. They're getting orders of protection and are telling the press they're scared. And Michael's hitting the press trail with everyone who'll listen.

But this is a little too intense. Sure, Michael Lohan looks like a bad James Woods character, and there's no question that he's desperate to be a power-barnacle on his family's dwindling resources of fame. But the taping of calls proves the criminal length to which he's willing not to help, but to go public with his "cause" in order to draw attention to himself. All of this begs the question: if Lohan actually needs help, how would Michael Lohan even know?

It doesn't matter. Because when you do shit like this, even if they're just for theatrics, you're insane, and possibly, dangerous, and even worse, shameless about how dangerously insane you are in the name of "protecting" your daughter while trying to invoke a higher power to electrocute you.

Hollywood gossip is a joke and the people who take it seriously are just as funny, and the fact that there's a massive industry built around it is hysterical if you can laugh through the sadness. I'm of the opinion that one shouldn't take it as anything but a big, sad joke. And it's hard to feel bad for one of that big joke's biggest characters, Lindsay Lohan, and her self-subscribed fates.

But here's someone who's already had a long, long life, no matter who made it hard. And of all the things Lindsay Lohan did to herself, I still can't imagine actually being able to will something like Michael Lohan into their existence repeatedly. Unless their name is Dina Lohan.

Now I feel bad for her.

When someone supposedly dies on Twitter, there are nothing but questions that aren't "Is this person actually dead?" Because who gives a shit if they're actually dead. There are issues here:

Do people actually trust Twitter?
Who do they trust?
Why? It's just someone with a Twitter.

But they do! And sometimes, that information is valid, and all it takes is one Tweet for Twitter to be the needle in a haystack screaming to be found. But Twitter, like the people who use it, is weird.

Which would explain part of the answer to the question, What do Kanye West, Lil' Wayne, Rick Astley, Britney Spears, Harrison Ford, Jeff Goldblum, Miley Cyrus have in common with Morrissey? They've all been "killed" by Twitter. But not the other questions they present:

Who starts the _____ is dead rumors? Anyone and everyone! It can be some high school junior, or, as is this case, the New York Times The Moment blog, trying to crowdsource information. If you suggest someone who isn't dead may be dead, you've started a ____ Is Dead meme.

Why did they start the _____ Is Dead memes? For all kinds of reasons! Said high school junior who, bored and stoned in his US Government Honors class, decides that John Bolton, who has a funny mustache, is dead. He can then raise his hand and start a discussion about John Bolton being dead! Or maybe someone hears something and decides that they need to know more, because they actually care about this person's impact in their lives (as is, possibly, the case with Moz and The Moment). But mostly, the impulse to declare someone dead who isn't has to come from a place of mischief. Having to explain that you're not dead, you're just waiting to be seated at Pastis, could be a serious inconvenience for you and your publicist. Or if you're not a publicist or don't have one, a "normal" person who has to go out of their way to call their parents and explain that the stress they just went through was for naught.

What would be considered a "successful" ______ is dead meme?

A+: Getting a mainstream media outlet to report on the death, or rumors of the death. Newspapers, newspaper's websites, breaking news websites or Twitter accounts (like Drudge or BNO), CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, etc. If you can get someone to say something on the air about someone who's dead that isn't dead, without it being a denial, you've done an awesome job.

B+ to B: A personal denial. Get someone to admit that they're not dead through someone who isn't their publicist, either because their publicist's credibility was called into question, or because they weren't picking up the phone when they should've.

B-: A publicist denial. Fucking up a publicist's day isn't nearly as mischievous as fucking up Miley Cyrus' day, but still equally satisfying.

C+ to C-: High-profile news-denial. If a news outlet has to report and quell the rumor, at least you got it out there to the right people.

D+ to D: High-profile gossip denial. These people sort out death rumors professionally, and if yours is smart or obscure enough to make their job tough, decent, but otherwise, you're throwing them something slow and down the middle.

D- Subversive gossip and or news crowdsourcinng for an answer (see above, also, here), but add one grade notch for every 50,000 viewers they get a day.

F: You get re-tweeted a few times. That's it.

So, how do you do it correctly?

1. Pick your target correctly. Find an obscure figure who isn't exactly "popular" amongst Twitter's celebrities. Make sure they're not on Twitter, or Twittering when you put the rumor out there. This would be an example of a "Twitter Death Meme Fail":

They can't Twitter their reaction, and they can't have people with them who could Twitter a denial. A really great pick is someone who you didn't even know was still alive. Marian Seldes would be decent, so would Kathleen Turner, because then, you can get a bunch of insane Broadway gays to start freaking out and asking questions. Which brings us to the second step:

2. Find someone to help corroborate your story. Make sure to find someone with decent cred and mix of followers with mixed interests.

You need someone to breathe on the burning embers to get a flame, right?

3. Stay silent. Don't say anything else, especially when people ask you where you heard that. Tip off a few gossip blogs, or blogs that are in the periphery of gossip and/or news blogs.

4. Wait. Teach a man to fish, he'll be set for life. But teach a man to fish without telling him that screaming "BE CAUGHT, YOU FUCKING FISH" won't help, and he's screwed. Stay calm. Wait for this thing to erupt. Once you've put it out there, unless you have multiple accounts with lots of followers to help corroborate your own story, all you can do is see what happens. You've set a line out there, enjoy the natural course it's going to take. Maybe go for a walk, work out, play with your dog. Enjoy the time you have before you get back to your computer to find out from P-Nasty himself that one of the Baldwin brothers had an aneurysm while grilling tandoori chicken skewers.

5. Celebrate correctly. Twitter provides for all. Once you've successfully "killed" someone via Twitter, you should respect and honor their not-dead-ness with a seance. A Twitter seance. Or, a Tweance.

And there you go! How to kill someone with Twitter, correctly. Now, go out there, and get your death fetish on. And please report back to us with your best results.

Oh, and by the way: Morrissey isn't dead. We think. Nice work.

Times media writer Edward Wyatt penned a soft, round filing that was about the word "douche." It appeared on today's front page.

This word is one with which this website (and media network) has a wide breadth of experience with. In November, 2006, former Gawker scribe Emily Gould wrote:

Don't get us wrong. It's not that (50%) of our delicate ladyish sensibilities are offended or anything; far from it. It's just that, as vagina-havers, we want to branch out a little bit in the realm of vagina-related insults. Also, we couldn't help but notice that the trope is now so bitten and tired, it pretty much begs to be called "Already Over" (if Already Over wasn't Already Over, obvs). Plus, Dolce has co-opted it for his own use. What a fucking asswizard!

Before we go any further, can we just say that "azzwizard" is kind of magical?

Anyway. People, as we are, can't be without first-stone casters. Observe:

I really, really hope there aren't actually 17,400 results for the word "douche" on Gawker websites that can't be cross-referenced with Joe Dolce.

But for a moment, back to Wyatt's piece. He didn't write about how the word evolved from a technical term of feminine hygiene to a schoolyard pejorative, to a favorite of bloggers and mediocre satire writers alike, to a Times media piece. No: that'd be too meta, and too interesting, and too far into the purview of their excellent After Deadline column.

In a newspaper where the word "fuck" is too vulgar as to only be printed once in its entire history—despite the word "fuck" and its entrenchment in our daily lives, in politics, popular culture, literature, and I'm sure its handy usage around Times' bullpens—they penned a piece based on the statistical usage and adoption into sitcom television, where every decent slang word goes to die.

It's filled with numbers about usage, and quotes from TV writers about how they employ it, like this one:

"As a writer, you're always reaching for a more potent way to call somebody a jerk," Dan Harmon, the creator of "Community," said about the word "douche." "This is a word that has evolved in the last couple of years - a thing that sounds like a thing you can't say."

It doesn't get much more interesting than that, except for a line about how the show that once presented the American Public with Dennis Franz's tuchus decided to give it an evolved go:

Users of the recently popular word "douche" defend its use, noting that it was invoked, usually with the suffix "bag," in the 1990s by the character Andy Sipowicz on "NYPD Blue," an ABC series that frequently pushed the boundaries of network acceptability.

Naturally, since this story dropped, the Gawker Weekend inbox has been brimming with of glee and excitement.

There are a few angles to take on it. Mediaite's Joe Coscarelli reflects much of the sentiment I've already heard out there in his lede:

I bet you never thought you'd see the day when you could pick up a copy of the New York Times and see the word "douche" on page one. And we're not talking hygiene!

And NYTpicker, that anonymous scourge of the New York Times' newsroom, takes out his or her butcher knife and gets to work on how typically bullshit the numbers used to create this story are, making a special point to note that the Times calls the word "offensive to many people" but doesn't say who those people are:

But seeing TV reporter Edward Wyatt and the NYT base its front-page reporting on numbers the paper actually requested from the Parents Television Council — a notoriously conservative TV watchdog group that has brought 99 percent of all indecency complaints before the FCC (we learned that from an excellent 2004 NYT story) — makes us a little sick. The PTC has been around since 1995, founded by conservative commentator L. Brent Bozell, and is responsible for complaints to the FCC about the Janet Jackson nipple slip and cursing on "NYPD Blue."

NYTpicker's right, and Joe Coscarelli's right. It's patently ridiculous that the Times uses generalized opinions to substantiate their numbers, to help give their story a case. There's also something inevitably entertaining about watching a newspaper as prude as the Times give the word "douche" some kind of once-over, even if the story behind it is fairly flimsy.

But honestly, this all just kind of brings me down.

Believe me, the last thing I want to do is rain on the parade of fun that is the New York Times using the word "douche," as someone who can only die happy once Clark Hoyt calls one of the Styles editor a "fuckface" in his Public Editor column. But let's talk about this like adults, kind of, for a moment.

But as someone with a strange affection for vulgar language, I only see this as an intense letdown.

To do this story two years ago would've been one thing, as the numbers slowly rise into becoming a trend, before it hits fever pitch. But for this story to run now, without Styles writer Allen Salkin's byline—and Salkin would've done way better with this—is absurd. Besides the fact that it's boring and plucked from a bullshit ether, the potential they laid waste to with this one is absurd. Mainly: to address the issue of creating new terms that don't exhaust themselves more and more on each usage. For example:

Where did the word "douche" come from in it's literal, non-slang implication?
Who were the first people to make the word "douche" a pejorative?
Who appended the word "bag" to the word "douche"?
Who uses this word every day?
How long has it been around?
Who (besides Gould/Shafrir/Balk/Sicha-era Gawker) has called this word over?
And what media outlets use it on a regular basis? But mostly:
Who's offended by the word?

There's nothing interesting about the word "mediocre" unless it's placed in an interesting context. On the inverse, the word "fuck" is almost always interesting, if only because it begs the question of necessity. The idea behind using a word like "douche" or "fuck" is to emphasize or exclaim something, it's to aid a common goal of writing or speaking, the reason people like me love language: to communicate an idea to someone you otherwise couldn't.

But what does the word "douche" communicate, exactly, besides the kind of person who would use it?

Maybe someone who's just unsavory in some regard, or someone who's typically unaware of their uncouth behavior. Or someone who does something your way of going about things disagrees with. There're way too many words like it. Maybe people just enjoy the way it rolls off the tongue, or maybe people actually enjoy employing the connotation of a Feminine hygiene product (which is the point all you nu-Feminists should take to say the exact same thing Gould said three years ago).

But really, the word douche is just like the story the Times did on it, and the generalized sources—the "some people" who "may be offended" by it— they used. It's empty. It means nothing. It's a completely subjective assessment of somebody who does something you don't like. I know people who use the word "douchebag" when referring to other people; I'm willing to bet those same people use the word "douchebag" to refer to the people referring to them. And I'm most disappointed when people I know who use the word could find something more concise, or shocking, or linguistically artful to go with. It's sold at the Wal-Mart of pejoratives. It's cheap, it's made en masse, and there's nothing but bad preservatives in the ingredients. Let's all—The New York Times, Bloggers, TV Writers, Those Who Use The Word "Douchebag," Those Who You Would Call A "Douche," Bar Patrons, Sports Fans, English Professors, Joe Dolce—become better communicators, and find something better than the word "douche" and it's mediocre suffix "bag" to go with.

Or, you know, we could just judge each other a little less.

Since none of these things will probably happen in the foreseeable future, just go with "douchenozzle" until it does. At least it sounds funny.

[Related Reading - Commenter VioletViolet makes a salient point: "I still think the NY Times article on "vajajay" was worse, although at least it wasn't on the front page. When you're asking Gloria Steinem for her opinion on a term that's use was mostly limited to The Soup, you're in trouble."]

• You guys. Don't you just love it when you sit around talking about the good old days, like St. Elmo's Fire, or something, and then something happens to remind you that, you know what, These Are The Days? Something like that happened and it made the front story of Page Six. Who ran crying out of a party? Lindsay Lohan ran crying out of a party. God, I feel 22 again! So: Am I supposed to know who this Courtenay Semel person is? She looks like a broke-ass Brittny Gastineau or something. Actually, I have no idea what the hell she looks like, either, it just sounded right, you know? Anyway. This Court-en-ay person used to be good friends with LiLo and then (Team) Lohan became too fabulous for her and now, they ran into each other at a party at Gastineau's place. Apparently, Court-en-ay (sound it out) just got out of rehab and came back ready to rock out with her fabulous out, or whatever, and she decided to try to help LiLo by giving her some advice on going to rehab in a very public manner. Princess Lipsdsay was not happy about this and cried and left, and all of the Sunlillies in the Kingdom of Hollywood wept a shimmering, single petal, as they do every time Lilo leaves a party that had Jill Zarin, Nicole Murphy and Jamie Foxx at it (Let's be honest, you know Jamie Foxx made a really funny joke about this shit: Blame it on the Bus-prin?). Lohan left to go party with some shipping heir, Starvos The Greek, until 7AM. [Page Six]
  
  
• America's Prettiest Homophobe Carrie Prejean apparently made seven different sex tapes and took lots of nekkid pictures before she was a Crazy Homophobe and went on Larry King and freaked out. Girl, don't you get it? You say some stupid shit and act all proud, like we should care. Then, you try to "take your message" of hate out whatever, fine. But you know the world's gossip pages are run by queens and showtune-loving Jews who would love nothing more than your moral hypocrisy of shame spread prostrate (or in this case, spread eagle) in front of America the Public? You should get Levi Johnston's manager, this Tank character. He may be a crook, but at least he's a crook who knows what he's doing. [NYDN]
  
  
• Twilight fans, you know how much I hate you. Now know how much the directors of the movie hate you: Catherine Hardwick was basically all like, yeah, Rob Patz and K-Stew's romance was a slowwwww burn, baby. Which probably feels like taking a band-aid off very slowly to you. [NYDN]
  
  
• Oh, Daniel Radcliffe, you are the shit, son. Radcliffe denied he smoked weed today after he was pictured on the front page of a British tabloid smoking what appeared to be a paper with some wackiness in it and wearing a, wait for it, "bizarre, comic-looking beard etched on his face." Much like my real one. He claims to be smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. Does it matter what he was smoking? He either smokes rollies or he smokes L's, and he was wearing a drawn-on beard on his face. He likes cougars, and the first performance he made on Broadway was a Dirk Diggler moment people shelled out over $100 to see. Also, he's Harry Potter. Could have it worse, you know? [Page Six]
  
  
• Lindsay Price and Josh Randor broke up. Who? One of them is from some Eastwick show the other is a guy from How I Met Yo' Momma. [NYDN]
  
  
• Serena Williams: Bootylicious? Apparently, her jelly isn't ready to play tennis these days. [Page Six]
  
  
• Shameless Self-Promotion: Jared Leto is the best. [BlackBook]
  
  
• Some dicknose trying to shake down Cindy Crawford is a real piece of shit. Surprised? He also beat his ex-wife a bunch when they were married. [NYDN]
  
  
• And speaking of dicknoses, Jon Gosselin is now claiming to be too famous to be employed. So serious right now. He's filing a lawsuit against TLC saying that they've rendered him unemployable due to the insane media interest on him. Hey, Court of Law, as a member of the media, I can say that Jon Gosselin is the one attempting to draw our interest out, and he's pretty bad at that job, too. [NYDN]
  
  
• Stripper, to Fergie: "Sorry for sleeping with Josh Duhamel." Kids, to Stripper Mom: "Sleeping with Josh Duhamel < Stripping." [NYDN]
  
  
• Normally, whenever PETA opens their mouths, even if it's for a good cause, you're like OMGSTFU PETA, you guys are being crazy-obnoxious right now and a detriment to your cause. But I have to say, on this one, well played: they're asking US Marshals to donate Ruth Madoff's furs to the homeless to "highlight the difference between need and greed." Like, whoever made that PR play and got it in Page Six, smooth. Take the day off, PETAPerson. [Page Six]
  
  
• Some old guy does it with young chicks, or something. Go get 'em Saturday gossip pages. [Page Six]

And here we are: Saturday, the Saturday of Our Lives. I don't know what that means, but maybe Lindsay Lohan will help us all find out.

[Photo via Bauer-Griffin]

Amid withering press from TechCrunch and other outlets, the Zynga CEO has finally removed scammy commercial offers from his company's online games, like Mafia Wars and Farmville. That's nice. But maybe the whole scandal could have been avoided if he'd taken a less skeptical take on his Harvard Business School ethics class. From his 2006 blog post about the class:

The school had this bullshit 3 week class called 'ethics' which we all took together at the outset of the program - guess it was to make sure we all had at least heard the term a few times and might feel more comfortable even using it...

Pincus goes on to tell how his amoral, investment-banker classmates defended a banker who left a sick Indian man behind to die in order to finish climbing a Himalayan mountain the banker had long wanted to conquer. Pincus accused his classmates of moral bankruptcy and became a black sheep, he says.

He was also aghast when a fellow student got off with a slap on the wrist after he was caught stuffing the ballot box in an election to head the school's Finance Club. Pincus thought he would be expelled or at least suspended for a year.

I'd soo love to know where that kid's career went and what he's doing today. He must be a major leader as he soo gets our system.

Pincus ended his blog post on an optimistic, pro-ethics note, saying that "this century's newest success stories" like Google, Bill Gates and eBay "are about authentic people taking responsibility and serving all stakeholders," i.e. acting ethically, donating money to charity, etc. Despite this conclusion, Pincus soon found himself on a darker path; he was soon doing "every horrible thing in the book to... get revenues right away" at Zynga, he told fellow entrepreneurs at a mixer earlier this year.

Said mixer wasn't the first time Pincus gave up a sleazy vibe; check out the tweets below from entrepreneur and former Valleywagger Alaska Miller. Apparently Pincus' ethics were derailed some time after he wrote that "authentic people" are the bright future of American business. It's hard to know whether to the blame that stumble on Pincus' obvious cynicism toward his Harvard ethics class — or on his failure to cling to his cynical conclusions more tightly through the years.

(Top pic: Pincus, by Joi Ito)

Twitter has been around for years already, but at last Hollywood has completed its exploitation project.
The Wrap reports that one brave company has now led the charge for celebrities wishing to sell their 140 characters. They write:

Kim Kardashian, Joel McHale, Dr. Drew, Nicole Richie and husband Joel Madden and Audrina Patridge from "The Hills" are just a few of the names who have endorsement deals for their Twitter accounts.

The celebs are signing onto a new viral marketing strategy set up by the Los Angeles-based ad agency Ad.ly, which brokers relationships with the advertisers.

Currently, Ad.ly has lined up international companies such as Sony Pictures, NBC, Universal, Microsoft and Nestle for the new platform.

Lest you think this is just another example of the celebrity oligarchy shoving its will down the public's throat, the twitter-selling network is only to all interested parties who register on ad.ly's site.

Writer and radio host Kurt Andersen has, at long last, discovered The Wire, approximately 40 years after everyone else. Luckily his job does not involve being abreast of media or culture, or this would be embarrassing.

Michael Turk, "eCampaign Director" for Bush-Cheney 04, made an abortion joke. Quick, someone make an equally funny comeback involving Congressional pages!

Oprah taught Page Six's Neel Shah the definition of real media power: when you can get the Black Eyed Peas to cut a custom version of their song for your phone-hold music.

In addition to having to cope with looming holiday layoffs, Electronic Arts staffers have been asked to please keep Veronica Belmont physically awake at all times.

You heard Engadget's Joshua Topolsky right, ladies: His cable BRINGS IT. Get freaky with the coaxial!

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets - or send us more Twitter usernames.

Very few Iranians are on Twitter, and every morning when they check it they are all like "what's with all these Azeri Turk trending topics aren't they hilarious?" Your fancy stroller is going to kill your fancy baby. Glenn Beck sued the internet, and lost. His employers took the fight elsewhere. Marissa Mayer went back in time and invented Google in its crib. Sarah Palin promised to start Twittering again, but then didn't. The Hipster Grifter would like to be on VH1. Carrie Prejean announed her involvement in the production of child pornography. Then she attempted to become the first person ever to walk out on Larry King. She was unsuccessful. You can buy some of Bernie Madoff's tchochkes. (You might want to get on that before your funemployment benefits run out.) A mysterious man is spending a great deal of money on partying. He may be some sort of hard-partying front. Mad Men ended its season, and we wondered who'd be back. Then we watched a baby come out of a lady, on the internet. The New York Post turned out to be basically just like you thought it was. V proved beyond a doubt that Barack Obama refuses to speak Japanese. A funeral for a musician was ridiculously expensive. A Standard Hotel guest accidentally took that hotel's gross marketing campaign seriously. An American Apparel advertisement featured a nipple. Orly Taitz protested Fox News for some reason. Jersey Shore is a thing that will be on TV soon. (Maybe we can get Sean Hannity to apologize for it?) Las Vegas residents are concerned about a truck that drives around with a stripper in the back, stripping. It is unclear who actually shot the Fort Hood shooter. New York's ruling class is bravely reporting on its own children. Top Chef was weird and uncomfortable. The City was apparently Miami, for a day. Levi Johnston is having a lot of fun for a new dad. (He will not be joining Sarah Palin for Thanksgiving.) Glee makes everyone cry. Sarah Palin is still not tweeting, but she did write a chapter-book. 30 Rock is becoming incredibly unfocused—some of their b-stories this season could be full episodes—and ridiculously cartoonish, but there sheer number of successful jokes in each episode is still remarkable. Also they are making fun of NBC a lot. Project Runway had the always-fun "Tim Gunn attempts to connect to some weirdo's family" episode.

Brooklyn musician Gerhardt Fuchs, 34, died in a freak accident.

2012
The Story: As per Mayan predictions, the world ends a few years from now and John Cusack leads a band of survivors who try to figure out just what to do with that. From veteran world-destroying director Roland Emmerich.
The Pitch: Independence Day meets An Inconvenient Truth
Who It's For: People who's need to see stuff get exploded is so strong they are willing to put up with having a bit a little left-wing messaging in the process (e.g. The White House gets destroyed by one of its own aircraft carriers, get it?)
Cause for Hope: The city destroying effects seem to have risen to the challenging; this won't be your grandfather's apocalypse.
Cause for Concern: The dialogue might not be bad enough to be funny, might level out at merely bad.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 5

THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX
The Story: A fox (voiced by George Clooney) turned away from a life of crime to respectability yearns for the thrill of the chase.
The Pitch: Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer meets The Darjeeling Limited
Who It's For: Hoodie Nation
Cause for Hope: Extremely lively fun-to-look at stop motion animation; the non-reality of the medium reduces the perpetual Wes Anderson problem of every character existing in its own self-contained emotional Universe where they can preen for the camera.
Cause for Concern: Despite being little statuettes of animals, every character in the film still manages to come off as a smug, self-absorbed Wes Anderson character; Jarvis Crocker makes perhaps the most irritating cameo in recent cinema in a pure pander to the Hoodie base.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 6

PIRATE RADIO
The Story: When rock and roll is outlawed on the British airwaves in the 1960's a group of renegade DJ's (led by Philip Seymour Hoffman) set sail and broadcast from a floating station.
The Pitch: Pump Up The Volume meets Almost Famous
Who It's For: Aging rockers, and aging rockers-to-be.
Cause for Hope: Immensely watchable cast led by Hoffman, Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh
Cause for Concern: Creaky familiar story of bad boys standing up to the uptight morality police.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 6

THE MESSENGER
The Story: The life of an army officer (Ben Foster) responsible notifying war deads' next of kin becomes complicated when he becomes romantically involved with a fallen soldier's widow.
The Pitch: The Hurt Locker meets The Great Santini
Who It's For: Serious drama with contemporary issues fans.
Cause for Hope: Strong festival buzz, intense looking performance by Woody Harrelson in army uniform; Samantha Morton always impresses.
Cause for Concern: Heavy downer of a subject in these downer times.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 7

DARE
The Story: Three high school seniors (Emmy Rossum, Zach Gilford, Ashley Springer) on the cusp of diving into the world get involved in a complicated relationship.
The Pitch: Cruel Intentions meets Reckless
Who It's For: People who like very serious looks at high school kids sex lives.
Cause for Hope: Looks more thoughtful and interesting than typical high school film; happy return to the screen of Sandra Bernhard.
Cause for Concern: Seems to lean heavily on the shock value of threesomes and bisexuality.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 6

WOMEN IN TROUBLE
The Story: Ten wacky urban women make a mess of their personal lives.
The Pitch: Sex and the City meets Wedding Crashers
Who It's For: Girls night out, preferably post a few dozen mojitos.
Cause for Hope: Men get plenty of annoying, immature, shoddily built buddy comedies so why shouldn't women.
Cause for Concern: It would take an extreme level of commitment to the principle of female bonding not to find this ensemble deeply annoying.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 3

As Horace Mann is a famous "prep" school, the students are now "preparing" for heated and ridiculous political correctness fights they will have at college.

Apparently, "former SBP and current comedian Scott Rogowsky '03" got a laugh at the assembly by saying the word "bazongas." Which led, naturally, to a wonderful op-ed in The Horace Mann Record by student and Assembly Committee member Leah Byland about how this reveals a misogynist double-standard. We quote: "If I were to bring up 'bazonga' cancer in my biology class, I'd probably be sent out of the room." Yes, well, that's a facile analogy because any rational person would agree that certain expressions are more or less appropriate based on context and audience and also HA HA HA HA "'BAZONGA' CANCER."

In the following issue, well, jeez. There was "Editor's Take: On 'Bazongas'" And then "Editor's Take: On the Editorial." And then a letter to the editor from a member of the English department praising Leah's "inspired outrage" and damning the anonymous editors who dared defend "bazongas." There is also a news story on the whole outrage. It is delightful. From a distance. A great distance.

Hello, editor Nick Gerad:

Moreover, the speech as a whole was deliberately written to be absurd. A large portion of it was dedicated to describing a Freemason-esque secret society of former SBPs that controls major worldwide corporations. Rogowsky spent a significant portion of his stage time describing massive, to-the-death street melees between students and sewer monsters called "grawl dogs."

What? Also, why won't anyone tell us if Charles Stam was involved?

They found a "high-ranking official" from "a previous Democratic administration" who thinks Bob is a bad choice, which allowed them to write that "even some Democrats" have "privately questioned" the appointment.

This is a photo caption: "Questions arise whether incoming White House counsel Bob Bauer's experience as a partisan warrior is appropriate for the position." The questions did not "arise" from the earth, unbidden. Nor were they torn from the thigh of Zeus. Politico reporters asked these questions, themselves.

But what's even better is who these questions arose to: the anonymous "high-ranking official" and Peter Wallison, the lawyer who most famously instructed Ronald Reagan to claim ignorance while testifying on Iran-Contra.*

Everyone else is like "well maybe he has done some stuff on campaign finance that I find personally distasteful but yes he is qualified." That's not gonna win the afternoon, guys.

The real tragedy here is that Politico went with "Bob Bauer Unqualified" instead of what will be the real scandal: he is an agent of ACORN!

*And then this happened:

The question, of course, came up...After a preliminary question about presidents and their NSC staffs, Tower asked Reagan about the discrepancy between his statement and Regan's on the question of whether he had given prior approval to the Israeli arms shipment. Reagan rose from his chair, walked around the desk and said to Wallison, "Peter, where is that piece of paper you had that you gave me this morning?" Then he picked up the paper and began to read, "If the question comes up at the Tower Board meeting, you might want to say that you were surprised."

HAH. A highly qualified quote-giver, this one.

Previously in "Politico Inventing And Then Reporting On Invented News" News:

Politico Reports on Story Politico Invented
Politico Begins Posting Fox News Slashfic
Scandal: Bill Before Congress Is Long, Complicated

[Photo: AP]

SUBJECT: Thanks and Goodbye

I want to thank all of you for the wonderful time I have had here at Newsweek. The people in Mountain Lakes are one of a kind, you New York people are lucky to have them. For those of you who are also leaving I wish you nothing but the best and good luck in your job hunt.

I have to say, I have worked for some pretty big companies in the past and I thought Newsweek was definitely one of the best until I witnessed how poorly the layoffs and the transitioning was handled. It is a shame that people forget to treat people with common courtesy and compassion. I worked with some people who have worked here between 19 and 30 years and have yet to be told Thank you, you served us well and have done a good job. Why is that? I know it is easy to forget the worker bees, but without them the hive would fall apart. For what it is worth I admire your hard work and I am privileged to have had the opportunity to work amongst you and learn from you.

I tell my daughter to live by the golden rule – treat others the way you would like to be treated. It's amazing that at 7 she gets it, I can't say the same for the management of Newsweek.

Thank you,

Vicki Bosie
Vicki Bosie Coordinator, Ad Traffic Production

In an interview he just finished with Playgirl editor-in-chief Nicole Caldwell, Levi says of the invite, "You could tell by her laugh she was full of it." The petition to come over for some turkey was part of a segment the former Alaska governor taped for an Oprah episode that airs Monday.

Levi also that it was a "nice gesture, but she didn't mean it" and if he went, it would be "awkward." He also tells Entertainment Tonight, "Either she's telling a little spoof here or she's going to ask me in the next couple of days. I couldn't care less to go with Sarah Palin, but I want to be with my kid. It would probably be a little weird. It would be uncomfortable, but I'd go for my son's sake."

Well, between Levi's upcoming issue of the magazine and Palin's book, we think that a Thanksgiving dinner together (promptly followed by a food fight) would be just the photo op these two need to keep their prolonged dance of death going.

Rohde's remark suggests that other press blackouts, like the one enforced for seven month by the New York Times as it tried to negotiate Rohde's release, are currently in place regarding abducted reporters.

Please remember—I'm not disclosing any names tonight—but there are still journalists, local and foreign, and many average Pakistanis and Afghans still being held prisoner tonight in the tribal areas. This problem has not been solved. We were extraordinarily lucky to escape. Others will not be.

One of those reporters, the Norwegian documentarian Paal Refsdal, was released yesterday after being kidnapped a week ago by Taliban fighters near the border with Pakistan. A Pakistani newspaper reported Refsdal's kidnapping on Monday, but no western media organizations followed suit until he was released. The Rohde blackout was hardly the first: Canadian journalist Melissa Fung spent a month in captivity while western media remained silent about the story at the request of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

The irony of Rohde's appeal for us to keep those unnamed journalists in our thoughts is that, by withholding their names, he appears to be both endorsing and exposing a noble conspiracy to prevent us from thinking about them or knowing that they exist.

Rohde's full remarks, which presented a thoroughly depressing portrait of the fanaticism we face in Afghanistan and Pakistan, can be seen here.

Blogger Ben Casnocha's friend told him, "There is nowhere we are more honest than the search box. We don't lie to Google." That seems to be true, judging from the blunt queries offered up by Google's autocomplete suggestions, which are generated based on other similar and popular searches. In other words, people have asked these actual questions, niftily compiled by Slate:

The suggestions get classier if you rephrase your query to sound more edum'cated. But still disturbing:

Disturbing though they may be, these suggestions are at least anonymous. Anonymous, that is, until Google "suggests" a search to a federal agent that makes him wonder, "Who the hell asked that?" Until that inevitable day, have fun.

Vicki Gunvalson Wants to Be the Venus de Milo

The vista is ringed with the metal rim
of the peephole as you pull your head away from the great door,
giant knocker, giant knockers
converging perspectives on the secret worlds that are hidden
in gated communities.

Stumble through the turnstyle, no style muu-muu instead
of togas. The Colosseum was always haunted by ghosts
of the future, by women who do not understand.
The thumb their nose at the thumbs down for
the vanquished warrior soaking the clay

With his blood, his armored arm like a giant cuff
clutching a shield as a spear lays to his side. Just last night,
he was at the dinner table throwing punch
after jeweled punch and his cohorts. The battle didn't end bloody
but with egos bruised.

Now, the forfeiter peers over the rail
into the pit, and she doesn't understand—confusing the bloodstains
for a California Merlot. She would sack the ruins for their art
and confuse them for garden sculptures,
too expensive for the exchange rate.

And she will paint the mercury silvered marble tan
in a hut in her back yard. She will place a sock over David's penis
to hide it from her shame. That statue of Hera
once proud atop a hill, will be painted as well,
and she will cover its huge breasts on the skinny frame

Like two balloons taped to a window shutter,
bulbous on slats, slattern, slanted, sloping like her daughter's nose.
Sand out those imperfections with the doctor's scalpel chisel,
uses his hands to tighten your face into a mask
with a cocked eye, like a helmet

Pointed top, holes for the eye, a metal strip to protect the nose
perfected by science. Wear it in the ring to battle.
The color of your victory is brittle pink, like your nails
and lips, with a bit of crimson dripping down,
the gargled wine sanguine stain of your demise.

Nothing is sacred in this savage world, any more. Not even Ed Hardy, America's foremost artist. Pirates—pirates!—are bootlegging Ed Hardy gear left and right, victimizing those members of society least able to make wise choices on their own: the people who wear Ed Hardy shirts.

Hell-O-bama? Where is the government, on this?

It gets worse. That Diamond Edition customized armored car you ordered, with the genuine whale penis leather interior? The one you were totally gonna rock out with your cock out in your genuine Ed Hardy-brand nightlife-ready gear? You can forget the whale penis leather interior dude. They're not offering it any more.

Whales are treated better than Ed Hardy, in this crazy mixed-up economy.

So as you gaze out at all of the world's glory—the plastic roads in rural India, the not-yet-bankrupt Euro Disney, the art market that's suddenly decadent and overpriced again, as it should be—take a moment to mourn for the recession's real victims. Dudes like this.


And also this.

[Pics: Flickr, HCWDB.]

But in a conference speech yesterday, Michael Burns, the Vice-Chairman of Lion's Gate dispelled any fantasies we may have had that the torture quotient in our multiplexes would be lowered any time soon, saying Saw is here to stay, and while they are at it, that Lion's Gate has no intention of abandoning it's campaign to destroy entertainment. Burns told the , there will be a Saw 7 and that the Tyler Perry machine will continue assaulting comedy until the end of time.

The Hollywood Reporter quotes Burns speaking slyly of Saw's status:

Despite a disappointing performance by Saw VI, which Burns attributed to getting "buzz-sawed" at the boxoffice by Paranormal Activity, he said it was full steam ahead on the seventh installment, which will be in 3D.

"As long as we make money on it we'll keep doing this," he said, pointing out that such franchises tend to have a long shelf life across different platforms. Dirty Dancing, he pointed out, still sells 2,000 DVDs a day for the company, and that's after 20 years.

We have to hand it to Lions Gate, the unholy alliance of torture porn and the most-useless, money-extorting innovation of the past decade — 3D — might just be the giant leap forward we've been waiting for to crush audience's desire for creativity and life once and for all, after which, there would be nothing to stand in the way of a thousand reign of Saw films.

Burns also vowed that Tyler Perry's crusade to erase the last vestiges of comedy from the cinema would continue until the last comic standing, referring to Perry as a machine and taunting the assembled media savants with the threat of new Madea insallments.

Burns however, cleared up confusion about Perry's legal status, confirming he still enjoys the full freedom due an American citizen. "He's not an indentured servant," Burns explained, confirming that Perry enjoys the freedom to pursue non-Lion projects.

NYTPicker found this bio for Pogue on the website for an upcoming tech conference:

So what is a New York Times Visionary, other than something you get demoted to when everyone realizes you're not actually a journalist? That's unclear. Maybe it involves being able to see past the flaws in an operating system, like endless crashes of key software, to call it a "sleek upgrade." Or to call a notebook computer a "slice of heaven... not underpowered by any means" and then later tweet that the same machine is "too slow for Photoshop, video even Word sometimes." Or not! (We've put in an inquiry with the Times and Pogue.)

UPDATE: Pogue wrote us back:

That's definitely not a title I would ever use for myself. (I usually go by
"Consumer Tech Columnist"). And it is, obviously, not a title The Times
selected.

It sounds to me like something that panel's organizer, Warren Buckleitner,
made up, for the sake of more interesting brochure copy. Maybe you should
ask him?

We've corrected our headline accordingly.

The AP got a copy of Goin' Rogue, Also: Modern Warfare 2 and they totally read it even, which is probably more than Sarah can say.

"... [S]he says that most of her legal bills were generated defending what she called frivolous ethics complaints, but she reveals that about one-tenth of the $500,000 was a bill she received to pay for the McCain campaign vetting her for the VP nod.

She said when she asked the McCain campaign if it would help her financially, she was told McCain's camp would have paid all the bills if he'd won; since he lost, the vetting legal bills were her responsibility."

You may be shocked to learn that this is not a thing that happens, ever, "billing" someone for their own "vetting." The McCain campaign paid for its own vetting. Maybe Sarah Palin paid her own lawyer for lawyering work during that process? In that case, her lawyer would've been billing her for his services, to her, and that is not a thing John McCain made her pay for.

And the other thing, where the McCain campaign did not pay her legal bills for her own legal problems related to Troopergate and other ethics investigations? In addition to not being his responsibility, the McCain campaign thought it would probably violate the law to pay her legal bills with campaign money.

(Oh, Sarah Palin Facebooked about this:

As you probably have heard, the AP snagged a copy of my memoir, 'Going Rogue,' before its Tuesday release. And as is expected, the AP and a number of subsequent media outlets are erroneously reporting the contents of the book.

To be fair, the AP originally reported that McCain handed her a $500,000 bill. The real price on the imaginary bill that Palin made up for her book of lies and hate was $50,000. So she is totally right.)

• The new medium could rot people's brains and erode cultural standards: "What you'll be seeing: [Ventriloquist dummy] Charlie McCarthy or the [intellectual radio broadcast] Chicago Roundtable?"
  
• The government is making huge new media decisions with far-reaching implications for the future: "Battle in the spectrum... Uncle Sam Looks at Television."
  
• The new medium will impact this old medium: Title: "Movies and Television" Article: "Film companies are watching television development with a careful eye."
  
• The elite first adopters will be overrun by the masses: Title: "Is Television Ready for the Public?" Article "Before the war about 7,000 television sets had been sold... the purcahses were all in or near a handful of cities. among them New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Schenectady, and Los Angeles" Those big-city bastards of Schenectady were liberal elitists even back in the day!
  
• The new medium will usher in a new crop of media lords: "Who Are the Leaders in the Fight?"
  
• The new medium means fun new gadgets (which could get us loads of advertising): Title: "What Kind of Television? War improvements cut costs / Look before you buy / Network possibilities / Buy wisely / Color television"
  
  
  
  Article (emphasis added): "Before you start looking for a receiver, check up on the television station in your area and find out whether its programs interest you...Don't let the salesman double talk you into buying one before it is demonstrated in your home. Who knows, you may be living in a "dead spot" where it is not possible to pick up television pictures. [AT&T has apparently been in the wireless business a long time.]

Somehow we still have movie theaters, radio, books and newspapers decades later. And every one of those sectors is still fabulously profitable and growing. (*Cough*)

[via Brendan Koerner]

At a Time Magazine panel last night designed to hype speculation over who the stupid "Person of the Year" will be, two distinct, stupid favorites emerged: Twitter, and The Economy. Neither of which is a person. Christ. Even "You" was technically a person, despite being the stupidest choice ever. How about "Americans Who Are Getting Stupider," as a dark horse candidate?


It looks like money issues could finally force Hugh Hefner to sell Playboy. The company's stock went erect yesterday amid reports that it's in discussions with Iconix, which specializes in turning around brands that have fallen off. If you listen to wild blogosphere estimates, Playboy is now worth significantly less than Gawker Media. That's when all the models disappear.


Optimistic words are flowing forth from the mouths of fashion magazine executives! Conde Nast's Tom Florio says Vogue's profits will double next year! Other fashion mag publishers are equally gung-ho about next year! That's the benefit of getting to compare your profits to the worst year ever, in history. They will be better than that.


CNN had been pouring lots and lots of greenback$$$ into producing an entire online-only, all-day newscast on its website, for some reason. Now they're laying off four of their online anchors and cutting way back on that whole project, because they remembered, hey, we have a whole channel on TV, already. Always thinking!

L.A. Times political columnist George Skelton just doesn't think it's right for poor reporters to have their sides of interviews with political figures publicized just because the law says people are entitled to access documents created by their government:

The public records act seems to be running amok when a reporter's private interview with a public figure can be handed over to competitors. I don't mind my interviews being taped. I just don't want the transcript being given out to rivals or political hacks.

I might want to hold back some of the quotes and info for a future column. Or I might be unsure how an answer should be interpreted.

Amok! We have something of an interest in the notion of publicizing reporters' private conversations with government employees via open records laws, so it should go without saying that we think it's awesome. But Skelton's smug disapproval is a crystalline distillation of why people hate reporters: Government employees labor under open records laws that perpetually threaten to lay bare virtually every word they write, and newspapers like Skelton's employer are the primary engine for forcing, through frequent lawsuits, state and federal agencies to live up to their obligations under those laws. But that's all supposed to apply to somebody else. Apply it to a reporter and—well, what about the competition?! What if I want to hold back some of the things back? Isn't there some kind of immunity, or something? It just seems wrong to publish things that some people don't want published, doesn't it? Icky.