Beauty is Imperfection

(Originally posted Thursday, July 31, 2008 )

What things are we freshening up by squirting Febreze on them?

–*The couch.

–*The cushions.

–*The cat.

–*The television

–*The Jarlsberg cheese.

–*The guests

–*Our resume, last updated 10 years ago

–*Our human rights record

–*Eva Longoria

–*John McCain’s public speaking skills

–*Beck

–*The Sound of Music

–*Our old high school acquaintances

–*Lemmy

–*Our self-esteem

–*Our marriage

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(Originally posted Wednesday, July 30, 2008 )

–*Dog barks at cell phone

–*Cat scared by cell phone

–*Dog attacks Roomba

–*Cat versus Roomba

–*Owner chastises dog

–*Owner chastises Roomba

–*Kim Kardashian sits on dog

–*Dog scared of Kim Kardashian’s ass

–*Kim Kardashian attacks Roomba

–*Owner chastises Kim Kardashian’s ass

–*Dog swallows cell phone

–*Dog barks at Paris Hilton sex tape

–*Little girl chases pigeon, yells “Doggie!”

–*Kim Kardashian chases pigeon, yells “Doggie!”

–*Kitten throws up Kim Kardashian’s sex tape.

–*Pam Anderson saves pregnant cat

–*Cat eats afterbirth

–*Pam Anderson saves dog

–*Dog saves Pam Anderson sex tape

–*TMZ chastises Chloe Kardashian sex tape

–*TMZ chastises vomiting kitten

–*Dog bites TMZ in the crotch

–*Momma cat ambushes, attacks helpless kitten

–*Momma ambushes, attacks Kim Kardashian

–*Boyfriend ambushes, attacks Kim Kardashian’s ass

–*Dog barks at vomiting kitten

–*Dog barks at girlfriend fellating boyfriend

–*Dog barks at Maroon 5

–*Maroon 5 chastises Roomba

–*Maroon 5 eats afterbirth

–*Pam Anderson fellates boyfriend while kitten vomits, dog attacks Roomba, TMZ yells “Doggie!” Kim Kardashian’s ass attacks Chloe Kardashian’s ass and Maroon 5 is scared of cell phone. Everybody eats afterbirth.

–*Man befriends, is eaten by, grizzly.

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(Originally posted Tuesday, July 29, 2008 )

–*I was off improving myself, and will continue to be off improving myself no matter how many parties I miss.

–*I didn’t want to see Derek and Tarzaan. Because we all know what we did to old man McLaney in the woods.

–*I peaked at 4 p.m. when I took all that animal tranq in the RV, and it wouldn’t have been fun after that.

–*Most of those at the party remember me when I was young. Green. Malformed. Only a larval version of myself. My hasting days having yet to fly on with full career, and to blossom in the reformed chrysalis that … is … a man.

–*I’m still waiting for Tanya Rothstein to tell me whether she’s going out with me, and even though it’s been 20 years since I asked her, I’m still afraid she’s going to say no.

–*MacGyver. Do I have to spell it out?

–*Party was over at my place. Guess you all missed it.

–*Because it’s not a real party until people start sodomizing each other in orgiastic Dionysian frenzy, ripping through the masks of persona and getting through to the true self.

–*I was shy.

–*…and you were too overbearing.

–*I was working on the Retributioners Episode 7. It’s like, a zillion years behind.

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(Originally posted Monday, July 28, 2008 )

What vacations do you have planned this year now that high gas prices have made long-distance travel more difficult?

–*Spelunking in the Ozarks across the border.

–*Skeet-shooting in Osh-Kosh.

–*Moonin’ the relatives in Bellville

–*Cow tipping in Dubuque

–*Indian bingo right up the road

–*Wine tasting in the vineyards of Oklahoma

–*Standing at the Perth Amboy waterfront and waving furiously at the Carnival Cruise Line taking people to New Brunswick

–*Miniature golfing in Boise

–*Stealing copper and lead out of manholes in Memphis

–*Hand-gliding off the top of the post office in Topeka

–*Misting myself with a water bottle in Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn

–*Having sex in a bed in the next room

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(Originally posted Sunday, July 27, 2008 )

Radovan+Karadzic

Radovan+Karadzic+”on the lam”+”Bosnian war criminal”

Radovan+Karadzic+”new age doctor”+disguise

Karadizic+Belgrade+”alternative medicine”+”war criminal”+quack

Serbia+Ratko Mladic+”walking around in broad daylight”

Serbia+”European Union”+”free movement of goods and services”

Zimbabwe + hyperinflation + “$1 trillion bill”

U.S.+inflation+”five dollar milk”+”what the fuck”

oil+”precious commodity”+”$140 a barrel”

“drill at home movement”+”expensive technology”+”smash rocks”

“drill at home movement”+”expensive technology”+”priced into futures”

“drill at home movement”+”Republican sham”

“options traders”+opportunistic pricks”

“Why is the price of oil so high?”

“What does peak oil mean?”

“oil depletion”+”proven reserves”+”depleted+Amish+”horse and buggy”

“Why does Halliburton get no-bid contracts?”

“How can I get a no-bid contract?”

“How can I get a no-bid contract in Knoxville, Tennessee?”

“Why does Angelina Jolie collect kids like rabbits?”

“Mia Farrow”+kids+rabbits+psycho

China+Olympics+smog+athletes+runners+airlift

China+runner+torch+protesters+mauled

“How can I attack an Olympic torch runner?”

“How can I attack an Olympic torch runner in Knoxville, Tennessee?”

Knoxville+”bus schedule”

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(Originally posted Friday, July 25, 2008 )

What Surprising New Plot Twists Can We Expect In the New “X-Files” Movie?

–*Satan-worshipping fans of Abba

–*Heart-eating Floridian swamp folk

–*A discovery of a sinister force in the universe called “parataxic distortion,” in which people you idealize, especially women, turn out to be less ideal than the fantasy

–*A U.S. plot to torture dissidents in Eastern European gulags and other things that were politically unthinkable in 1998.

–*Dogs that can say “I love you.”

–*A creepy hand that lives in a box.

–*Aliens versus Jesus

–*Blunderbuss-wielding Uncle Fester

–*Gregorian chants

–*Muldar and Scully’s accidentally solving the 20-year-old “Octopus” conspiracy theory, discovering that it was simply Ronald Reagan re-supplying the Contras, and pretty much doing it out in the open with a big “fuck you”

–*The truth, which always turns out to be a lot stupider than you’d think. (Think weather balloons and ergot poisoning.)

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(Originally posted Thursday, July 24, 2008 )

BUFFALO, NEW YORK (API) — George Smeaton thoughtfully sips a vanilla chai latte on this hot summer afternoon in Buffalo, just a few tables away from a bevy of comely young women out in summer jersey dresses. Though some of them look his way, Smeaton peers down into his book and avoids eye contact.

“It’s too enervating,” he says.

Scientists claim that Smeaton is just one of many people contributing to rising rates of global passive-aggression, a trend that could reduce mating and ultimately lead to the end of the human race.

“We’ve found an increasing number of people simply refusing to connect or make eye contact in social situations,” says Dr. Javier Santos of the John Hopkins School of Medicine. “As social mores change, both men and women refuse to be the instigators of social flirtation and the sexual dance. This spells catastrophe.”

The Mayo Clinic defines passive-aggressive behavior as a way of expressing negative feelings in indirect, unhelpful and obstructive ways while pretending to be complicit. Santos gives as examples showing up late, pretending not to want the very thing you want and Woody Allen.

Patricia Wally, a grad student at the University of Nebraska, said she was recently in the science lab studying the territoriality of hamsters when she was approached by male student Benjamin Gumm, a senior.

“He was really cute and all,” says Wally. “But he put a lot of pressure on me when he started talking. I had to think of all kinds of things to say when I wasn’t ready. I really showed him my feelings by walking to the open window and jumping out of it.”

Santos says that with social mores changing and passive aggressive behavior on the rise, they have noticed a widespread decline in courtship behavior, recognizable by such signs as winking, smiling, casual touches, and “proteans” another word for such physiologic signs as a woman touching her hair. For men, protean behavior is often seen when they dangle out of trees, do back flips in front of a girl, or beat up an inferior male specimen.

Sadly, Santos predicts, all of these behaviors are disappearing.

With such drastic rates of decline in flirting, Santos predicts that humanity will cease to exist sometime in the 50th Century, “unless we are hit by a meteor first.” When told that colleague Susan Jenkins was inquiring after him and asked whether he would like to get together with her, Santos said, “Well, I’d like to. But whenever I express interest in a woman by making the first move it just gives her all the power. Who needs that?”

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(Originally posted Wednesday, July 23, 2008 )

After nearly 13 years of hiding, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, a fugitive from justice after being indicted for war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovnia in 1995, was apprehended by Serbian authorities on July 21. For much of his time underground, Mr. Karadzic assumed a variety of disguises that allowed him to wander freely in Belgrade. When he was caught, he was known as Dragan Dabic, a long-haired practitioner of alternative medicine who gave lectures at community centers and was very interested in beefing up his Web page.

What other people has Dr. Karadzic pretended to be while underground?

–*Ljuba Dabic, a communist sanitation worker who was enamored of the functionalist architectural aesthetic of Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson and who liked to woo women by playing them “Stairway to Heaven.”

–*Milovan Ljajic, an oncologist with a history of impotence problems and a love of the film “When Harry Met Sally.”

–*Vuk Vukcevic, organist with the philharmonic who has a slight proclivity toward the atonal serial music of Arnold Schoenberg and who had carefully cultivated a legend in Belgrade social circles of having an enormous dick.

–*Rudjer Mladic, a post-op transsexual who has not hidden his desire to be the first Bosnian-Serb nationalist male to carry a child. He likes gardening and staring into his Victorian reflecting ball.

–*Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, the Grand Duchess of Russia

–*Nelson Judd, a country and western singer from Frankfort, Kentucky who sings unabashadly of his love of America and freedom in the song, “This Conflict.” He may have been married to actress Renee Zellweger.

–*Blaze Starr, a retired American stripper and owner of Baltimore’s “Two O’Clock Club.”

–*Anders Bendtsen, a Danish base-jumper who likes to take a lot of acid and jump off outcroppings.

–*Mysterious Icelandic rock band Sigur Ros

–*Bald, fat psychedlic rock recluse Syd Barrett

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(Originally posted Monday, July 21, 2008 )

Hey males! Have you ever found yourself having a fight with your girlfriend or wife and unable to deal with her coy, stubborn, wily female obstinacy? Well we here at the Harvey Keitel-Marlon Brando-Mickey Rourke School of Couples Therapy have come up with all sorts of gambits for you to handle it the next time you are feeling emasculated by your spouse at the grocery store, the park, a bowling alley or at a children’s birthday party.

Before we begin, just fill out this questionnaire and soon you will be able to find a cool, masculine way to show your validity, empathy, and sensitivity — and more important, to comfortably assert yourself in a way that will make her beg for your manly scent.

Just answer these questions, and find out if the school is right for you:

Question 1

When your wife argues that you have not cleaned the kitchen in months, what do you do?

a) Look at the floor and be mumbly and non-committal.
b) Whine and continue to watch TV.
c) Wiggle your eyebrow up and down, slowly, as if you are about to explode in an act of unspeakable violence, then take a big drink of water and whisper: “Are you talking to me?”

Question 2

Your girlfriend wants you to spend some time talking about her day, but you want to watch football. What do you do?

a) Go in the bathroom and shut the door and stay in there for an hour.
b) Indulge her but think about something else while she talks.
c) Slowly crush open a hard boiled egg. When the shell has fallen off, hold the egg up and ask her if she knows it’s a symbol of the soul. Then put the entire egg in your mouth and eat it.

Question 3

Your wife wants to go to Paris and you want to go to Miami for the big game. What do you do?

a) Compromise and agree to go to Paris if she will go to a few home games with you.
b) Tell her you can take separate vacations as a way to both assert your individuality and your separateness.
c) Roll your tongue around, strip naked, lay your genitals on the hardwood floor and say “We’re only going to talk monkey talk now. Ooo ooo ooo! Ah ah ah!”

Question 4

Your wife wants to save 15% of your incomes to put in a 401k and you want a plasma TV. When she folds her arms and says you’re crazy, what do you do?

a) Start siphoning money out of the account secretly.
b) Give her the money and content yourself with Internet porn.
c) Read her an improvised poem you wrote about making love to a moose in the wilderness and then killing it and eating it.

Question 5

Your girlfriend wants you to meet her parents but you don’t think you’d like them. What do you do?

a) Go ahead and meet them and acknowledge this as an important new step in the development of your relationship.
b) Tell her that even though you hope to take that step in the future, you feel the relationship is still young and it is too soon to introduce the dynamics of outsiders.
c) Take take a rose off the kitchen table and start eating it.

Question 6

Your girlfriend thinks that you’re not interested in her friends. What do you do?

a) Let her know that you two must be allowed to be separate people, too, as well as a couple, so that you can assert your own identities.
b) Go along with her friends and try to brush it off when they tell emasculating jokes.
c) Writhe around like a giant spastic colon.

Question 7

Your wife is mad that you grabbed the remote and seemed to have broken something on the television. What do you do?

a) Let her know it wasn’t intentional and that she should not project her anger onto you.
b) Tell her that you are glad the TV is off so now you will be able to relate more to each other.
c) Ejaculate in Nicole Kidman’s hair.

Question 8

Your girlfriend wants to move in, but you’re not sure. What do you do?

a) Tell her that it’s fine by you, because you’re willing to take a chance on love.
b) Tell her that most people who live together unmarried first often get a divorce later because the tentativeness with which you approached the relationship created commitment problems later.
c) Run your hands over the uncooked pot roast and say “Look how they messed up my boy.”

Question 9

Your wife says you are aloof and hard to get to know. What do you do?

a) Tell her that you will try to be more open because her love is worth it.
b) Explain to her that men learn very early to hide their feelings, since most of their earliest impulses in childhood development, such as sexual drive and territoriality, are shunned during social conditioning.
c) Drink an entire bottle of wine, play bongos and ask her to put a stick of butter up your ass.

Question 10

Your wife says she wants a baby and you are unsure. What do you do?

a) Tell her that having a child is a great responsibility and you want to make sure you are mature enough to handle it before tackling it.
b) Let her have the baby and then blame the child later for not accomplishing everything you wanted to do in life.
c) Let out a belch and say “When I made love to the rook, it was already dead.”

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(Originally posted Sunday, July 20, 2008 )

Dear Playboy Adviser:

Who doesn’t love bee hived British jazz chanteuse and troubled torch singer Amy Winehouse? The woman is the Billie Holiday of our time. She’s sings with a sense of timeless romanticism, of aching loss, of soul crushing despair. I love Amy because she sings music for dark nights of the soul.

And who wouldn’t want to have a dark night of the soul — out on the town, that is–with a lady of such rare refinement and grace? Oh sure, you say, Amy is married, and that dreaming of a date with her is a little far-fetched. Yet, I often like to imagine, late at night, that under different circumstances, she and I were not star-crossed lovers under the same moon, but real soul mates not yet united in space. If she were to grant me just one date, this is how I imagine it would go:

First, I would pick her up in her East London pied-a-terre in Mayfair, where her large black bodyguard would frisk me down and destroy my camera. Then he would tell me to hang back because Amy is just finishing up with some business upstairs. I’ve brought her a bottle of Frixinet, a Spanish wine; the bodyguard instantly takes it away from me, smashes open the bottle and pours it out, then hands me the remainder. “Amy doesn’t drink,” he says.

When she finally comes down she’s dressed in fishnet and tulle painted black, her trademark beehive spun up vertiginously high over her head like a trailing tornado.

“Don’t bo’er with me. I’m a right sket. Real mankies inside, kn’wha-a-mean?”

“No, I don’t, but I love the way you say it. Heh heh.”

“Who’re you ‘gain, luv?”

“Why, I’m your date, Ms. Winehouse. Or may I call you ‘Amy?'”

“Wass that you brought?”

“Well, it was Frixinet, but your bodyguard threw it out.”

“Thas Raoul. Dodgy mac. Gone stark bollocks mad, has ‘ee?”

This is when Amy throws up the first time. I must tell you, Playboy Advisor, that not only am I a dreamy man with an aching sense of romanticism myself, but I am a tolerant and patient man, who understands a person’s hurts and driving desires. Oh yes, Playboy Advisor, Amy hurts. That’s why her emesis goes by unnoticed and unjudged by yours truly.

Raoul gives me a note.

“Read this if something goes wrong,” he says. Then he leaves.

We drink some seltzer, but soon enough I realize it’s spiked with Scotch. She spends quite a bit of time playing with her beehive and occasionally cuts little slices into her forearm with a plastic knife.

“So, Amy, what are your interests?” I ask, a little playfully pushing around my fork, trying to be coy.

“Scuba doyvin’. Smokin’ crack.”

“You like nature, huh? Much like your romantic forebears, Byron and Keats.”

“Dose bligh’ters ‘re dead, ain’t dey?”

“Well, I like to think their poetry made them immortal.”

“Think I’m gonna frow up again.”

From there we move to her limo. I have to carry her half the way there, as she fainted on the stairs. She lifts her head momentarily to utter softly in my ear, “Right, you dodgy mac, keep your blodgy fingers off my Bristols or I’ll four-square you in the li’l knackers. Say, why don’t you cadge me a cig and some Britneys from that bar cross the way. Be a love.”

I run my hand softly over Amy’s hair. She has now more than ever struck a chord of affection in my heart, a woman who is beautiful and ruined. A perfect mix of Billie Holiday, of Saraghina from Fellini’s classic film “8 ½,” and Mary Poppins.

I kiss her on the forehead.

“I hope you don’t mind me doing that, Amy.”

“Do’in wha?”

She starts shaking a little as I carry her up the stairs to a fancy bistro in London’s West End. The paparazzi is there in full force, taking lots of pictures as I, swoony as can be, pull Amy up the red carpet by her belt and elbow and finally by her hair.

“Dear Amy, don’t you know when you mix Doriden and Codeine, your body converts it into morphine?”

“Well I ‘ope so. Das why I took ’em.”

A bright white froth is coming up out of her mouth.

“Oh you sweet, beautiful child! Please wake up. I love you so much, you saucy minx, and yet I’m so afraid you’re going to stop breathing.”

Amy is now a right mess after taking the “doors and fours,” and I’m worried that we’re not going to be able to make it to the mahi-mahi. The waiters part like the Red Sea as Amy and I make for a table in the back. Amy puts on sunglasses and lights a cigarette after a few waiters and I get her behind the table. The restaurant has high ceilings, solid teak-wood tables and shoji screens, and we are able to cook our own Kobe beef on braziers sunk into the table.

“Isn’t this a beautiful place,” I ask Amy, but unfortunately, the grill is smoking off her false eyelashes, one of which gets cooked into the asparagus and chicken skewer. Amy is embarrassed, picks it up and sticks it back on her eye.

“Do I look a’right?” she asks.

“Amy,” I say, “There is nothing that could replace the beauty of this experience. This night is what we make it, you and I, and the only limit is our imagination.”

“Watch this,” she says. Then she takes her cigarette and snubs it out in her palm. “You like tha t? I din’t feewl nuffing.”

“Amy,” I titter. “You’re bad.”

“My dad’s a mean old sod. Says I got emphysemar from smokin’ cigarettes and doin’ eight-balls.”

“Oh, Amy, my dad’s the same really. Only he said youth is wasted on the young.”

“What a tosser. If I were you, I wouln’ give him anymore of your royalty money.”

“Exactly.” Oh how cute. She thinks we all get royalty checks. My girl is so funny sometimes.

Our dinner comes late, and Amy asks me to cook the beef for her, since she’s too tired to lift her arms. Easy enough to do, because taking care of Amy isn’t just a simple pleasure for me, but a passion. How could a man not help the woman who sang “Back To Black” with aching lyricism; who ripped through “Love Is A Losing Game” like someone who knew the pain first hand; who sang “Wake Up Alone,” as one unafraid to be an exhibitionist and show her perfect pain, because it was simply her humanity on display. “Of course I’ll cook your one-minute beef strip for you, Amy.”

“You know,” I say later, “I think it was Kierkegaard said that faith is more important than reason. That’s why I really got where you were coming from when you sang ‘Rehab.’ It was really about the Sisyphean experience we all share-the moral imperative to go to hell in our own way and justify our own burden.”

She retched in her purse. Quickly, I grabbed her hair and held it back. It was awesome, Playboy Advisor. Soon, when we were in a moment of soft touch, there was a moment of understanding that only fingers can know, when only a sigh can say its name. I was struck, as I was cleaning the yellow sick off her face, how much love one can feel in the deepest depths of emotional drama. I do not think I could love any other way but dramatically, Playboy Advisor. And in fact, I do not think I could love this way ever again, since the first knowing of it is what so greatly heightens its …

I have to stop, because Amy has gone into seizure. I’m not sure if it’s the alcohol, the crack or the bodily converted stomach morphine. Or maybe she’s epileptic, I’m not sure. I reach around for the note from Raoul. It says don’t let her touch the sake. She is wiggling with her eyes back of her head and the first appearance of cyanosis is making her glow in the dark a little bit.

“Hey!” I scream. “Can somebody help me! It’s Grammy winner Amy Winehouse! And she’s in trouble!”

No one is around who can help, and thankfully I have prepared for my date with some rudimentary CPR training, which was only pragmatic, I must say. The beautiful sigh of her voice that mere minutes ago bespoke pained bluesy passion has momentarily stopped, most likely because of a respiratory system shut down due to a mix of heroin, alcohol and benzodiazepines. I listen close to see if she is breathing at least 12 breaths a minute, and put a spoon up to her mouth, hoping for a bit of that same tormented air from those pipes that so beautifully rendered “You Know I’m No Good” into one of the most heartbreaking acts of contrition ever to cut vinyl. I’m thinking of this as I rub hard on her breast bone and upper lip. And finally, I do what I must, Playboy Advisor, I bring my lips down hard on hers and wish to God that the blush of blood on her lips could be the nectar that breathes life back into this phoenix before she leaves us too soon.

I again look at Raoul’s note, which has a picture of Amy in the recovery position on her stomach, head turned to side with airways unblocked so that she can get plenty of oxygen. I give her a few more “rescue breaths” and then turn her over, but that’s when Raoul arrives, knocking me out of the way, and giving Amy a blast up the nose with a special spray that blocks brain receptors for heroin. Amy wakes up and asks if she ate all the beef or if there was any left.

Later, as we’re walking home, Raoul’s giant hand placed firmly on her shoulder, I ask Amy if she had a good time, and if she thinks I might be boyfriend material. She comes closer to me.

“Are you my ‘usband? I’d say anythin’ right now t’ya dearie. I don’t even know where I am.”

With that she turns and goes up the stairs into her apartment. And I, Playboy Advisor, am not bitter at all. Amy lives in a world we don’t understand. And for me to share it with her for even two hours makes me feel an excitement … makes me feel it will be hard to reach such great heights of drama and passion again. I’ve been told that such profound heartbreak is only the province of the silly young. But I ask you to remember when you were young and had a heart.

To hold Amy Winehouse, but not to have her, that is the greatest ache and the greatest love of all. And I sing to myself, “He can only hold her. He can only hold her …”

Oh my God, she puked in my jeans pocket. How does somebody do that?

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