The World Needs A Stronger Blog...: 5/1/07

21 June 2007

By Popular Demand: More Joey Porsche®

We Back: Jesca Hoop

From Stereogum: A couple of things worth noting about Jesca Hoop: That dude Stewart Copeland bangs his drums on one track, she'll be opening some dates for the Polyphonic Spree, she's got a slightly left-of-center take on hummable pop, and she took care of Tom Waits's kids. Bloggable by any stretch, that.

During her stint as the Waits clan's nanny, she converted Tom into a fan, getting him to say (we assume under extreme duress and/or at gunpoint), "Jesca Hoop's music is like a four-sided coin. She is an old soul, like a black pearl, a good witch or a red moon. Her music is like going swimming in a lake at night."

Waits passed her demos on to Nic Harcourt (the starmaker from KCRW) who spun 'em incessantly, and now she's hanging with The Police and touring the country with DeLaughter's newly-black-clad cult. Kismet's as good a name for her debut as any. And hey, her tunes ain't bad, either! "Intellgentactile" (which isn't a word) is perfect for the Triple-A set with enough quirks to keep it fresh, and enough charm in Jesca's vox to sound like a four-sided coin (OK we have no idea what that means either, but Tom said it so it's gotta be true).

Listen: Jesca Hoop - "Intelligentactile 101" (MP3)

15-Year-Old Boy Performs Surgery in India

The 15-year-old son of two doctors successfully performed a filmed Caesarean section birth under his parents' watch in southern India in an apparent attempt to set a record as the youngest surgeon. Instead, the boy's father could be stripped of his licenses and may face criminal charges. Nice one, pop.

What's Eating Bridget Jones??

I'm glad someone else finally noticed this ish!!

Actress Renee Zellweger is wasting away and has been for quite some time... For a while I thought Renee had died and they'd replaced her with some doppelgänger.

Her apparent obsession with being part of the size 0 club, along with fellow actress, Sex in the City star Sarah Jessica Parker, has seen her lose all her good times. What happened to the curvy and voluptuous Renee in Bridget Jones?!?

The evolution of Zellweger's barcode silhouette is reported to be a result of daily 2-hour workouts and 12-mile hikes in the Hollywood Hills. F that noise.

WHERE'S THE BEEF ??

Zellweger's painfully thin look is a dramatic about-turn for the star who famously had to gain two stone for role in Bridget Jone's Diary and the 2004 sequel The Edge of Reason.

In fact, at the time she'd said: "One donut does not do a thing. You've got to eat 20 a day for at least five weeks to get results." HOLLA! Now that's my girl !

This is London talks more about it.

God, this dude must think he's the nazz

You just know this hack thought he was so f@cking sublime. I bet he thought he'd have to beat all the Mensa chicks off with a cattleprod after getting this sick tat. It screams: "I love to read which I know is normally nerdy but I'm a f#cking wild man because I got a tattoo which is not just the mark of a true rebel but boldly declares to the world just how much I love to read!". Sorry, bro... ain't gonna happen. You're gonna have to learn how to play guitar too, maybe get a motorcycle or a cool car, a decent job and get that ish covered up with a dragon killing a shark or something. But, hey, you gotta start somewhere, right? Check back with us soon!

To celebrate their new office building, The Times takes a quick stroll down memory lane.

Long Island Dognapping Biz Busted

A couple discovered their missing dog for sale on a website which led police to a Medford, Long Island home where more than 50 dogs were living in deplorable conditions.

Police said the so-called rescuers were scammers running an illegal dognapping operation. Some of the dogs had tags and collars and some even have computer tracking chips in them.

The cops arrested 3 people who claimed they were animal rescuers and had 54 dogs in a 700 square-foot home. They ran an agency/website called "Lucky Fund". This fly-by-night operation was stealing dogs from their rightful owners and selling them online for profit. Read the full story here.

Holy bias in journalism, Batman! Are the inmates running the asylum?

Who the F can you trust to deliver the news unbiased and plain, sans slant or agenda?

Can we even trust the self-acclaimed transparency seekers and I.A.D.-esque journalists who act as the whistle blowers? Are they even free from vendettas and agendas?

MSNBC checked the Federal Election Commission records from January 2004 through the first quarter of 2007 and attempted to contact each journalist... but can we trust MSNBC to be guileless and impartial?

MSNBC's Bill "dispassionate and neutral" Dedman compiled a list of 144 journalists who made campaign contributions.

MSNBC limited its search to:

Federal candidates, PACs and parties, not state or local campaigns.
Donors in news jobs, not corporate executives or publishers, who are allowed by nearly every news organization to donate.
Not on the list are more than 20 who bought tickets to the "Vote for Change" concerts put on by Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam and others in 2004 to raise money to defeat President Bush. Unless those donors made other contributions, they get the benefit of the doubt that their intention was solely to hear the music. An MSNBC producer for The Today Show is in that group and in the interest of transparency is included on the list. Hmmmm.

(Here is the list.)

Businessman Rampage In Hotel Lobby

This is ~~most likely~~ totally fake but still I find it quite amusing.

Businessman Rampage In Hotel Lobby - Watch more free videos

Gawker is designing a new shirt and they want your help. Some of the proposed slogans actually made me chortle. Submit your own or vote on the ones already there.
Researchers at Purdue University released a simulation of a plane crashing into World Trade Center, which shows that fireproofing material was stripped from the building as the planes crashed into them. You can see a video here researchers used Google Earth to provide city context and it's pretty disturbing.
In what may be the first crack in bloggerazzi douchenozzle Perez Hilton's pirated empire, his main webhost has dropped Perezhilton.com. After many warnings against Hilton's a.k.a. Mario Lavandeira's use of copyrighted celebrity images, the Oz-based webhost co. Crucial Paradigm took his site off line; it was dark for a number of hours yesterday before it returned to the interwebnetscapesphere with a different host. Hilton is currently named in 4 lawsuits involving 8 photo agencies for his alleged theft of photographs that appear on his site. Read more from Variety.
Yo that sh*t ain't landin' today, son... Space shuttle Atlantis skipped its landing opportunities today because of showers and clouds at Kennedy Space Center. The shuttle has 5 more landing opportunities over the next 3 days. Oh boy, here we go.
For those of you who follow NY radio out there and are familiar with Opie & Anthony, the deconstruction of FreeFM and the flip back to K-Rock, here's an email John Mainelli (ex-NY Post writer/FreeFM program director) sent to Opie (in confidence), posthumously critiquing a few things about the show. Read it here.
From Drivl: An Idiot's Guide to Presidential Primaries
Jimmy Kimmel had an emergency appendectomy last night. He's doing OK now.

I just took a drug test

I just got back from my first drug test in many moons. I had to write down everything I'd eaten and any drugs I'd taken in the past 12 hours... haha... Nurse, I think I'm gonna need some more paper...

Coincidentally, I'd done some celebrating last night so the manifest of what I'd put into my system over the past 12 hours read like an autopsy of a drunken sailor on a one night furlough, a suicidal socialite or a bipolar author on a cry-for-help binge - only because, as you'll learn, I end my hedonistic night of Asti, ice cream and sausage with some vitamins. Oh, how utterly 90's of me!

Filling out their form detailing what was in my system, I sort of felt like Richard Dreyfuss making a list of what he'd found in Jaws' belly, except I hadn't eaten any license plates or surfboards.

There was lots and lots of coffee, some Häagen-Dazs, some faux-sausage and peppers (the peppers were real), there was a bottle of Asti... Oh, and I also had to write down all the drugs and vitamins I take or have taken which was a litany of paranoia: multivitamins, detox-oxygen pills, herbal remedies, green tea capsules and of course, psychotropics.

There was enough good times in my gut to throw a decent party or at least a few good chapters of a Bret Easton Ellis novel, and I wouldn't wish to live my life any other way.

Before I left I asked, "What do I do now? Just hope I don't hear from you?" and the nurse smiled and replied, "Yes" to which I said "OK then, talk to you soon!" but she didn't get it.

Peace out.

How To Design The Perfect Nap a.k.a. How To Sleep Like A Wolf

So I was reading a Farley Mowat book recently where he lived with wolves in the Arctic and had to adapt to their habits in order to co-exist; this included Farley adjusting to their insane sleep habits which took him quite some time to figure out. It seemed to him as if the wolves were always awake but somehow never tired. Eventually he'd realise the wolves never actually stretched out, turned out their little glow-in-the-dark night-light and went to sleep, they actually caught a bunch of short naps throughout the day and that's all they needed.

Which brings us to the concept of polyphasic sleep also known as Uberman's Sleep Schedule where instead of sleeping straight through the night in a big chunk of hours, polyphasic sleep spreads out the long night sleep into short naps of 20-40 minutes throughout the day.

The Uberman sleep schedule is a method of organising your sleeping time to maximise your REM sleep and minimise your non-REM sleep. The goal of the sleep cycle is that you are actively in REM sleep within a couple of minutes of falling asleep and remain in that state until you awaken.

There are praises and criticism on this sleep pattern but little scientific research behind this, probably because them scientists always be sleepin'.

Read more about your boy Uberman's sleep schedule.

A related article on How To Design The Perfect Nap.

Goodnight.

Video interview a dying 9/11 first responder

Mike Ryan, a former detective and first responder on 9/11 discusses his experiences after the attack, the toxic dust that engulfed New York, surveys his own medical treatment and the similar conditions amongst thousands of other first responders.

Watch the video here

I woke this morning to 1010 WINS' John Montone giving an exclusive report from... Bay Ridge?! I guess a "masked man" attacked an off-duty cop last night. Police said the intruder broke into her apartment on 69th Street (near Bliss Terrace) around 7:30 p.m. and raped her at knife point. The officer managed to escape and made her way to Lutheran Hosptial were she was treated and released. Teams of officers combed Bay Ridge last night looking for the attacker, who is described only as a white man, on foot, with dogs and up in helicopters. Hmmm. I'm going to refrain from commenting at this time but I don't... well, I smell a rat. I would like to give a warm welcome to all the NY TV press swarming 69th street off Colonial Road this morning. Welcome Lads! We had Good Day New York there, CBS-2 stopped by and I spied NY1's Gary Anthony Ramsay looking up and down Bay Ridge Ave très confused. I guess NBC-4 was having trouble finding parking.
My boy Sammy Sosa joins a very elite club hitting his 600th homerun last night! I've always loved this guy.
Wes Craven, director of "A Nightmare on Elm Street", is suing his neighbour Pauly "Chillin' with the.................wea-sel" Shore. I guess water from Pauly Shore's crib is seeping down creating a virtual landslide into Wes' humble abode. Oh, the rich and their landslides.
The other day we reported on a dude from Sweden who was receiving checks from Uncle Sven because his obsession with heavy metal had been declared a medical condition. Well now we're hearing the American Medical Association will soon vote on whether an "internet/video-game addiction" can be considered a medical condition. Read more.
Global warming: truth or propaganda? Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, argues in the Financial Times that ambitious environmentalism is the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity. Mr. Klaus writes that “global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem” and the issue “is more about social than natural sciences and more about man and his freedom than about tenths of a degree Celsius changes in average global temperature.” Preach on my brother, preach on.
OK, so now that we've decided global warming hasn't been a threat since 1998, now let's all join hands and panic for......... GLOBAL COOLING!! Agghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
OH, NOW WE GOT BEEF... Ralph Nader says he is seriously considering running for president in 2008 because he foresees another "Tweedledum-Tweedledee election" that offers little real choice to voters. He also said Hillary is a "political coward". FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
From Curbed: A new chapter has been written in the tale of Coney Island's redevelopment—the epic saga of our times not involving Frank Gehry. Up until now, everyone has been operating under the assumption that this summer would be the last for Astroland as we know it. Not so fast! After teasing us by hinting at an 11th-hour deal that would keep the amusement park around a bit longer, the Post drops the knowledge that Astroland will be in operation next summer as well. Holla! I guess?
Starting next month the The Times will cost you $1.25. Or you could just by five New York Posts.

Crime Scene from Atlanta

Hahahaha I think these guys just upped the ante for tough guy bands and their videos. Unreal.

Ladies and gents... Introducing... Joey Porsche

My good friend Matt schooled me to world of Joey Porsche.

Y'all aren't ready for Joey Porsche so I'm gonna give it to you slow... bit by bit... ease you into it. We're gonna make Joey a star.

Here's the first installment. Enjoy!

Vases in Volkswagens: Uncorking the Mystery

Well, apparently it isn't that much of a mystery at all, it's just a corny Beetle accessory from way back and I'm easily intrigued.

A friend of mine has a classic restored Beetle and he's got the flower vase in there, that's where I first noticed it... then I started noticing them everywhere I looked on the new VW Bugs. I thought maybe it was some shiny happy people cult so I rained on their parade by writing an article about how Hitler basically invented the Beetle.

A simple Google search clued me in real fast. It's not a cult, though it might be, and it's not some sort of secret symbolism, though it could be, it's simply an offered interior accessory; the dash-mounted flower vase...

Though apparently it IS a throwback thing... "the flower vase, a nostalgic accessory from the Beetle era" is how one site puts it... while another describes it as a "quirky delight"... Geez, I guess VW owners are easy to please.

Another website rhetorically asks, "Really, how many automobiles come with an integrated dashboard flower vase?" Well, none, but who the F wants that anyway? "It is equipped with the flower vase so the car becomes a more pleasant place" hahahaha this is just silly now. People are absolutely bonkers for this dashboard vase, sorry, this integrated dashboard flower vase.

"VW Beetle's signature flower vase next to the steering wheel..."

"Replacement bud vases are available in three colors to hold your favorite flower..."

"...quality in a more light-hearted and fun package and ... In case you hadn't heard, Beetles are fitted with a dash-mounted flower vase"

Yes, we've heard, we've heard; we've alllll heard it. OK?

I'll keep my flowers and my vases in my apartment. I like to be able to distinctly differentiate betwixt my house and my car and putting a vase on my dashboard with some lilies in there just won't happen; not on my watch hahaha.

What's next the new 2008 Chevy Malibu with a working fireplace and hand-painted wall sconces?! Or how about the new 2008 Ford Focus with exposed brick and an EIK?

Either way, I don't think der Führer would've been too into all this happiness and lighthearted glee being associated with his Opus magnum.

Man in Texas bursts into flames after being shot by taser

OK, so I've seen this headline for a few days now and it just didn't interest me enough to share with you. Finally, I was bored enough to click on it... and here's the deal:

Police in Texas are investigating the fiery death of a man who burst into flames after dousing himself in petrol and then being shot with a taser gun.

Officers used the gun after the man had poured gasoline over himself.

Hmmmm. What exactly are the boys investigating? Sounds like an open and shut case to me, fellas.

"We don't know what ignited the fire," police said.

Hahahaha you don't know what ignited the fire!??!?!!!

The dude poured gasoline over his head and then you blasted him with a 50,000-volt electrical charge. Yes, I would assume he would then go up in flames. I think we can call off the investigation. Tell the forensic plumbers and caterers they can also go home.

There is no charge for my services, please, don't insult me... it's a labour of love.

Why, at this point, you would still want to read the full story is beyond me, but who am I to deny you that right? Click here

The Times Is A Changin'

Have you ever tried reading The Times on the subway, in an express bus seat or even lounging on your Poltrona Frau sofa? Yeah, me neither. It's like wrestling a goddamn octopus and I don't have a Poltrona Frau.

Well say goodbye to the days of cephalopod-wraslin' because August 6 The Times will be downsized.

In production jargon, The Times will be moving from a 54-inch web -- the width of 4 pages -- to a 48-inch web. That means pages will be 1 1/2 inches narrower than the current size. Maybe it'll be more like The Observer then? The Wall Street Journal moved to a 48-inch web back in January. So go look at todays ish of the WSJ and that's how big the new Times will be.

Downsizing the paper will obviously entail a massive redesign and revamping of the paper, they can't simply just shrink everything, so it'll be interesting to see how it turns out.

Here, go read a memo from New York Times executive editor Bill Keller discussing the shrinkage. And see what Gawker is saying. They always have their nose nestled in The Times' bunghole.

Hitler and the Volkswagen: An Exclusive

I wanted to do a story on why everyone who has a Beetle/Bug often puts a flower in a vase on the dash. Is there a special spot to hold the vase? I don't get it. What's the origin of this tradition? I've seen enough times to suspect something is up that I'm not privy to; and something being up that I'm not aware of is just no good.

So had I done a story on people putting flowers in vases in their VW's, that would be where it would've ended.

Instead I've decided to shed some light on your boy Hitler and a little known fact: Hitler basically invented the VW Bug... on a napkin, at a table in a Munich cafe in the summer of 1932. Not unlike Spinal Tap concocted the elaborate props for their Stonehenge stage set on napkins at that diner.

Sitting at a restaurant table in Munich in the summer of 1932, Hitler designed (read: sketched on a napkin) the prototype for what would become the immensely successful Beetle design for Volkswagen (from German literally, the "car of the people").

In an era where only the most economic elite possessed cars, Hitler believed that all people should be able to own a car and additionally thought that a smart design could allow for reliability, enjoyment, and vacation travel.

Hitler gave his design to the head of Daimler-Benz, Jakob Werlin, and stressed its importance. "Take it with you and speak with people who understand more about it than I do. But don't forget it.
I want to hear from you soon, about the technical details."

Later Hitler would meet with automotive designer Ferdinand Porsche in 1933 and charge Porsche with creating the new car. Adolf required that the Volkswagen carry 2 adults and 3 children, go up to 60 miles per hour, get at least 33 miles per gallon, and cost only 1,000 reichsmarks. Hitler may also have named the car the Beetle.

In 1938, Hitler had the KdF Wagen factory built to produce the cars designed by Porsche. The name Kraft durch Freude or the KdF-Wagen, literally meant "strength through joy - car".

But by the time the factory was complete, Hitler was busy invading Czechoslovakia and Poland. The factory was dedicated to building military vehicles, and the people's car fell by the wayside during World War II.

After the war, the factory ended up in the British section of occupied Germany. The British military re-opened the factory, renamed it Volkswagen, and finally gave control of the company to the German government.

After 1948, Volkswagen introduced new models across Europe. By 1955, over 1 million cars had been built. The VW beetle started selling in the U.S., and in 1972 the people's car overtook the Ford Model T to become the most popular car ever made.

Here's some more links on the topic. I can't speak for or assume the personal political beliefs of the authors of some of these articles, but they do discuss the topic at hand. Enjoy... what is a somewhat intriguing fun fact the next time you wanna bum out your fun lovin' flower vase on the dash friend with the VW.

Power Rangers Mob Swarms Japanese Man

Power Rangers Mob Swarms Japanese Man - Watch more free videos

Tiffany & Company, which got its start in lower Manhattan 170 years ago, is going back home. They're opening a Wall Street store in October and will join several other luxury shops opening new stores in the reborn financial district. Tiffany held a news conference at its flagship Fifth Avenue store today to announce $3 million in grants to 3 groups that work to preserve and restore the environment in downtown Manhattan. BMW and Hermes, which is opening a store near the New York Stock Exchange this week, say they want to take part in the post-September 11 renewal of lower Manhattan. According to a survey released this month by the Alliance for Downtown New York, the growth in residential development since September 11 has added 17,800 residents to the area below Chambers Street, and the median annual household income in the neighborhood is a hefty $242,000. Tiffany, which moved to its Fifth Avenue store in midtown in 1940, was founded on lower Broadway in 1837.
In other news, porn princess Jenna Jameson traded in her Bentley for one of these; a $360,000 Rollys Royce Phantom. Holla.

Japan Changes Name of Iwo Jima to Iwo Jima

Japan has changed the name of the Pacific island of Iwo Jima, site of the famous World War II battle immortalised by the legendary photograph by Joe Rosenthal of The Associated Press of U.S. Marines raising the American flag on the islet's Mount Suribachi.

The new name in Japanese looks and means the same as Iwo Jima - or Sulfur Island - but sounds different, said a dude at the Japanese Geographical Survey Institute... The what?!

Wait, it gets even weirder... Believe it or not, Clint Eastwood is the main reason why Japan decided to change the name of the famous island.

Still confused? Yeah, me too. Click here.

Bloomberg is the tops

I really hate politics and talking about politics so I'll try to be as simple as I can with all of this ish. Y'know me and Bloomberg have a very tumultuous thing going, it's a love/hate thing. Today, I love him. I think Bloomberg deciding to donate his 6-year-old Republican peacoat for an unaffiliated one is great. It speaks volumes. It may F things up down the line if he (and we know he's gonna) does finally decide to run for prez (the same way Nader always F's things up) but for 2007 unaffiliated is the only way to go; I've always felt that's where the truth lies; somewhere betwixt Michael Savage and Michael Moore; somewhere between John McCain and JFK; take some from this side and some from that side, take it all with a life-sized grain of salt and that's where you'll find the absolute troofs. Nothing is ever going to truly change if politicians are just playing games adhering to an ideology because they have to. Just as I remarked at dinner with mum last night, politics are just like sports; something for people to follow; something for people to believe in and argue about and be passionate about; right now, its really not much more than that. However, if all these bloated bastards would FINALLY shed their stubborn allegiances and let their real ambitions and ideas shine no matter what, maybe THEN we'd see some light in this here world. And sure enough, it takes a businessman and NOT a politician, it takes a man with money on his mind to make some sense. Isn't it time to stop giving an F about labels and parties and sticking to the tradition of some old blowfarts when its 2007 and we've got new modern day problems?

Anyway, here's what my boy had to say:

"I have filed papers with the New York City Board of Elections to change my status as a voter and register as unaffiliated with any political party. Although my plans for the future haven’t changed, I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead our City.

“A nonpartisan approach has worked wonders in New York: we’ve balanced budgets, grown our economy, improved public health, reformed the school system and made the nation’s safest city even safer.

“We have achieved real progress by overcoming the partisanship that too often puts narrow interests above the common good. As a political independent, I will continue to work with those in all political parties to find common ground, to put partisanship aside and to achieve real solutions to the challenges we face.

“Any successful elected executive knows that real results are more important than partisan battles and that good ideas should take precedence over rigid adherence to any particular political ideology. Working together, there’s no limit to what we can do.”

OK so my boy gets a little corny at the last line there but what he's saying is totally right on. Especially the part I put in bold italics which should indicate to you that I think it's totally right on haha

So today Bloomberg is my man again, back on my list and to that I say it look goooood onya!

Through the beauty of hindsight (and considerable help from imdb) NEWS.com.au has compiled a list of movies that might have turned out quite differently had the original stars that were cast for the roles not passed on them. For instance, Bruce Willis turned down the role of Sam Wheat in Ghost, Nick Nolte turned down the role of Indiana Jones, which eventually went to Harrison Ford however Steven Spielberg originally wanted Tom Selleck to play Indy, Producers wanted Edward Norton to play Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, Leonardo Di Caprio was set to star, but had to drop it due to scheduling conflicts and Christian Bale wound up getting the role. Coppola suggested Warren Beatty, Alain Delon and Burt Reynolds to play the role of Michael Corleone which ultimately went to Al Pacino. Bruce Willis made Die Hard his own but not before Richard Gere, Sly Stallone, Burt Reynolds and Arnold Schwarzenegger had all passed on the role. You can read the rest of the list here.
So someone hipped Hillary to do a spoof on the Sopranos finale to tease her super big important announcement that she's decided on a campaign song. This is whats important these days?! So anyway, she picked Celine Dion's "You And I". Yes, Celine is awful but even more awful is that she's Canadian so I'm sure Hill will eventually catch some ish for having a Canadian anthem behind her campaign. Obama should point that out. Holla Obama!
Say it ain't so... Chachi, seen here with pal Jason Hervey a.k.a. Wayne from "The Wonder Years", is now joining the rank ranks of Flava Flav and Bret Michaels on VH1 to search for a soulmate. BARF. The show will follow Baio as he tries to find himself while enduring a mid-life crisis, wondering why he's still single and unable to settle down. Baio has agreed to fully surrender the next 8 weeks of his life to exhaustive introspection with a life coach named "Dr. Ali." Doc Ali will try to get to the core of his problem, and Scott will be forced to revisit some ex-girlfriends and take a vow of celibacy?! Let's make him eat bugs and snakes, too! Oh, by the way, Baio has a GF right now. What's up with that ish?!
I love you, baby. Keep your head up. One.
Elisabeth Hasselbeck did an interview with one of those Access Enterntainment Blowhard whatever-the-F shows and basically told Rosie to suck one the hard way. My girl Hasselbeck said she and Rosie did have a true friendship despite their divergent politics but that Rosie killed it when she talked ish about Hasselbeck on her stupid videoblog. Hasselbeck said she wanted to save what was left of the friendship but decided Rosie was a twazzole and closed the door. Peace, Rosie.
Speaking of Brosie, everyone be talking about her getting the job as the new host of The Price is Right. Shudder to think... Brosie says she'd love to have the gig but thinks CBS wants zany weatherman doofball Dave Price to take the reigns. What a f*cking mess.
We’ve gotten independent confirmation of rumours circulating yesterday that discussions between Fox and Yahoo, where Yahoo would effectively buy MySpace for 25% of the stock in the combined entity, have occured. If the transaction were to happen, that would value MySpace at a cool $12 billion based on the current value of Yahoo. That’s a not bad return on Fox’s initial investment of $580 million in the site which they bought only 2 years ago. And it will certainly signal that other social networks, particularly Facebook, are worth far more than most people currently estimate. Just last year Yahoo only valued Facebook at about $1.5 billion which is chumpc hange when industry analysts are pegging MySpace stock at north of $10 billion. I need a coffee.
Sewage flows down aisles of trans-Atlantic flight... passengers on a Continental Airlines flight had to hold their noses for SEVEN HOURS as sewage overflowed from toilets while they were high over the Atlantic. Roughly two hours into the flight from Amsterdam to Newark, the passengers were told the lavatories were out of commission... then they started overflowing, spewing sewage down the aisles. Wow.
More airline beef: 400 passengers were stranded aboard a Cathay Pacific Airways jet for more than seven hours Tuesday at San Francisco International Airport, adding yet another planeload of angry consumers to a growing industry backlash... meanwhile, another planeload of passengers spend five hours on the runway at LaGuardia.
Nissan studying possibility of launching $3,000-class car in India. I bet it'll look just as good as your Infiniti.

Berlin hotel recreates East Germany communist chic

This just might be the best thing ever. Usually you'll stumble across these places in Eastern Europe, frozen in time and they are always amazing. But this hotel is doing it on purpose and I think I'm gonna need to go back there ASAP.

The four clocks behind the reception desk of Berlin's new budget Ostel Hotel show the hour in Moscow, Berlin, Havana, and Beijing. Time, however, appears to have stopped here sometime before 1989, when communism was still entrenched in all four capitals. Hells yeah! Bad time for the common folk, good time for fashion and interior design. Holla!

The Ostel offers a renewed whiff of life in the former German Democratic Republic, welcoming travelers with portraits of communist leaders adorning the walls. The furnishings — except for mattresses, bed linens, sinks and toilets — are the real thing, dug up by founders Daniel Helbig and Guido Sand from flea markets, friends, family and eBay.

But Helbig made clear it was not about pining for a return to the police-state. "We had the idea of preserving a bit of GDR culture ... but we are not crying for the East German regime," said Helbig, who grew up in East Berlin and experienced its restrictions on freedom of expression and movement first hand.

The Ostel, which opened on May Day — the traditional worker's holiday under communism — represents a broader phenomenon known as Ostalgie, or fascination with life in the former East Germany. Ostalgie, like Ostel, is a play on the German word for east — ost. I never knew there was a word for this communist chic obsession! How cool!

There are rooms that replicate bedrooms from typical East German apartments, from about $50 a night. At the other end of the scale, $12-per-bed Pioneer Camp dorm rooms feature two bunk beds and spartan living conditions evocative of the summer camps of the Free German Youth, the party youth organization. I've definitely stayed in hostels that look just like this.

Check out the hotel's website where you can view all the rooms and read the full article here.

Tuesday PM

Lincoln Center wants you to linger longer... they've made the entire plaza a WiFi hotspot. So after Maazel conducting Mahler's 7th or Swan Lake lets out, you can sit near by the Reflecting Pool and blog it up or update your MySpace with clever Tchaikovsky witticisms.
Ooooh the new North 6th is almost ready, its now the Music Hall of Williamsburg and will open September 4th with Patti Smith and her band.
Amydoll made Mick look fat performing the Temptations ''Ain't Too Proud To Beg" on the last day of the Isle of Wight Festival.
Gawker: No Weddings For New York Homos This Year "While the state assembly may be prepared to vote in gay marriage for New York, the measure has no chance of passing—or even reaching—the state Senate. Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R-Shadydealsburg) announced at a news conference today that "We're not doing gay marriage by Thursday; that's for sure, or this year. We're not going to take a vote; we have too many other issues. We're not going to spend hours debating an issue that, you know, is not going to be of consequence." What could possibly account for such antipathy to what, by now, must be seen as a basic human right? The Times' Danny Hakim may have put his finger on it." And of course Gawker has summarised it because, well, that's what they do, summarise the NY Times...
TMZ.com has obtained a copy of the infamous manuscript by O.J. Simpson where he outlines IF he had killed his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson, HOW it woulda went down. It's quite disturbing and I think seals his fate as a total nut.
The now 44-year-old Poison frotnman Bret Michaels has been tapped to play Flavor Flav on a new VH1 show called "Rock of Love with Bret Michaels". Bret will weed out a bevvy of blondes to find his true love. The show premiers in July. Um... yeah.
Mint Releases More 'Godless' Dollars! HOLLA... New dollar coins featuring John Adams are missing edge inscriptions including "In God We Trust".... Ooooh, its a sign!!

Prepare for the new Internet... "Chinese Style" = Big Fun

Control freaks the world over, including most recently Tony Blair (ew! how very un-Bill Clinton of him!), have called for the introduction of a Chinese style Internet, where the World Wide Web is tightly regulated and free speech stifled on the whim of a government censor. Sweet!

Say goodbye to downloading your favorite music or videos in seconds via high-speed cable or ADSL. There is no high speed broadband Internet in China. Since every website you access has to first pass through a government approved list, even the likes of Yahoo and Google lag and stumble onto your monitor, as if you're using dial-up. And if you don't live in a major city then expect your Internet connectivity to be degraded to a speed slower than dial-up.................read more if you DARE

The Communist Chinese government blocks any website that is mildly critical of the state and that even extends to mainstream foreign news outlets such as the BBC. Under the new format that Blair and others are proposing, the function of the Internet as a forum for political debate, protest and freedom of speech will simply cease to exist.

Say goodbye to video blogging - since popular personal video upload sites are notoriously hard to moderate, they too will disappear. Despite the best efforts of Google to cozy up to Red China, Google Video is blocked.

Say goodbye to e-mail as a reliable form of communication. If the person you're writing to has an account with a mail service that the government doesn't like, the mail is simply returned to you and you're informed that the recipient is an "illegal user".

Keyword logging is also employed to block out individual words - if you include them in the e-mail then you've just wasted your time in writing it because it doesn't get through.

"The Washington Post obtained a list of keywords used by a Chinese blog service provider to flag offensive material. Of 236 items on the list, 18 were obscenities. The rest were related to politics or current affairs," reported the Post in February 2006.

"Most words on this list can be posted on Chinese Web sites, but their presence quietly alerts editors to examine the messages that contain them and possibly take action. In tests, postings that included long sections of the list were allowed to remain on several sites, but quickly removed from others. One site also blocked the computer used to conduct the tests from posting anything else."

Say Goodbye to Hollywood... Billy Joel once sang.

Say goodbye to Googling away to your heart's content. If you input too many sensitive words in one go, as I did with "Bush" and "Taiwan" - google.com ceases to be accessible at all and in some cases your Internet connection is instantly terminated.

My biggest question is, will the gold diggers still be able to play World of Warcraft or will they all be out of a job?

In conclusion, the new Internet will be nothing more than an electronic police state, merely acting as a tool for the authorities to track down and incarcerate dissidents who dare question the government.

Keep in mind I found this article on a website called prisonplanet.com so they might be a bit, well, paranoid and biased. Hahahha

Get out your calculators... According to Newton, the world will end in 2060

Sir Isaac Newton, the English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist, regarded by many as the greatest figure in the history of science; the man who described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which laid the groundwork for classical mechanics; the man who by demonstrating consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and this system, was the first to show that the motion of ALL objects on Earth were governed by the same set of natural laws... believes the end of the world will come in 2060.

Jump to read more..............

To me, Newton was the man because even though my boy was into God and studied the bible and all that ish, Newton was a rationalist who (arguably) inadvertently debunked and dispelled all those extraterrestrial myths with his measurable and mathematical findings and discoveries. His famously analytical mind worked out the laws of gravity and unravelled the motion of the planets without the biblical comic book heroes and suspension of disbelief. Therefore, I put some stock in my man Newt and his theories... even in a 303 year old letter that's spent the past 30 some odd years locked in a library in Israel.

Sir Isaac was precise and when it came to predicting the end of the world, my man was just as precise. He believed the Apocalypse would come in 2060 – exactly 1,260 years after the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire, according to the recently published letter. Luckily for modern scientists in awe of his achievements, Newton based this figure on religion rather than reasoning.

The note reveals a deeply spiritual side to a man more usually regarded as a strict rationalist. Newton, known as the founder of modern physics, secured a royal exemption from ordination in the Church of England – something normally expected of academics in his day – so he would not have to follow its teachings. But he confidently stated in the letter that the Bible proved the world would end in 2060, adding:

"It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner."

Continuing in a decidedly scornful tone, I. Newt calls out all the haters:

"This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."

Read the rest here

Daily News exclusive interview with the cat from the Sopranos finale

From Gothamist: "The Sopranos finale is going to be talked about until the end of time, we've come to grips with that. The open-ended ending wasn't the only mysterious part of the hour long episode, though. In the process of picking apart each and every detail of the final hour, people are now asking: "what about that cat?" Or shall we say, cats...there were three playing that one role of the stray tabby. The Daily News reports that the cat (that was almost whacked by Paulie) "was, in fact, played by three cats - Timmy, Tommy and Terry - 4-year-old identical siblings who were plucked from a California field where they were abandoned as kittens." The trained ferals stole the show, and raised even more questions, as they stared at Christopher's photo. How did the cats take direction?

"In fact, in probably the show's best scene, animal trainer Tasha Zamsky used treats and hand signals, and requested the crew to leave the set, in order to get the kitty to gaze in her direction. To viewers, the cat appears to stare obsessively at Christopher's (Michael Imperioli) photo in the basement of the Bada-Bing. "Cats will stare at something, but if they hear something . . . forget it," Zamsky said..................

And when New Jersey traffic outside Satriale's butcher shop proved too loud and dangerous to shoot the funny scene where the cat's lying next to Paulie's table - Zamsky requested that they fake it with a green screen."

(Aha! I knew that scene looked sorta weird!)

David Chase is keeping his mouth shut about the finale, and any symbolism the cat had in it (Was it Christopher? Adriana? Was it there to symbolize Tony's nine lives?). The Daily News asked animal experts for their take. Amongst the cat conjectures:

"The cat in the episode stared at a photo of Tony's most evil deed - killing someone who loved him. The cat was passing judgment and as such is the poetic presentation of his mother, who often passed judgment, and to her way of thinking, was also killed by Tony."

"Nobody will look at the elephant in the room. In this case, Christopher is the elephant in the room and the cat's their unconscious."

Virgin Mobile's 'You Rule' Ads Declared A Huge Failure

By the time The Times picks up on an urban story, it's usually doomed or dead. Not unlike "Saturday Night Fever" and disco; that movie came out, summarized the era and killed it, all within 2 entertaining hours.

From Gawker: (sic)

"Now that every local blogger (us included) and even The Times has huffed and puffed about the smug, insensitive Virgin Mobile "You Rule" New York neighborhood ads (Murray Hill? No.), it's about time a smug, insensitive ad blogger blustered a bit."

Well, I didn't think they were insensitive, I think New Yorkers should have tougher skin than that, I just thought the ads were cheap and a bit hamfisted. I mean, talking about "baked ziti" in the Staten Island one or tiptoeing around the obvious in the Chelsea ad, it was just so unclever and sort of bargain basement with its lack of subtlety. Whoever designed them certainly thought they had come up with the most clever campaign ever, theres no doubt in my mind, but being smashed over the head with an anvil playing off every single tired stereotype is just so predictable and uninspired. Shame on you NYU grads!

Read on my brother, read on.........................

"Virgin Mobile's campaign—created by a North Carolina ad agency—has managed to piss off people in all five boroughs thanks to copy like this for Staten Island residents:

"Thank you for being our down-to-earth, suburban, predominantly Italian-American cousins. To show our gratitude, we've got something for you. No, not baked ziti--cell phone plans without annual contracts..."

And this, for Bedford Stuyvesant inhabitants:

"Do or Die is more than a moniker. It speaks to the fact that you don't take crap from anyone. Especially newcomers who want to change Bed-Stuy into some sort of yuppie strip mall."

Also, remarkably, an ad in the campaign extolling Upper West Siders and making fun of the Upper East Side was mistakenly placed in UES locations.

So, yes the ads suck. But even if the Tar Heel copywriter had magically stumbled upon the perfect words that made every Gotham resident perfectly happy, the ads would still suck. Why? Replace Virgin Mobile's logo with a Nike, Chase, Bud, Gawker, Trump or T-Mobile logo and, besides a slight copy tweak, nothing would have to be changed. The campaign lacks anything that ties it inexorably to Virgin Mobile—it could be for anybody and about anything. 'You rule! Buy this ___ to rule more.'

I questioned a couple of ad acquaintances who had seen the ads. One remembered them being for Verizon and the other couldn't remember who they were for. If I had the time and if Gawker actually paid me, I think a larger sampling would be just as telling. Nobody remembers the product. "

HilCli Spoofs 'Sopranos' finale in Web Video

The Clintons as The Sopranos

Amy Winelist

Someone got their filthy mitts on Amy's rider for an upcoming gig in Glastonbury. This makes me miss touring a bit. I've gotta dig up our rider from the last time we played Glastonbury.

Amy's backstage rider reads more like a shopping list for her liquor cabinet at home. And if she were smart, that's what she'd be doing anyway. You go, girl ! Make those promoters stock your cellar!

2 bottles of red wine (Spanish preferred)
1 large bottle of vodka
1 bottle of champagne
1 bottle of brandy
1 case of lager (NOT Stella or Carling!)
40 Marlboro Lights
chocolate
3 "good quality" HOT pizzas (the band will refuse them if they are not hot)
Among other things: a warm & well-lit backstage. 2 competent, sober local crew. No sticky wristbands (hahaha) Access to and from the outside without going through the crowd. 40 fluffy towels.

I'm a sucker for a girl with a Marilyn Dot who knows what she wants. It looks gooood onya. Holla.

Amyface will be in NYC on 12 September @ The Central Park Summerstage.

Oooh, bonus pics of Amy and Mick Jagger. 1 & 2

Keep your agenda out of my storage room

Only in NYC... A storage place with an agenda aside from simply renting out dank empty rooms to put your cardboard boxes in: Manhattan Mini Storage.

They've moved on from the wacky...

And on to the pungently pervasive...

Whats next?

A Return to Serenity; São Paulo, Brazil: The City That Said No To Advertising

I was in São Paulo a little over a year ago and before going there I had no idea what to expect; though I assumed it would be all rainforests and tucans and voluptuous mocha skin women drinking from coconuts on desolate beaches; I mean, thats just naturally what Brazil evokes, right? Well, there was all that stuff but you had to drive a few hours to it; the city of São Paulo is actually a metropolis not all that much different than NYC. It's massive. The buildings go on for miles and miles; further than your eyes can see.

São Paulo overwhelms the senses with its sheer size; with just over 11 million inhabitants, it is the world's 3rd largest city and the largest in South America. São Paulo ain't no sleepy tropical beach town, mofo. I was dead wrong. São Paulo is also known for its smog, the sheer size of its helicopter fleet, unreliable weather, and multitude of skyscrapers, holding the 7th position in the skyline ranking.

So now picture this sprawling city, picture Los Angeles basically, with NO advertisements anywhere. No Posters. No flyers. No ads on buses. No ads on trains. NOTHING. It sounds like an Adbusters editorial: an activist's dream, right? Well in São Paulo, the dream has become a reality.

In September last year, the city's populist right-wing mayor, Gilberto Kassab, passed the so-called "Clean City" laws. Fed up with the "visual pollution" caused by the city's 8,000 billboard sites, many of them erected illegally, Kassab proposed a law banning ALL outdoor advertising.

Amazing. Read more here from Businessweek

Swedish Man Gets Health Benefits For Heavy Metal Addiction

A Swedish heavy metal fan has had his musical preferences officially classified as a disability.

The results of a psychological analysis mean that the metal lover can now count on having his income supplemented by state benefits.

Roger Tullgren a 42-year-old dudebro from southern Sweden, has just got a new job as a ~~dishwasher~~ underwater ceramics technician at a local restaurant. Because heavy metal dominates so many aspects of his life, the Employment Service has agreed to pay part of Tullgren's salary. His new boss meanwhile has given him a special dispensation to play loud music at work.

"The fact that I am so into music has affected my work situation to the extent that I have had to quit some jobs," he said.

Roger Tullgren first developed an interest in heavy metal when his older brother...................... came home with a BLACK SABBATH album in 1971. Since then little else has mattered for the 42-year-old, who has long black hair, a collection of tattoos and wears skull and crossbones jewelry. Last year the ageing rocker claims to have attended almost 300 shows, often skipping work in the process. Eventually his last employer tired of his absences and Tullgren was left jobless and reliant on welfare handouts.

But a series of sessions with a psychologist soon led to a solution of sorts: Tullgren signed a piece of paper on which his heavy metal lifestyle was classified as a disability, an assessment that entitles him to a wage supplement from the job centre. The manager at his new workplace allows him to go to concerts as long as he makes up for lost time at a later point. He is also allowed to dress as he likes and listen to heavy metal while washing up. "But not too loud when there are guests," said Tullgren. hahaha

The Local spoke to an occupational psychologist in Stockolm who admitted to being baffled by the decision. "I think it's extremely strange. Unless there is an underlying diagnosis it is absolutely unbelievable that the job centre would pay pay out. "If somebody has a gambling addiction, we don't send them down to the racetrack. We try to cure the addiction, not encourage it," he said.

Tullgren currently plays bass and guitar in two rock bands and says that he tends to get a lot of positive reactions for daring to be himself. "Some might say that I should grow up and learn to listen to other types of music but I can't. Heavy metal is my lifestyle," he said.

42-year-old dishwasher? End of transmission.

Looks like we gots a lil' underground rap war on our hands... A suspect in the murder of Dipset rapper Stack Bundles was found shot to death execution style yesterday the same day Bundles was being laid to rest, after being ambushed and killed in Far Rockaway last week. Cops said Charles White, 20, also an aspiring rapper, who was being eyed as a suspect in the murder of Bundles, was found dead in his Queens home with a pillow over his head, two bullet wounds to the back of his head and one to the leg.
Where's all my emails at? The Bush administration may have committed "extensive" violations of the law... Apparently your boys were deleting emails left and right while The Records Act requires presidents to assure that "the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance" of their duties are "adequately documented ... and maintained." Who knows what wound up in that recycling bin and why it was trashed. I guess we'll never know...
"This Car Climbed Mount Everest"... China will begin building a highway on Mount Qomolangma, the world's tallest peak, in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region so as to ease the path of those bearing the Olympic torch. They say it'll take about 4 months. These guys can build a highway on the world's tallest mountain in 4 months but we can't fix the Gowanus in 4 years.
Irrelevant Ted Nugent tears into Paul McCartney for firing meat eating roadies... I tried to click the link to learn more about it and summarise it for y'all but it asked me for my blood type and my grandmothers maiden name so all you get is the headline. Sorry guys.
Gosh, I am such a prophet. I am plum excited that this global warming conspiracy is FINALLY crumbling and all these scientists are at last stepping forward and saying "Yep, it's all bullsh$t." I've gotten so tired of everyone blaming every goddamn thing on "global warming".
Poetic Paris Hilton on being in jail: "I look at the ceiling. I look at the walls"
Mötley Crüe have filed a $20 million lawsuit against their manager, claiming "greed," "extortionist tactics" and terrible career advice caused the band to lose millions of dollars in profits and tarnished the band's stellar reputation - stellar?! - RELAX. Basically, The Crüe is blaming their managers for all of Tommy Lee's bad decisions such as NBC's "Tommy Lee Goes to College" (hahahaha!) and Lee's participation on "Rock Star: Supernova". Because Lee was so busy doing reality TV, the band says he was unavailable to tour thus causing the cancelation of several key concert dates. The Crüe claims they lost $8 million in ticket and merchandise revenue because of Lee's scheduling conflicts. Oh, shut up.
On my way in this morning I was thinking about doing a story on Hitler and the Volkswagen. I need to do some more research first. Meanwhile, Tom Cruise's next movie is about "the true-life attempts to assassinate Adolf Hitler."
Next week another Ramones documentary will premiere at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Remember the other day we asked for Viagra for a babyfaced beeotch with heartworms? The Little Shelter Animal Adoption Center in Huntington, thanked 1010 WINS and it's listeners for donating enough little blue pills to help Ingrid live for almost a year. Although she has these pills, she still needs more as she will need them for the rest of her life. So keep those pill donations coming and thank you, on behalf of Ingrid the babyface bitch, the shelter, and of course, all of us at Gotham City I.
Roll over Harry Potter physicist Stephen Hawking is writing an adventure novel aimed at middle-grade readers called "George's Secret Key to the Universe." No word on whether or not Hawking will narrate the audiobook :)
"No Cut Offs"... New York City public pools open 29 June, and the Parks Dept. has a borough-by-borough guide to all 51 one of them. Personally, I like to use this as a handy "Where To Not Go" guide.
Make Your Own List of NY Homes to Rob... Forbes has put out their super important list of the Top 100 Most Powerful Celebrities. Gothamist weeded out the top-ranked NY'ers. Check it.
Large teams of newly trained suicide bombers are being sent to the U.S. and Europe, according to evidence contained on a new videotape obtained ABC News. Teams assigned to carry out attacks in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain and Germany were introduced at an al Qaeda/Taliban training camp graduation ceremony held June 9. A Pakistani journalist was invited to attend and take pictures as some 300 recruits, including boys as young as 12, were supposedly sent off on their suicide missions. I just wanna know who the valedictorian was and if at the end they all threw their masks in the air like caps.
One more reason why the UK rulez... Muslim world inflamed by Rushdie knighthood... Sir Salman Rushdie celebrates his 60th birthday today in familiar circumstances: he is once again the subject of death threats across the Islamic world. Eighteen years after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to kill the author, a government minister in Pakistan said yesterday that Rushdie’s recent knighthood justified suicide bombing. The question of blasphemy in "The Satanic Verses", Rushdie’s 1988 tale of a prophet misled by the devil, remains a deeply sensitive issue in much of the Muslim world and the author’s inclusion in the Queen’s Birthday Honours last week has inflamed anti-British sentiment. Hardliners in Iran revived calls for his murder once again yesterday. The whole story be here.

I'm a sucker for a British accent, a big-eyed girl and a good documentary

Whitney "Pop Candy" Matheson went to the Silverdocs documentary festival in DC and wrote about her favourite 10 films and for the most part we, uh, concur.

1. Big Rig. Doug Pray, director of the DJ film Scratch, delves into the realm of truck drivers in this fest favorite. Viewers get up-close and personal with all kinds of drivers -- young, old, female, one-armed, you name it -- and Pray covers just about every inch of the U.S. Check the website for a trailer.The filmmaker says: "We got out there, and this is exactly what we found," Pray said at the screening. "It went from being Convoy to being Grapes of Wrath."

2. Chicago 10 -- Brett Morgen's movie about the Chicago Seven and the protests surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention mixes archival footage with Waking Life-esque animation. I'm confident you'll be able to see it at some point -- the voices certainly provide star power, and Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter produced it.

Read on my brother, read on...................

3. Kurt Cobain: About a Son -- You don't see Cobain's face in this movie. You don't hear Nirvana songs. Director A.J. Schnack (Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns) combines Michael Azerrad's Cobain interviews with beautifully shot scenes of Aberdeen, Wash., Olympia and Seattle. The result is a unique and moving portrait of the artist as more than the suicidal singer of Smells Like Teen Spirit.The filmmaker says: "It was not an attempt to raise Kurt up. It was an attempt to show that he was just a guy," Schnack said at the screening. "To me, the stars of the film are the cities."

4. A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory. I loved this examination of Williams, a face from the '60s Factory who had a close relationship with Warhol and mysteriously disappeared. Highlights include amazing, never-before-seen footage from the era and interviews with scores of surviving Factory regulars, including Brigid Berlin and Gerard Malanga.

5. The Gates. Albert and David Maysles started making this movie in 1978, when Christo and Jeanne-Claude first conceived of the ~~barf~~ art project in New York's Central Park. The result makes a good souvenir for those who saw The Gates and is almost like being there for those of us who couldn't make it.

6. Frank & Cindy. G.J. Echternkamp turns the camera on his mother and stepfather in this hilarious, horrifying and bizarre doc. You might remember Frank and Cindy from an episode of Showtime's This American Life; if so, you might be surprised to hear they're still together! Several clips are available on MySpace.

7. What Would Jesus Buy? -- Morgan Spurlock produced this documentary about the commercialization of Christmas and Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping. It's presented in the similar whimsical style as Super Size Me; fans of that movie will probably like this one, too.

8. Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe -- This is a pretty straightforward, narrated doc of Wagstaff, a photography collector who developed an intimate relationship with Mapplethorpe at the same time Mapplethorpe was living with Patti Smith. Smith is interviewed about her friendship with the artists.

9. Scott Walker -- 30 Century Man. David Bowie, Brian Eno, Radiohead, Damon Albarn, Johnny Marr, Sting ... the list of Scott Walker fans is endless, though this doc about the influential and reclusive musician is more of a love letter than an in-depth examination of Walker's work. Bowie executive-produced the project.

10. Does Your Soul Have a Cold? -- Mike Mills follows Thumbsucker with an examination of depression in Japan. The visuals are arresting and you can't help but stare at the folks featured, though I found myself checking my watch a few times. It's slated to premiere on IFC in October.

Tony & Carm Soprano Yard Sale Tomorrow... No, Really!

The world wide inter-web-net-space is a-buzz with rumours of an über cryptic "Movie Company Set Dressing and Warehouse Sale" posting that turned up on Craigslist today.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm...

Several insiders have informed me that the ish listed on Craigslist is actually a sale hawking all of the props and furnishings and scenery from The Sopranos. For realsies!

The sale starts tomorrow and is in Long Island City (which makes sense since thats where Silvercup Studios is at).

Bring lots o' cash and an affinity for nouveau Jersey mobster chic, oh and a moving van, as "plenty of furniture, lamps, rugs, antiques, books, kitchen and bathroom accesories etc." will be on sale. Holla!

I want Paulie Walnuts' toothbrush and toilet seat !

Damn, it feels good to be a banker

"Sheer Suckers": A humorous and somewhat creepy article on the naïveté of the corporate summer interns and how this dude likens his interns to a favoured pair of loafers. The comments below the dudes article and the people chiming in are even creepier.

However, the real scary thing is, this blog is probably written by some dude I work with. Oh, and I typed "corporate intern" into my trusty Google images search toolbar and this girl came up so she'll have to do.

Damn, it feels ~~good~~ weird to be a banker.

Video Game Slaves: The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer... this seriously blew my mind

I am SO incredibly out of the loop with video games. I just never had the attention span for them; I never even finished the first Mario Bros.; y'know the one that came free with the first Nintendo and it had Duck Hunt on it, too?

I was quite content with just playing the first few boards over and over. Then I found the warp zones which was exciting and economical, however I didn't have the necessary skill to fight my way through these higher levels I'd snuck into, so I'd quickly die and return to worlds 1 and 2 where I was happy in my arrested video game development. Ignorance is bliss, can't argue there. I just never had the patience, I'd get bored and move on to a different game and then I'd draw and then I'd go ride my bike and then I'd watch TV. I had serious problems with concentration, but it was just early signs of pure genius.

Oh, I also liked Blades of Steel, Golgo 13 and the Double Dragon II. Oh, Double Dribble was dope, too but other than that, no care. Those games were awesome because they were so simple, you put the cart in and you were ready to play; maybe sometimes you'd have to blow on them or smash them against the console to get them to work, but it was immediate gratification. Turn on, play. The few X-Box games I've seen required you to enter in all this info and pick uniforms and schedules and seasons and promotional giveaways for fans 12 and under and you had to give blood and your mothers maiden name before you even saw a goddamn park or field or rink or court ! F that noise. I ain't got time for a mutha.

But naturally, none of this has anything to do with why I'm here, posting.

I came across this insane article in The Times about dudes in China who work 12 hours a night, 7 nights a week, with only 2 or 3 nights off per month, basically mining gold on video games. What the F is this nigga talkin' about you say? Well, listen up...

I guess there is a game called World of Warcraft that people take pretty seriously; its one of those retarded elf wizards, warriors and dragon role playing games. I've been to my share of creepy net-cafes across the world where they chain smoke, eat stale chips, listen to bad foreign rap and never look up from their monitors, ever. I guess this is the ish they're all playing.

NY Times video report if you're lazy or can't read

These are like real-time games and you need money to do sh&t in the game. So people who are lazy or busy or both will pay REAL money for someone else to earn them the points or "gold" or "coins". There are dudes in China working for these companies who pay them to play for hours and hours on end killing monsters and earning gold coins. Then they sell the points to players across the world. Get it? I hope you do, because I'm still a little foggy.

Instead of some investment banker sitting online for 13 hours to amass 50,000 points on World of Warcraft he can pay some company to do it for him; the companies are in China and the employees "work" 84+ hours a week for 30 cents an hour staring at a computer monitor!!!

Can you imagine?!?!? Video game slavery!!!

Here's how the article starts: "At his workstation in a small, fluorescent-lighted office space in Nanjing, China, Li Qiwen sat shirtless and chain-smoking, gazing purposefully at the online computer game in front of him..." Gross. That sentence truly makes me feel all hot like I was out partying all night and now I'm at work, labouring through it. You know the feeling? It's nasty.

Anywho, you can read the whole article here but do it soon because The Times is mad cheap and they take down their free links after a few days.

Late Night with Conan O'Brien Jon Stewart?

We all know in 2009 Conan O'Brien is expected to replace Jay Leno on the never funny Tonight Show. Jon Stewart's deal with Comedy Central and The Daily Show ends in 2008.

We're hearing that NBC may opt to pay out O'Brien $40 million to keep Leno on the Tonight Show, which conceivably would make room for Stewart to take over Late Night.

Leno sux loins. I really hope we don't lose Conan in this power play. I think NBC will be letting the wrong guy get loose here. Stewart and O'Brien = good. Leno = bad.

Perhaps Fox will try to lure free-agent O'Brien and missing in action Craig Kilborn to start their own late night franchises?

I guess we'll see y'all.

Bryant Park tonight? Anyone?

They're showing Woody's classic Annie Hall tonight at sunset. The lawn opens at 5pm for blankets, picnicking and kvetching.

Bryant Park is behind the library in midtown, between 40th and 42nd Streets & Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

Hallelujah Hollaback.

Tony Soprano didn’t just get whacked; he practically got a funeral

I took some time off from the Sopranos speculating and returned to my normal life; y'know sleeping, eating, breathing. For a few days I ignored emails with cut & pasted essays and links to new rumours and whatever and then I came across this. Enjoy.

Awww Henri Maltese... The owner of a fledgling dog-training academy in Salisbury (great now I'm starving) has come up with a bizarre money-raising scheme. Mary Stadelbacher figured that if she could teach dogs to become service animals for the disabled, why couldn't she teach them to hold a paintbrush and swab a piece of art? Two years later, she's got a collection of abstract paintings created by her three service dogs in training. Twenty of the works are being shown this month at a gallery at Salisbury University in Maryland. One of the original works has sold for $350.
Reid Bryson, known as the father of scientific climatology, considers "global warming" a bunch of bullsh*t. Thank you. Finally. Come up with a new excuse for the worlds every problem.
How cute... Australia and the U.S. launched a massive war game today aimed at honing their ability to act together against threats to Asia-Pacific security. Will you look at the size of that goddamn monitor!?
This is f&cked... Six were killed Saturday at a drag race in Tennessee. All of the six killed were either in their teens or early 20's The accident injured at least 18 others, including a 5-year-old boy. The crash happened during an "exhibition burnout"—when drivers spin their tires to make them heat up and smoke; the smoking car skidded off the road and into the crowd when the driver lost control. There was a guard rail along part of the highway, but not along the stretch where the crash occurred.
Here's a gallery of photos of celebs eating. I have so much to say that I'm at a loss right now.
An illegal poker den frequented by AJ Soprano / Robert Iler and several yet-to-be-named NBA players was robbed laz night. I guess dudes with guns burst into the Upper East Side spot at around midnight and ordered the club's 70 or so patrons to hand over their money.
Dear Lord why is Bob Barker is endorsing Rosie O'Donnell as the new host of The Price is Right?!
Are you all happy now? I'm not... No Luxury Condos in Revised Coney Island Plan... There will be no 40-story tower and no rental apartments. The new plan calls for more of the new, edgy and outlandish rides and attractions that the resort was once known for (when back in 1930?!) The new plan continues the idea of a glass-enclosed water park, but adds three hotels, 400 time-share units, restaurants, shops, movie theaters and high-tech arcades. So this is all OK with the Brooklyn-transplant-hipster-protestors-from-Minnesota but not the condos?! I'm confused. What was so awful and blasphemous about having condos in Coney Island exactly? I can't recall. You are all so dumb.
Gianfranco Ferre, the Italian designer known as the "architect of fashion" for his structured, sculpted shapes and for his groundbreaking tenure at Christian Dior, died Sunday at a hospital in Milan after suffering a massive brain hemorrhage. Giorgio Armani, arguably the king of the "Made in Italy" world to which Ferre also belonged, said he had long admired Ferre's artistic and intellectual work. Ferre himself cut a unique figure, a big teddy bear of a man dressed impeccably in three-piece suits. Donatella Versace called Ferre a man "from another time" who helped change Italian fashion. It's a sad day for crinoline.
Ooooh speaking of Milan... I heard this story over the weekend and I loved it: An airport in Milan had to be shut down for a few hours while some 200 volunteers blew whistles and waved their arms frantically to scare away a giant tribe of wild hares and rabbits who had taken over the runways Hahahahaha! 57 hares and 4 wild rabbits were caught and all transferred to a wildlife preserve. Awwww! There isn't much I love more than a good animals being mischievous story.
30% of Cubans are overweight. Rent still due on the first. AIDS and cancer, still incurable.
A new chip could prove an important step in persuading computer makers to incorporate USB technology. A few wireless USB products are already on the U.S. market, but they send and receive signals over a frequency that isn't legal in most of the world because of potential interference with radar. Chip designer Alereon Inc. said they're releasing the first chip that uses a frequency band that is legal all over the world for wireless USB, a technology with the potential to cut the tangle of cables surrounding computers. Buy Alereon.
New York gossip columnist Claudia Cohen has died.
"Hi. I'll take a caramel frappuccino and this Sonic Youth CD, oooh and these madelines, too."

Short Rope Mondays; The line betwixt polite and annoying gets finer and finer

I have lost all patience for overly "polite" people; some people just can't shut the F up, they MUST interact at all times, interjecting their dimwitted pablum when they've got you cornered. Talking to my friend over the weekend got me thinking about these people, their incessant chatter and their dopey queries and quips. There is a razor thin line betwixt polite and completely overbearing and annoying.

For instance, when you're walking a dog and the dog is pulling on the leash a bit, they'll often ask, brilliantly, "Hey, who's walking who!?" or if they happen to see two people kissing, which will most likely be the most thrilling thing that happens to them for that entire week, they're compelled to yelp "Hey, get a room!"... There's a litany of puerile witticisms which I someday want to compile, but right now, I'm too annoyed to get into all of them because they'll just remind me of the dumb faces I heard saying them.

So when I'm in an elevator with you and it's stopping at every floor, please, don't feel compelled to remark "heh, must be the local". I don't need to hear your voice.

If we're waiting on a line together at the supermarket or the post office (in the very rare occasion I have the patience and mental aplomb to even stand on a line for more than 2 minutes without losing it) there is no need for you to make eye contact with me and roll your eyes or huff and puff. I have nothing in common with you except that we just so happen to be both be on this same line at this moment in time; however, this gives you no right to try and 'bro-down' with me or empathise with me or whateverthef*ck you're doing.

Also, I am declaring a mandatory expiration date on the bromidic "how was your weekend?" query. It's 45 minutes into my Monday and I'm already sick of it. Some people will ask "how was your weekend?" as late as Wednesday!! I find this abused question completely annoying, unnecessary and trite and I would never ask this of anyone while I realise many people simply adore this question and the prattle that ensues so I won't ban it completely. But I will say the question expires on Monday at 5pm. That's it. Don't waltz in here on Tuesday afternoon asking me how my goddamn weekend was, think of something else to ask me if you MUST open your mouth and speak in my direction.

Can you tell I'm on a short rope today, friends?

I love Siouxsie; Little Miss Trouble

Goodnight Irene: Friday PM

Sniper on LA Freeway?!?... Eerily hearkening back to the DC Beltway sniper of 2002, authorities are investigating the second fatal shooting of the week on the 710 Freeway in LA. Naturally, authorities are saying there is no evidence that the two shootings are related but we're here to tell you to PANIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you're looking for a good way to mimic the great NYC outdoors, check out the NY Times article about police car sirens - theres even a separate page with MP3s of all the different sounds. While demonstrating the different siren sounds to Times reporter Cara Buckley, Officer Spiros Komis made his work sound like he's a DJ when trying to get someone to stop speeding: “I might start with a wail,” he said, pressing a button. The air filled with a familiar nasal drone. “And then I’d go to a constant yelp,” he said, and the car began bleating. A red Acura driving ahead promptly pulled right, into the center lane, its driver nervously checking his speed. “Then I’d give a little bit of the air horn; I’d give it a little toot,” he said, and gave it a little toot.
Crystal meth use in U.S. twice higher than estimated; weekend plans suddenly become twice as fun.
A whirlwind hit Venice today, injuring about 25 people and forcing the cancelation of the Heineken Jammin' Festival headlined by Pearl Jam. The Heineken Jammin' Festival?! Ha!
Maybe there is still hope for the Lower East Side of yore... Drug users are still shooting up in Tompkins Square Park, and a local organisation is providing users with the anti-opioid Narcan to save the lives of people who OD.
A homeless man was injured when a falling light pole struck him in the head outside the main branch of the New York Public Library on 42nd and 5th. That's odd; for this morning I rode the bus with a girl who works there. Maybe I should play Lotto?
Oliver Perez > Roger Clemens. Mets win game one of the season's second Subway Series.
That drop in gasoline prices we were expecting? Yeah... not so much
Yeah... uh, guys... How are you on astronaut ice cream? You might be up there a lil' longer than we'd planned... Uh... guys? Space Station Computers Have 'Partial' Power. Well, thats comforting. I guess they can 'partially' re-enter the earth's atmosphere and 'partially' survive; Russia blames U.S. blames Russia.
Bill and Hillary began hemorrhaging the contents of their blind trust upon learning it contained investments of $5 million to $25 million that could pose conflicts of interest and prove to be embarrassing to Hillary's presidential campaign.
Rugged journalist Matt Lauer unafraid to ask the tough questions; asks Prince William and Harry of Wales, "What's the coolest thing about being a Prince?"
Artiste, award-winning director and painter Julian Schnabel just exposed his massive West Village building and the neighbours aren't happy. Would you be?
A letter mentioning anthrax arrived today at the Manhattan offices of "Good Morning America," forcing ABC television officials to close down a portion of their Columbus Avenue location. Yeah, ok.

Calling All Doc's Loose With The Scripts... Dog needs Viagra ASAP

OK, after you're done giggling like a tool, let's get serious. This babyface named Ingrid needs Viagra to live. They aren't for my weekend in Barbados.

It has been recently proven that Viagra can help dilate the blood vessels, sending more blood to the vital organs, in animals with severe cases of heart worm. Ingrid isn't doing too good as she also just had heart failure. That's a lot of drama for a little bitchface.

The Little Shelter Animal Adoption Center in Huntington, Long Island needs about 200 little blue pills which will allow her to live about another 7 months.

For more information, please call the shelter at 516-883-6775.

I know we're all creeps with sketchy contacts out there, so please, help if you can!

Hamas takes full control of Gaza...
Left for dead a week ago, legislation to bolster border security while bestowing legal status on millions of illegal immigrants is showing signs of life.
Governor Arnold tells immigrants to turn off their "Spanish television set" and avoid Spanish-language television, books and newspapers, so they are "just forced to speak English, and that just makes you learn the language faster". Naturally, everyone is flipping out over this.
An aggressive squirrel attacked and injured 3 people in a German town before a 72-year-old pensioner dispatched the rampaging animal with his crutch. Hahahaha "dispatched". The actual headline from Reuters reads: "Squirrel goes on rampage, injures 3". Classic!
7 Sex Offenders Who Use MySpace Arrested... I don't understand how or why this is news. EVERYONE has a goddamn Myspace page by now; that's like saying they apprehended 7 sex offenders who all have ATM cards or wear socks!
The soon to be available iPhone from Apple will not be compatible with corporate email systems; it will not work with either the Goodlink service or the Blackberry Enterprise. Nice one, Jobs.
NY Bus Driver Tied-Up, Bus Taken for Joyride...
A cab driver found 2 toddlers sitting on a curb in their pajamas outside the A&P supermarket on Anderson Avenue in New Jersey at 4am this morning. Stay classy, New Jersey.
4 convicted of stabbing a man after he made advances toward one of them were sentenced Thursday amid screams and weeping to prison terms ranging from 3 1/2 to 11 years. It's about time for a new female prison flick, no? Quentin whereuat? Holla!
Gandolfini told the Daily News he had "no idea" what to think was to happen to his character. Thanks, bro. Good lookin' out.
Were you not into Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" as the soundtrack to the last moments of The Sopranos? Well, now you can score it your damn self.
Showtime's Dexter returns September 30. My mum back in the UK will be psyched.
What does your phone number spell? ...Am I the only one who used to sit with a pen and pad to figure this ish out? Well, now there's a site for it. Am I also the only one who remembers walking to school in the snow, up a hill, with no shoes, back when candy was a nickel?
There was a black suede yarmulke on the floor of the bus this morning. Could someone have denounced Judaism midway through an express bus ride? Was traffic that bad?
Speaking of black suede, here's another pic of Angelina's $26 dress that she wore to the premier of her new flick. I'm having a total Angelina renaissance lately, she's so totally back on my list. She isn't into being called "thin" -- because she's been dropping pounds over the death of her mom, Marcheline (Plastic) Bertrand, earlier this year. At the premiere the other night, Ange scolded reporters saying, "Instead of people saying I look like a person dealing with something emotionally, they assume it's because I want to fit into skinny jeans. Someone saying to me that I'm thin is not a compliment." She says that she just stopped breastfeeding (holla!) and that she's having trouble getting her nutrition back on track. Y'all best leave my girl alone, I'm fixin' ta raise up.
Three TV shows I never, ever liked:
1- Gilligan's Island
2- M*A*S*H
3- All In The Family.
Joe Rogan: The Joe McCarthy of Comedy?... I've always dug Joe Rogan, way before that Fear Factor ish, but the dude is seriously becoming the Joke Gestapo. Seems like he's spending more time accusing other comics of stealing his or other comics' jokes than he is spending time writing new material of his own. I mean I love seeing a dude getting called out as much as the next guy but I think he's becoming obsessed. Does comedy really need an internal affairs division?!
Mocha-skinned girl in a green and white flower print dress sat next to me on the bus, reading a library book. I said, "Those still exist?!", she said "Well, I work for the library, so...". I refrained from further commentary and dozed off.
Am I the only one who remembers when Utz was BonTon? An investigation will follow. As Drudge would say: Story is developing...

Imagination cannot grasp simple nothingness and must therefore fill the void with fantasies; Oh yeah and some more Sopranos stuff, too.

So I came home to an email from my actual Godfather so I was sort of compelled to post this stuff he clued me to.

It's a cool checklist of all the theories out there about the last episode of Sopranos. It dispels some rumours and may rain on your parade a little, depending on how you feel about it. Either way, it's an interesting read.

Poached from Salon.com:

Embarrassingly, I have now watched the episode three times. I am fascinated by the fast-growing conspiracy theories. The speculation so far:

Everyone in Holsten's is someone Tony beat up in previous seasons. (This is entirely fabricated, as confirmed by Alan Sepinwall in his interview with Chase in the Newark Star-Ledger)
The waiter who brings them the onion rings is named "Kevin Finnerty," the name of Tony's dream-identity from when he was shot, and the guy at the bar is "Nikki Leotardo," Phil's nephew. (Not true, I've now checked the credits for all of this shit -- it's invented out of whole cloth!)
The first episode of the season is called "Members Only" and the menacing guy at the counter is wearing a Members Only jacket. (But there have been lots of "Sopranos" characters with Members Only jackets. Remember Ralphie?)
Each of the nine episodes this season stood in for one of Dante's levels of hell. (Chase says not true.)
Tony began the episode already dead (killed at the safe house) and the first funereal shot we see of him is him in a coffin.
Tony was wearing two different outfits in the last scene; therefore it was a dream (Not true. He just changes out of his jacket.)
He was eating oranges (from "The Godfather") earlier in the episode, which means he was definitely killed at the end.
He had gathered them all at Holsten's to tell them they were going into the witness protection program, which is why Carm was looking at plans for a "beach house" before dinner. (Because their witness protection house was gonna be in Avalon?)
The episode is all a dream. Tony went to bed on a bare mattress but woke up on sheets, dreams all of the weirdness with A.J.'s exploding car and Trump aspirations, Phil's violent death, a therapist who reminds him of Melfi, and finally the weird cut of him watching himself eat at the diner. A.J.'s line "You're living in a fucking dream" is a clue, and the door chime at Holsten's is his alarm clock waking him up.
Tony is wearing the same shirt he did when Uncle June shot him, so he's still in his coma.
An image of Adriana is reflected in the eyes of the cat.
The other song option underneath "Don't Stop Believin'" was "Any Way You Want It," which is how Chase wanted us to conceive of the ending. (This one, I feel, is probably true.)

I think the end reflected the anxieties Tony feels all the time: He or his loved ones could get wiped out anytime, not just because he's a mobster, but because he's a regular suburban American guy who could get capped, or blown up by terrorists, who has kids who are bad parallel parkers and cross the street without looking. In the Star Ledger interview, Chase talked about the "terrorists" that Tony turned in and said, "That was sort of the point of it: Who knows if they are terrorists or if they're innocent pistachio salesmen?" -- which I thought was sort of the point of the whole last scene. Anyone you see might be a menace ... or not. READ MORE FROM SALON.COM HERE

Diamonds are forever horrible shiny

(Left: Madge moments before being totally bummed out by Djimon Hounsou)

OK, so the new ish of Vanity Fair is "guest-edited" by stupid Bono and all about Africa - raising awareness and tolerance and all of those good things. However, bundled with the mag is a whole other magazine devoted to diamonds?!?!? Haha!!! Amazing! Simply, amazing. Advertisers include Cartier, Chopard, Harry Winston, Asprey, Bulgari, Sotheby's Diamonds and Tiffany. Um, how did that ever slip past "guest-editor" Bono?!

There's 21 different covers for the new ish, each with a different pair of celebs playing a classic game of "telephone".

Here's how it went. The outcome may shock you; it's quite Freudian.

Don Cheadle was first in line and he was given the starting sentence, "The Diamond trade fuels bloody wars".

Don Cheadle told Barack Obama told Cassius Clay told Queen Rania (The MF'in Queen of Jordan) told Bono told Condi Rice told Bush told Desmond Tutu told Brad Pitt of course told Djimon Hounsou (the dude from that movie) told Madge naturally had to tell Maya Angelou told Chris Rock told his boy Warren Buffet told Bill Gates and his wife told stupid Oprah told Geroge Clooney told his man Jay-Z told Alicia Keys told Iman.

And can you believe by the time Iman told Don Cheadle, the phrase had become "Diamonds are forever and we don't give an F who's gotta die for them shits. Holla!". We're assuming Jay-Z was the one who added the "holla" in there, but the rest, we have no idea. Your guess is as good as ours.

But god, these celebs are just shameless!! Even in their subconscious! I'm throwing away all my Alicia Keys albums. Oh, wait, I don't own any.

The World's Ugliest Bookshelf Is Finally Unveiled; IKEA goes back to the drawing board

This thing looks like some poor f#ck tried to follow the Swedish Ikea instructions and just said "F&CK THIS!" and improvised.

From some sci-fi blog: "The Gravity Bookshelf is a piece of furniture with a design that you'll ~~love or~~ hate, but either way you can't deny its inherent practicality." OH, I wouldn't dare ever! "By bending the plywood shelves so they appear to be coming out of the floor, designer Leo Kempf ensured that any books or, say, DVDs, that you put on it won't fall over, with no need for any bookends." BARF. This thing is only cool because it reminds me of Woody Allen's "Sleeper".

The World's Most Anal Room?

Pretentiously: Ha ha ha, Oh no no no, you dolt. Why its actually a photo from Art Basel, the annual contemporary art fair in Basel, Switzerland.

Oh, well now this is just classic... A mother of two in a Chicago suburb says her baby monitor has been picking up black-and-white video from inside the space shuttle Atlantis! "It's not coming straight from the shuttle," NASA spokeswoman Brandi Dean said. Riiiiight, sure it isn't, Brandi. Good work with that damage control, sister. So much for NASA and their top secret astronaut ice cream recipes.
Whats-his-face, the creepy dude who put together all those boy bands was arrested in Indonesia and we were shocked to find it wasn't for paedophilia. Lou Pearlman was arrested for bank fraud to the tune of $315M. I've always wanted to say "to the tune of". It's not often you can use that term.
Former President Clinton made more than $10 million in paid speeches last year. The Current President of the United States earns $400,000 a year. How's that for free-market enterprise. Bloomberg, whereuat? Holla!
I just bumped into Clea DuVall outside. She was wearing a big yellow contraption that looked like an actual bath towel. I'm gonna go run and tell Gawker because they're the only ones who give an ish about celeb sightings.
2 dudes from Long Island got busted with over $100,000 worth of bootleg swag. Stacked in one room were several hundred pairs of fake Nike and Bathing Ape brand sneakers, Blue Cult and True Religion jeans, Ed Hardy T-shirts, plus an assortment of other clothing. L.I.'s gonna have some well-dressed cops this weekend. Holla!
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world without oil. Amen... Scientists have criticised a major review of the world's remaining oil reserves, warning that the end of oil is coming sooner than governments and oil companies are prepared to admit.
Election 2008 is what, a year and a half away and already we're dodging the flaming javelins... Some rich dude from Chicago who's down with squeaky-clean Barack Obama and has bankrolled him in the past was just indicted for fraud. Wake up! Nobody's perfect. Barack is no Knight in Shining Amour. Everyone is dirty; everyone is full of ish.
Ok, I'm out.

It's cool. I'm losing it. A bus driver's voice is tap dancing on my very last nerve.

So there's this bus driver and he's driving me apesh*t. For some reason he's taken to announcing the stops when we get back to Brooklyn in the evening. Thing is, his voice actually drives me to the icy cliffs of teetering insanity. I swear I'm nearly at the point where I'm going to wait for the next bus if I see he's behind the wheel.

Now, I realise I may be slightly nuts and I admit I definitely pay more attention to people's voices and inflections than your average midtown commuter, but there is just something about your boys voice that has struck a nerve with me and now it won't let go; like a woodpecker peck-peck-pecking away at the fundamental cells of my soul. Hahaha. Ok, now that was good.

Remember that story back in the day about the woman who said Mary Hart's voice drove her crazy? The goddamn New England Journal of Medicine even reported that Hart's voice had actually triggered seizures in a few epileptic women. Well, I think I need to get the boys from the N.E. Journal to take the bus home with me one day.

I'll try to explain his voice as best I can:

Picture a guy sitting at the end of a bar. He's been eating stale unsalted pretzels and cocktail peanuts out of a faux-wooden bowl all goddamn day. He hasn't had anything to drink; not a single lick of anything liquid has touched his lips in hours. OK, and now imagine this man trying to speak to an audience over a crackling MTA bus microphone.

But wait, that's not all...

In fact, I've saved the absolute worst for last because for some reason he pronounces his hard D sounding T's and his Th's as if they were all F's. It's really bizarre. Someone needs to tie this guy up and drag him to a lab for some serious probing and prodding; then again, after reading this, you may think I'm the one who needs to be tied down and carted off.

So anyway, when my man says, for instance, "Seventy-Third Street", it sounds like he's saying "Sevunfree Firrd Sffreet". Now picture this gruesome pronunciation coupled with a mouth that's as dry as the goddamn Sonoran and you've got me clawing at the windows; that is, if I'm not asleep.

In fact, just relating and describing this so vividly to you now is starting to drive me nuts so I'm gonna go.

But hey, thanks for reading and taking a trip inside my mind. I hope you've enjoyed the ride. The next stop will be Bellevue which just so happens to be located on "Twenty-Sevrumfth Sffreet".

Ask The Queen

Advice on LOVE and all matters of the heart, mind and soul. Ask Queen Bianca Sunshine; Gotham City's renoun Médecin d'Amour! Send in your letters and questions and she'll answer them if she deems you worthy. It's that simple.

Email The Queen

So good ole "What's the Frequency Kenneth?" Dan Rather talked ish on Katie Couric. Les Moonves is Katie's bossman. Les stood up for Katie saying Rather's remarks were rather "sexist". Shameless Neil Cavuto had Dan on his show to fire back at Les. Did I lose you? Go here and watch Dan getting ross on Les. I love when rich people fight; it's so cute.
Michael Moore has beef with lots of ish. Yesterday it was the media's coverage of Iraq in the ramp up to the war. Moore decided to rip Good Morning America anchor Chris Cuomo a new one; blaming ABC and the other networks for failing to ask the tough questions. Right on, my brother! So naturally they started arguing and watching people argue on TV is always entertaining. Thanks, guys!

Caveat Emptor : DO NOT BUY TOOTHPASTE FROM 99¢ STORES

Colgate said that 5-ounce tubes of counterfeit toothpaste sold in discount stores in NJ, NY, Pennsylvania and Maryland under a Colgate label are being recalled because they may contain a poisonous chemical (diethylene glycol) typically found in anti-freeze. Agggggghhhh!

"Made in South Africa" is printed on the box and it includes Regular, Gel, Triple and Herbal versions. So, go check your medicine cabinets!!!!

The company said it does not use, nor has it ever used, diethylene glycol as an ingredient in Colgate toothpaste anywhere in the world. Furthermore, "Colgate does not import toothpaste into the United States from South Africa. In addition, the counterfeit packages examined so far have several misspellings including: 'isclinically,' 'SOUTH AFRLCA' and 'South African Dental Assoxiation."

"Counterfeit toothpaste is not manufactured or distributed by Colgate and has no connection with the company whatsoever,'' the company said, adding that Colgate is working closely with the FDA "to help to identify those responsible for the counterfeit product.''

In related news, I visited one of my favourite 99¢ stores last night in Staten Island and picked up two fabulous refrigerator magnets. One which reads: "Proud to be AMERICANS" and another that says "There's nothing better THEN a cold beer".

Celebrity (noun) ce•leb•ri•ty [suh-leb-ri-tee] - A person who, through some deficiency in parental love, chooses to spend their life searching for acceptance from an appearance-worshipping general public.
Ange is playing the widow of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in the new movie "A Mighty Heart". She banned FOX News from the premiere last night in NY and FOX is so damn sore over it that its just wonderful how shamelessly biased they become. Ange also showed up to the premiere wearing a $26 dress she bought from some vintage shop on Melrose; but she balanced it out with a pair of crystal heeled Christian Louboutins. You go, girl !
I hope you're all sitting down... The opening of Xanadu, the new Broadway musical based on the ~~god awful~~ cult classic Olivia Newton-John roller-disco movie, has been postponed after one of its stars, James Carpinello, injured his foot during a rehearsal. We think its a sign. Even god thinks Xanadu is sh*t.
Here be an exclusive clip from Moore's new movie, "Sicko"

Powered by AOL Video
As we reported a few days ago, the dude who plotted to kidnap David Letterman's baby, escaped from a Montana prison. Well, they found him and now he's back in prison. The End.
A court has ordered heirs of composer Richard Strauss to share royalties with the heirs of librettist and poet Hugo von Hoffmansthal for 9 collaborations, including the popular operas "Der Rosenkavalier" and "Elektra".
The Splasher strikes again. This time its that stupid cube tourists are compelled to spin on Astor. Rumour has it Marvel is working on a What If? issue "The Splasher vs. Banksy"
Oh no, Oh my... speaking of the legendary Stan Lee, someone must've taken his nitroglycerin pills as ransom or hung him over the side of a roof by his ankles because apparently he's developing an animated series for MTV starring Paris Hilton!?!!?
Bloomberg and Schwarzenegger: The new action heroes?
Oh, I'd freak the F out... Space Shuttle's Return May Be Delayed due to some Russian computer beef. I guess the computers that control the space station's orientation and supply of oxygen and water have failed. Oh, well that sounds promising. Don't tell me they should've used a Mac!
Big Brother Be Watchin'... An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau violated the law more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years. The vast majority of the new violations were instances in which telephone companies and Internet providers gave agents phone and e-mail records the agents did not request and were not authorized to collect anyway. The agents retained the information anyway in their files, which mostly concerned suspected terrorist or espionage activities. Remember that episode of Roseanne where every time her or Dan said the word "audit" they played that dramatic "Dunn...Dun...Dunnnnnnn" music? That ish was mad funny, yo.
Seattle wants to ban microwave popcorn. Good, that ish is a volatile invention. I think they need to go back to the lab with that stuff for a few more years and then come back with some new ideas.
Aiight, I gotta go do some work. Peace for now.

Wednesday: It's A Wrap

A Virtual Lower East Side??!?! I honestly don't know whether to laugh or cry. Either way, I won't have to leave the house.
Rachael Ray is one step closer to absolute world domination.
Botox...on your lunch break.
Bush pissed about the stolen watch story As we reported yesterday, it appeared as though during a rogue stop in goddamn Albania, Bush had his watch stolen right off his wrist as he greeted a throng of rapturous locals who grabbed at his arms and even ruffled his hair like he was Dennis the Menace. Well now Bush wants the story of the vanishing watch to disappear.
It's all happening at the zoo, bro.
Uh Oh, It's A Letter From The Editor
Peter Bogdanovich fans the Sopranos finale flames
Woopsie! NJ Prison Releases A Murderer By Accident. My bad, yo.
Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don't Even Farm... Nationwide, the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do no farming at all. Some of them collect hundreds of thousands of dollars without planting a goddamn seed.
Douche in San Fran fell off a mountain posing for a wacky MySpace photo
Every summer some ubiquitous tune lodges its way into your brain whether you want it to or not. It's the song that blares from every car, television, cellphone, and apartment window; the song that just happens to be at the right place, at the right time. We look back at 30 years of those sometimes annoying, sometimes regrettably catchy summer jamz.
Extra stuff: Mr.Wizard is dead, Eminem and Mariah are beefin, being a porn star carries a death penalty in Iran, when you search for something on Google a record of what you've searched for can be saved for up to 2 YEARS, The LAPD announced plans 2 improve the city's 911 system sayin callers in the future will be able 2 use text messages, Who knew The Dalai Lama was down with the Crocodile Hunter, Beastie Boys announce tour dates and a 19th-century weapon found in a whale.
More extra stuff: Spain crowns Dylan a Prince, Louisiana Mayor is getting strict on dudes who let their pants sag, Despite big name stars - strong buzz and built-in fans some films still find 'development hell' a very real place - We've got a list of 20 Movies Not Coming Soon to a Theater Near You, oh and this.

Clerical Errors Mistakenly Release Murderer From Jail

This is F*CKING amazing.

Authorities are looking for a Trenton man who was accidentally released from a county jail despite the fact that he's accused of killing two people and shooting another.

Dontay Brannon (HOLLA), 19, was mistakenly allowed to be released from the Mercer County Correctional Center on Monday despite facing murder charges.

A family member paid the $200 bail to get Brannon released on burglary charges unrelated to the killings and he was let go.

Authorities, including the New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force, have been searching for Brannon after it become known that he was on the streets. Yeah, good luck with that, fellas.

According to Mercer County spokeswoman Julie Willmot "a series of ``clerical errors'' are to blame for Brannon's release. Hahahahahhaha!

"We're investigating why, even.................................. with all of these fail-safe measures in place, this person was released,'' she said, adding that several people were required to sign off on his discharge. Classic.

The jail's internal affairs department is conducting the investigation into how Brannon was released.

Brannon was sent to jail in March on trespassing and mischief charges. While in jail, our boy Brannon was arraigned on murder charges in connection with the shooting deaths of two people in Trenton last November.

...But wait, there's more!

Brannon also faces attempted murder charges in another shooting that resulted in a Trenton man being paralyzed from the waist down. Ok, now that ain't cool. F this kid.

At least 3 county employees and a state parole officer are required to sign off on an inmate's release and at least 4 professional records staff, including his parole person, overlooked or did not thoroughly review his file, so internal affairs is currently investigating why that happened. OK, who's covering Wilt?

The NJ prosecutor's office was notified the next day of Brannon's accidental release, and members of the task force, which includes local, state and federal law enforcement officials, have been actively searching for him.

I think its f*cked that this kid paralyzed a dude, but he should be free and clear because of their f_ck up. If they were dumb enough to let this ish happen and let this kid walk out of prison, I say the kid wins. It's like a murderer being let go on a technicality, illegal search adn seizure or whatever. Score 1 for the bad guys.

Female Yuppie Heroin a.k.a. Botox... On Your Lunch Break

You know me, Park Avenuin' it up. F salad, we got the fountain of youth during our lunch break over here!

Theres a new walk-in "Botox store" offering impatient patients a chance to take a quick dip in the artificial fountain of youth during their lunch break. While botox injections typically only take 10 minutes or so, patients usually have to make appointments and wait for doctors; F that noise. Plastic surgeons Michael Rose and Andrew Elkwood and are able to get patients in and out in a fraction of the time in their new shop, SmoothMed.

These two nuts told The Times last month, “People just need to be educated that it’s fast, it’s cheap and it’s not intimidating.” Since each treatment will last about a maximum of 4 months, the doctors can count on return customer$. Dr. Rose said: “It’s like electricity: If you want to keep it on, you have to keep paying.” This dudes a serious pusher; who else talks like that!? Damn!

A patient’s typical first visit to SmoothMed should take about 30 minutes or less, and follow-up appointments will take 15 minutes or less. Can I make that 7? I wanna grab a anti-ox smoothie.

Yo, so SmoothMed is over on East 59th, right near Bloomingdales, so it's sure to get a lot of regular business types, women of leisure and curious tourists. HOLLA!

Bush pissed about the stolen watch story

As we reported yesterday, it appeared as though during a rogue stop in goddamn Albania, Bush had his watch stolen right off his wrist as he greeted a throng of rapturous locals who grabbed at his arms and even ruffled his hair like he was Dennis the Menace.

Well now President Bush wants the story of his vanishing watch to disappear. The White Haus said the watch was not stolen, and that Bush instead had put it in his pocket. Surrrrrre he did.

And just to prove the point (hello guilty conscience), Bush showed he was wearing a watch in the Oval Office today. Yeah, great. As if they couldn't have replaced the watch by now. Something seems fishy here.

I have never seen such a ludicrous story," Bush said of the media's coverage of the watch incident. "Unbelievable."

Later, spokesman Tony Snow confirmed, "That is, in fact, the watch he was wearing in Albania."

Yeah, OK. Stay out of this, Snow.

Give Pause: It's A Letter From Your Editor

A Letter From Your Editor:

Oh, wait, that's me!

I got wind of some good news today so I went out and finally purchased a seersucker suit. The guy who helped me looked like Paul Benedict.

Tailors are such rockstars. They appear from behind a curtain and their time is always so very precious; they wear that tape measure around their neck like a feathered boa and the chemistry between the peon salesman and the indispensable tailor is usually precarious at best.

The tailor'll take your measurements and then vanish just as quickly as......... they appeared and you're left feeling bewildered; like it all happened so fast and like the wind, they're gone; back to their sewing machine or whatever they do back there that takes 2 weeks to do. Today is the 13th, my new suit won't be ready until the 29th. I mean, c'mon now fellas. At least I'll have all of July and August to rock the ish out of it. Holla.

Working on Park Avenue (New York's Beverly Hills) and being inundated with this Martha's Vineyard Detox Diet by Robin Quivers has made me decide to go on a new diet of my own. I will be doing a hazelnut iced coffee and water diet and I'm crowning it the Gotham City Insider Detox Diet. I'll let you know how it goes. I hope you'll all come visit me in the hospital. If I survive, a book is sure to follow... and you'll all get a dedication. Promise.

I'm also realising that I'm caring less and less about what artists have to say in interviews. I'm not sure if it's my A.D.D. getting even worse or what, but the idea of reading a Q&A with even one of my favourite musicians or whatever seems like the most arduous task, ever. Maybe because of all this manic news aggregating I've been doing I'm becoming averse to pablum? I mean all I do is search for deliciously packaged facts and hard-hitting tidbits and quotable soundbytes... Ish, maybe I need a vacation from this blog? A potent potable sure would do me well right about now.

MFin' Ratt's "Round and Round" has moved into my head and I don't why but it won't leave. HELP!

Well, that wasn't really much of a letter from the editor but it'll have to do.

Love is ALL,
Your J.

Spain makes Dylan a Prince... Bob Dylan was awarded Spain's Prince of Asturias arts award, one of the country's most prestigious honours today.
Pull your goddamn pants up, son! The Mayor of the small town of Delcambre, Louisiana said he would sign an ordinance this week setting penalties of up to six months in jail and a $500 fine for anyone being caught in pants that shows underwear or certain parts of the body. "It's gotten way out of hand out here," he said. AMEN!
Through September 4th, Eugene de Salignac's photographs will be shown at the New York Rises exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York. What separates this photographer from others who have taken famous shots of this city throughout the ages, is that de Salignac served as photographer for the New York City Department of Bridges/Plant and Structures. He did this for the first three decades of the 20th century (1903 to 1934) and in doing so brought us thousands upon thousands of images of New York, in fact, rising. The images of "bridges, buildings, roads, and subways document the emergence of the modern city, while at the same time providing a unique aesthetic vision of the built environment and the people who created it."
So last fall Charlotte musician and guitar instructor Bob "Granola" Teixeira spent $1,200 to convert his 1981 diesel Mercedes to run on vegetable oil. He bought soybean oil in 5-gallon jugs at Costco, spending about 30 percent more than diesel would cost. His reward, from a state that heavily promotes alternative fuels: a $1,000 fine last month for not paying motor fuel taxes. He's been told to expect another $1,000 fine from the federal government and to legally use veggie oil, state officials told him, he would have to first post a $2,500 bond. Awesome.
20 Movies Not Coming Soon to a Theater Near You... Despite big name stars, strong buzz, and built-in fans, some films still find 'development hell' a very real place. Here's a list of 20 Movies Not Coming Soon to a Theater Near You

AGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Bodybuilders puff up with ‘Popeye’ oil jab

The substance, produced by various companies but known colloquially as synthol, binds with the muscle fibres creating a freakish, bloated appearance. Without any weight training, recipients of the injections can end up with arms larger than their legs.

The drug is said to be attracting the interest of British gym-goers looking for instant “bulk” and unconcerned about any associated health risks. Gym-goers unconcerned about health risks? I love it.

Synthol, which is a mixture of triglyceride oils and benzyl alcohol, was originally intended as a form of “posing oil” for bodybuilders. When injected into a muscle, however, the body is slow to break it down, so giving an inflated appearance.

It doesn’t actually develop the muscles as such; it just sort of sits in the tissues and makes them larger. One of the main problems people have with this is deformity as gravity plays its part, giving you droops within your muscles. There are some terrible cases of inflamed tissue from it. Also, because it gives a fast swelling, you will get cramp from a squashing of the nerve. Then you can get crushing of the actual blood vessels and blood flow cut-off.

Some authorities in the US have said bodybuilders also risk giving themselves a pulmonary embolism, which can be fatal, by injecting synthol directly into a major blood vessel.

The use and purchase of synthol and similar derivatives is not illegal. They can be bought off British internet sites for £125 for 100 millilitres. The Centre for Public Health said such sites were exploiting a legal loophole: “It was never developed for this purpose so it isn’t really covered by any legislation.”

Larry Birkhead poses HARD

"Before his interview with Larry King, photogs spotted Birkhead making his way into the studio with daughter Dannielynn, curled up in a blanket in his arms." Now, look at this effing clown with his soap opera face posing for the camera using his baby girl as a prop. I mean who clutches a child like that unless you're in a movie?! He's clutching that bambina like its a warm mug of mint hot cocoa and he's in front of a fireplace in the dead of winter. So lame. Pose hard, bro, pose hard.

Signs, signs everywhere signs, blocking out the scenery breaking my mind

Every bus swimming through the city has this goddamn advert on its side and something about it really irks the ish out of me; I'm not sure if its Dennis Leary's vulnerable neck tendons or the fact that I think he's trying to reinvent himself as some sort of TV hunk; either way the disgust it evokes in me is suspiciously strong. It's almost as annoying as these blog-bait Virgin Mobile "You Rule" adverts. BARF!!

Days later and I'm still a sucker for it; Peter Bogdanovich says his scene was missing from Sopranos finale but later found on grassy knoll

"I was shocked by the ending," said Peter Bogdanovich, the movie director and film historian who played Dr. Elliot Kupferberg, Tony's therapist's therapist.

Bogdanovich said he had shot another scene that didn't make the final episode, in which he was comforting an exhausted, bereaved Dr. Melfi. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Bogdanovich on the now infamous black-out ending: “It ends at that moment because that’s his life,” he says, "He’s anxious about getting blown away, the F.B.I. is going to indict him, Syl is going to die, everything is insecure and tense. It kept going, and the insert shots kept making you feel it was the last thing he was going to do. Endings, endings, endings. The little things in life are the last thing you are going to do. In fact, that’s his life."

Read the whole story in The Observer.

It's all happening at the zoo, ya hurrd?

First of all, I'll bite that tiger foot right off. Thanks to oskarn for the amazing pic. Anyway, I came across an interesting episode of NPR's Radio Lab available for download. It's a whole show about animals in zoos; they ask is there such thing as a good cage? "Happy gorillas, deft landscape architects, and neurologists show us that there just might be." They go back to the late 1970's to relive the moment when zoos began to change. Literally, the moment, that the modern zoo was born, as embodied by a few tentative steps of a gorilla named Kiki; a discussion of work done by neuroscientists who are looking into the brain to see the effects of living in a cage; also most carnivores in zoos find themselves being fed something more along the lines of a hamburger... or in zoo lingo "a meatsicle." And like in the movie "Supersize Me," the result of this diet is a bunch of overweight, lethargic, unhappy animals lying around in the zoo. So, a new wave of zoo reformers are suggesting that to make these caged carnivores happy we should be feeding them whole carcasses, or better yet, whole live animals. It's an interesting listen, so go grab it.

30 Years of Summer Jamz

Every summer some ubiquitous tune lodges its way into your brain whether you want it to or not. It's the song that blares from every car, television, cellphone, and apartment window; the song that just happens to be at the right place, at the right time.

So what will be this summers song? The choices seem pretty grim and don't get me started on last summers song... But first, here's an arguable list of the summer jamz of the past 30 years. Reading this list is really wild because I can totally envision those summers by imagining those melodies in my head and so many of them just suck total sh*t.....................

1977: "Margaritaville," Jimmy Buffett
1978: "Hot Blooded," Foreigner
1979: "My Sharona," the Knack
1980: "Funkytown," Lipps, Inc.
1981: "Jessie's Girl," Rick Springfield
1982: "Jack and Diane," John Cougar Mellencamp
1983: "The Safety Dance," Men Without Hats
1984: "The Reflex," Duran Duran
1985: "The Power of Love," Huey Lewis and the News
1986: "Venus," Banarama
1987: "Here I Go Again," Whitesnake
1988: "Pour Some Sugar on Me," Def Leppard
1989: "Good Thing," Fine Young Cannibals
1990: "Vogue," Madonna
1991: "Unbelievable," EMF
1992: "Jump," Kris Kross
1993: "Whoomp! There It Is," Tag Team
1994: "All I Wanna Do," Sheryl Crow
1995: "Fantastic Voyage," Coolio
1996: "The Macarena," Los Del Rio
1997: "Walking on the Sun," Smash Mouth
1998: "Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It," Will Smith
1999: "Livin' La Vida Loca," Ricky Martin
2000: "Who Let the Dogs Out?" Baha Men
2001: "Bootylicious," Destiny's Child
2002: "Hot in Herre," Nelly
2003: "Crazy in Love," Beyoncé
2004: "Yeah," Usher
2005: "Hollaback Girl," Gwen Stefani
2006: "Crazy", Gnarls Barkley

This summers cesspool of possible hits: (I'll try to somehow reserve commentary)

1- "Umbrella" by Rihanna... The song, which recently topped Billboard's Hot 100 chart, is "the first serious contender for Song of the Summer," according to New York Times pop music critic Kelefa Sanneh.

2-"Buy u a drink" by T Pain... Florida rapper T Pain's new jam recently hit number one on Billboard's Hot 100 chart.

3- "Do You" by Ne-Yo"... has already been stamped as the hottest love song of the summer by the Washington Post. And I mean when I think music, I think Washington Post.

4-"Lip Gloss" by Lil Mama... Lil Mama, a teenager from Brooklyn, lets you know that "My lip gloss is poppin', my lip gloss is cool" in this regrettably catchy song.

5- "I'm a Flirt" by R. Kelly... the embattled R&B star is being touted by Billboard as a candidate for the "song of the summer." His new record topped the Billboard 200 chart last week.

Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don't Even Farm

An agricultural subsidy is a governmental subsidy (a grant, tax break, or trade barrier) paid to farmers to supplement their income, manage the supply of agricultural commodities and influence the cost and supply of such commodities on international markets.

But apparently some of America's rich and famous are padding their bank accounts with this money earmarked for working farmers. A watchdog group in Washington has unveiled an internet database that pinpoints where the government is giving away farm subsidies. You may be surprised to see who's getting money and where.

The governments money is going to fat cats who don't need it, when it could be used to help people struggling to find their next meal. Where's John Cougar Mellencamp when you need him?

Even though some dude named Don Matthews put his sprawling new residence in the heart of rice country, he is no farmer. He is a 67-year-old asphalt contractor who wanted to build a dream house for his wife of 40 years. Yet under a federal agriculture program approved by Congress, his 18-acre suburban lot receives about $1,300 in annual "direct payments," because years ago the land was used to grow rice.........................

Nationwide, the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do no farming at all. Some of them collect hundreds of thousands of dollars without planting a seed.

NBA superstar Scottie Pippen gets $29,000 per year not to farm land he owns in Arkansas.

Late Night host David Letterman got $8,000, but gave it to charity.

David Rockefeller, the former chairman of Chase Manhattan and grandson of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, received a personal record high of $134,556.

Ted Turner, the 25th wealthiest man in America, received $12,925. Even ousted Enron CEO and multi-millionaire Ken Lay received $6,019 for not farming his land.

But sheep farmer Leo Tammi gets just $500 a year."Who'da thunk that I'm in the same club as some of the wealthiest individuals in the country?" says Tammi.

The checks to the rich and famous and other landowners were intended 10 years ago as a first step toward eventually eliminating costly, decades-old farm subsidies. Instead, the payments have grown into an even larger subsidy that benefits millionaire landowners, foreign speculators and absentee landlords, as well as farmers.

The cash comes with so few restrictions that subdivision developers who buy farmland advertise that homeowners can collect farm subsidies on their new back yards. Holla.

Eligibility for farm subsidies is determined not by income or poverty standards but by the crop that is grown. Growers of corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans, and rice receive more than 90% of all farm subsidies, while growers of most of the 400 other domestic crops are completely shut out of farm subsidy programs. Further skewing these awards, the amounts of subsidies increase as a farmer plants more crops.

Thus, large farms and agribusinesses--which not only have the most acres of land, but also, because of their economies of scale, happen to be the nation's most profitable farms--receive the largest subsidies.

Meanwhile, family farmers with few acres receive little or nothing in subsidies. In other words, far from serving as a safety net for poor farmers, farm subsidies comprise America's largest corporate welfare program.

The coalition of watchdog groups that created the database using the government's own data, says it's no joke.

Our system of farm subsidies is broken and it's time for change.

Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake is trying to do away with the subsidies. "It's plumb embarrassing to try to justify. Sometimes shame and ridicule works," says Flake.

Nearly 2 million farmers don't get a penny, but one farmers' group says the subsidies are vital.

"We would rather see a few billionaires slip through the cracks and get payments versus seeing hardworking farmers not get the payments that they need," says Tara Smith from the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Others believe the money would be better spent feeding starving Americans."We ought to put a little bit more money in the food stamp program so they can feedtheir kids for the whole month and maybe give them a vegetable once in a while," says David Beckham, president of Bread for the World.

What a mess. We'll let the Washington Post handle the rest.

Click Me, Bitch!

LOL... Bay Area teen seriously injured faking fall for a MySpace photo

About Me: A 17-year-old Livermore boy who was seriously injured Monday night in Mt. Diablo State Park in San Francisco when I tried to fake a fall for the camera and then I actually fell 75 feet onto rocks.

Who I'd Like To Meet: My Doom

The shining bulb was on Sentinel Rock, a vertical formation near Rock City popular for its views, when he moved outside the handrail, lost his footing and fell into a crevice and became wedged between rocks and a hard place. Mick Jagger was unavailable for comment.

Friends of the boy, who is hospitalized with multiple traumatic injuries, told rescuers he had been trying to stage a photo of a fake fall for his MySpace page when he slipped and fell for real.

It took about an hour for authorities challenged by the steep terrain and absence of moonlight to rescue the boy. They used rock-climbing equipment to reach the crevice before they put the victim, who was conscious, on a gurney that they carried a half-mile to the Live Oak campground. There, they were met by a medical helicopter that transported the boy to a not-so-nearby hospital.

A college student died in the same area of the park where the Livermore teenager fell around this time last year. Nicholas Ermak, 22, Danville fell several hundred feet after reportedly venturing outside a roped-off area on Sentinel Rock to climb rocks on June 6. He died two days later of major head injuries. Now that ain't cool, but this tool taking a MySpace photo, I mean c'mon bro.

HELP! Rachael Ray is following me and making up words in her attempt to take over the universe!!

I back Rachael Ray because she backs pit bulls. I've even learned to deal with her always being barefoot and touching her goddamn feet, sitting Indian-style on every magazine cover. I've felt the shadow of her empire on my back eclipsing the sun. But now this bitch is following me AND she's making up words.

I went to D&D the other day to get an iced and there she was!!!! AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! And not only is she all over D&D now but she's making up words like "Quicklicious". I hate people who make up words. Don't make up words, Rach, you're killing me.

And girl, stop following me around with those bare ass feet. Go fix me chicken pot pie!

This is a real bum out... Mr. Wizard has died. Don Herbert (a.k.a. Mr. Wizard) who introduced generations of young viewers to the joys of science has died, he was 89. He had bone cancer. I loved me some Mr. Wizard. I always wanted to meet him behind the old school house after dark and blow sh*t up. When "Late Night with David Letterman" debuted in 1982, Mr. Wizard was among the first-night guests. Mr. Wizard really tried to bust the image of scientists and that science wasn't just for nerds in laboratories.
Eminem and Mariah Carey just can't seem to stop griping about each other. Eminem's new album is mining his fling six years ago with Mariah for material. There is more than one track that goes into really specific, intimate detail about what went on between Em and Mariah. In fact, Mimi's so mad about the new tracks that she's asked the head of her record label to intervene, and wants to sue Eminem for slander. Waaaaaaaah.
Corruptors of the World Unite! ... Iran's parliament voted in favour of a bill that could lead to death penalty for persons convicted of working in the production of pornographic movies. The hysterical term, "corruptor of the world" is taken from the hysterical Quran, the Muslims' holy book, and ranks among the highest on the scale of an individuals criminal offenses. Under Iran's Islamic Penal Code, being a porn star carries a death penalty.
Et tu, Brute!? ... Did you know that when you search for something on Google, a record of what you've searched for can be saved for up to 2 YEARS!? Officials are worried that data from Google searches and cookies can be used to identify individuals and create profiles of their political opinions, religious beliefs and sexual preferences. Sort of like keeping a record of what library books you borrow or whatever. The privacy issue is in danger of becoming a real embarrassment to Google.
D00d sum guy just got kild LOL snd a cop ;) The LAPD announced plans 2 improve the city's 911 system, sayin callers in the future will be able 2 use text messages, photos n even video from cellphones 2 seek emergency assistance ROFL LOL S.O.S. !!!!
Forget Paris and the Bahamas. What about the Bronx? If the borough is the last place you'd think to spend your vacation, TV commercials coming soon to a screen near you will try to convince you it's not such a bad idea. The series of TV commercials are part of a marketing campaign called "We're Talking the Bronx.'' Yeah, I just bought a cottage on Mosholu Parkway. It's breathtaking.
SONY got called to the principals office in England... I guess theres some video game called "Resistance: Fall of Man" where theres a shoot-out in a Manchester cathedral. "This is a sensitive topic," SONY said, "Many historical buildings are used in entertainment such as movies, including Godzilla and the Tokyo Tower and King Kong in Manhattan." The church has demanded an apology, saying that SONY never axed for permission to use the cathedral in question. I luvre the word 'cathedral', it's so perfect for what it defines.
Who knew? The Dalai Lama was down with the Crocodile Hunter... Delicately handling a Burmese python and petting a stoned koala, the spiritual head of the Buddhist world visited the zoo of late Steve Irwin and addressed a sold-out crowd at its open-air, arena-style "Crocoseum." The DL thanked Irwin's family for its dedication to wildlife and then bought a few bags of Roo-Poo.
I like my sugar with coffee and cream: Beastie Boys announce tour dates
The Double Slit Experiment is considered the quintessential quantum mechanics experiment. It succinctly illustrates the counter-intuitive properties of the quantum world in a clear concise manner. I mean, where the F else are you gonna get very bizarre but very real quantum physics explained thru animation?
19th-century weapon found in whale... A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the coast of Alaska last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt — more than a century ago. That's my boy.
OK, time for another iced coffee. Peace.

CALL TO ACTION: Liberty Humane Society NEEDS YOU

"Today the Liberty Humane Society received an unexpected visit from many city officials as well as the President/CEO of the Liberty Science Center. As many of you know, the Liberty Science Center has been under an extensive renovation project and is slated to re-open in July.

In anticipation of this exciting opening, the City as well as the Liberty Science Center has asked all surrounding neighbors to help make this re-opening as successful as possible. One way to do this is by beautifying the surrounding area of the Liberty Science Center.

Since LHS is located directly across the street from the Liberty Science Center, they would really like our cooperation.

The grand re-opening of the Liberty Science Center is going to to attract local as well as national press coverage.

There will be a Black Tie Affair held at the Science Center on 28 June as well as a press conference on 11 July. These activities will give LHS wonderful exposure and attention, which in turn will help our animals that are anxiously awaiting homes.

We need the assistance of our very talented and dedicated volunteers to help us accomplish the many projects we need to complete before 11 July.

Please see the list of tasks below. If you have experience in any of the areas we need assistance with, we would GREATLY appreciate your help!

* An artist that can paint a mural on the back of the shelter
* An architectural rendering of what the shelter will look like when finished
* Volunteers to help paint the front office and entrance way
* Volunteers experienced in sheet rocking to help sheet rock the front office
* Volunteers to help plant flowers

ITEMS THAT THE SHELTER WILL NEED DONATED:
* Flowers
* Flower Pots
* Potting Soil
* Gift Cards for Home Depot or Lowe's
* Painting Supplies

While we hope to start some of these projects immediately, we would need to accomplish the majority of the work during the weekend of June 23rd & 24th. We hope as many volunteers as possible can come to the shelter and roll up their sleeves and help LHS spruce up the shelter!

This is LHS' opportunity to become a good neighbour with the Liberty Science Center and gain some great exposure of behalf of our wonderful animals! If you can help with any of these projects or to make a contribution, please contact Allison ASAP!

Thanks!"

What on earth is a "bright"?

"A bright is a person whose world view is free of supernatural and mystical elements. The ethics and actions of a bright are based on a naturalistic world view.”

Read more from Richard Dawkins here.
And check out The-Brights.Net

from JAWK DNA

This thing is awesome!

http://www.thepixelplant.net/dmf/dmf.html

Thanks E!

I really suck at storytelling

I'm really an awful storyteller. Somewhere along the way I think you come to a fork in the road; either you're going to be a brilliant storyteller or a good writer. Either you're going to be the guy who's still sitting at the table long after dessert, smoking a cigar and making people crack up or you're going to be the guy who can romanticize even the mundane with a delicious pen.

Sometimes I can identify with Steve Martin in Roxanne. There are times when I feel like I can summons the confidence of Shakespeare behind a typewriter but when I'm talking to someone, I have trouble accessing the words I'm looking for. This is either a product of me writing too much or just not being social enough; or maybe they're one and the same.

When I was younger, I would always vanish from parties. We'd all go out and wind up at some random dudes apartment, everyone's drinking and somehow occupying themselves in this foreign space and I would start staring at the walls. Soon enough I'd slip out the door without saying a word to anyone and go home, write or play my guitar or listen to music; to me, that was fun.

No one wants to be the guy on the trip with the video camera; no one wants to be the guy in charge of documenting everything while its happening, live; instead of experiencing it, you're stuck documenting it. Sure there is glory in the stories of scribes and how without them we'd have no history immortalized; we'd have nothing to study but somewhere along the way, I feel I started seeing everything through a somewhat poetic lens.

As situations unfold before me in real time, in my mind I am seeing the words and synonyms of how I'd describe my surroundings if I was typing on a blank page. Sometimes I run home and I do unload it all, sometimes it just stays bouncing around in my head. But sometimes it almost becomes an out of body experience, like I'm there, in the moment as I'm making out with this girl but in my head I'm seeing it from above the parked car or the bedroom or wherever we are; I'm reading what is happening on an invisible page in my head as it is still unfolding. It's truly a bizarre feeling that I have trouble describing.

Again, I suck at storytelling.

I've been around the world; South Africa to Finland to Brazil to New Zealand to Berlin. I have enough memories to fill a few books, but ask me a detail and I'm lost. Ask me if I've been to such and such a city and I'm clueless. I wrestle with a disgust for details and an obsession with details. I could write you 1500 words on a stainless steel spoon entering a pint of mint ice cream but I can't recall what cities we played when we toured Australia. I guess its selective memory; I remember the details I find important. But not everyone thinks this way.

Some time ago I realised to truly be happy in this world, you have to be dumb. This doesn't mean I'm a genius, far from it, but I know people who seem to just float through life without a care; whether it's in their own lives or their surroundings, they are numb and oblivious to suffering and pain. I wrote a song once called "I Wish I Was Dumb" and as you can imagine, it was rather self-explanatory; about how pretty people don't sing the blues or imagine themselves in someone else's shoes and so forth, and it's so true.

A friend of mine and I were in a Chinese restaurant in Park Slope and there was a guy at the back of the place sitting behind a mountain of snow peas, sorting them, somehow. And the more we stared at him, the more we felt bad for him and decided that he was sad. We decided he had just broken up with his girlfriend and he'd just found The Cure and he was very lonely. I mean we started out just fucking around but towards the end we were on the verge of tears inventing this imaginary scenario for this quiet Chinese waiter. And dumb, happy people just don't do this sort of thing and maybe that's why they seem so goddamn happy!

Another friend of mine and I can make each other feel bad for just about anything, inanimate objects included. We'll see an empty coffee mug and start saying to each other "what did that mug ever do wrong? it just wanted to be filled with a hot drink to make someone warm on a cold day" and so on. And if your head is fragile enough, you can really start to empathize with this empty mug. It's wild and certainly not normal.

But then again, what is?

Ummm yeah. A man was rescued after his car was crushed by a trailer on the BQE near Atlantic Avenue around 1:30 this afternoon. The driver of the car was rescued within minutes of the crash. The extent of his injuries were unknown. Wow. Panic.
A Long Island landscaper was killed this afternoon after apparently falling into a cesspool while cutting the back lawn of a suburban home. The dude was found inside the 6-foot cesspool with his lawnmower tilted askew nearby close to a co-worker who had been cutting the front lawn. It was not immediately clear how the cesspool collapsed.
Designer lobsters found in New London, Connecticut.
As we reported the other day, Dan Rather, speaking on MSNBC by phone, said CBS had made the mistake of taking the evening news broadcast and "dumbing it down, tarting it up,'' and playing up topics such as celebrities over war coverage. While referring to Couric as a "nice person,'' Rather said "the mistake was to try to bring the 'Today' show ethos to the 'Evening News,' and to dumb it down, tart it up in hopes of attracting a younger audience.'' Well now CBS Chief Executive Les Moonves shot back at former CBS news anchor Dan Rather saying remarks Rather made about his successor, Katie Couric, were "sexist". Dan Rather then told Les to "smell the glove".
Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore and his distributor, Harvey Weinstein, appeared at a press conference yesterday to question why the government is investigating Moore's trip to Cuba for his upcoming film, Sicko. The film, which premiered at Cannes and is scheduled to open in a few weeks, questions the American health care system and, at one point, Moore takes three September 11 rescue workers to Cuba to get health care treatment for them there. Now the Treasury Department is investigating the trip, saying it may have violated the trade embargo. Oh, suck it.
Check out 5 BOROUGHS Ice Cream before its yanked off the shelves.
John Travolta and his family reveal their nocturnal secret to avoiding paparazzi. That's really weid.
BERLIN, DE (AP) - Cute as a Knutton... Germany's celebrity polar bear cub, is turning into a moneymaker for the Berlin Zoo, which expects to bring in $3.3 million more than last year due to a dramatic rise in visitors. The 6-month-old bear draws several hundred visitors each day, who line up behind metal gates for his 11 a.m. public viewing. Unfazed by the attention, Knut rolled in the dirt under a broiling sun and chewed on the arm of his keeper. Awwww, Knut.
The next person who blames ANYTHING on "global warming" is getting punched in the loins.
That's all for now. Goodnight, folks!

More Sopranos Rumours; I'm hooked; Paul is Dead / "28 IF"

I came home today to an inbox rife with more Sopranos speculations and theories; so many that I'm this close to watching the episode again with my finger on the pause button, a giant magnifying glass and a checklist like Carmen Sandiego on a goddamn scavenger hunt.

Just like our parents got high and spun their 12'' against the belt trying to make out "Paul is Dead" I find this kind of stuff très interesting; if only to hear imaginations coming out of the woodwork to concoct such wildly vivid albeit plausible suppositions.

When David Chase pulled the plug like that last Sunday he really put a delicious syrupy Maraschino cherry atop a goddamn intricate layer cake. People will be talking about this finale for years to come. It was genuis. Simply.

And thank the maker for on-demand because now we can all sit and scrutinize every movement; this Sopranos finale will soon become our generations Zapruder tapes.

Anywho, here are the two coolest theory emails I received today...........

Theory #1 : Tony falls asleep last week in a barren room. No sheets on bed, no alrms clock, nothing. When he apparently wakes up, there are sheets on bed, a mirror, an alarm clock with music going off. None of that was in the end of last week's show. Tony dreams the whole last episode. A.J getting settled, Phil going down and agent harris cheering for him, Meadow becoming a lawyer and getting married. In the end, he sees himself sitting at the table. He is dreaming of having dinner with his family. Its ends when tony wakes up from his great dream. When A.J. says during the episode, "you are all living in a dream", that is a clue. sheets on bed, A.J's comment, and tony seeing himself at the end are all clues that the show really ended last week. This weeks episode was all a dream.

Theory # 2 (sic) : ok listen guys...u gotta wach the end of the episode again and wach closely...here is wat ul c...when tony walks into the diner he looks at himself sitting down at the table...u can be sure of this b/c he is wearing different clothes when he sits down...i dont no wtf that means...in previous seasons it had been told to us that tony's dad died just as his daughter ( Janice ) walked in...if u wach closely u will see Janice walk in shortly after tony sits down...this is used to signify the possibility of that happening again...then u will c the sports store owner who tony destroyed walk in wearing a brown kinda hunting jacket...he is the guy that a couple seasons ago got into gambling trouble with tony and tony took over his store...HE IS THE 1 WHO WACKS TONY...he comes in and sits down hunched over...hiding his eyes as not wanting to be noticed...and alas..."u probly dont even here it when it happens rite?" (this is bobby talking to tony in the 1st episode of the season...tony had this flashback as he was laying down in the last episode...there would be no reason to have had that in unless it had some huge significance)...and finally...tonys daughter walking in to c her dad get shot just as Janice did so many years ago...u hear the bell of her walking in and then blackness...nuthing...it signifies the neverending cycle of the soprano family...aj will become tony...meadow will become janus...carmela will become livia (tonys mom)...and cycle of violence goes on and on and on....absolutlely amazing...i HATED the ending at first...but when i wached it again...and understood it...it is really the most amazing ending possible for the show...we really would not have been satisfied with the boring u c tony git shot ending...this was priceless... remember..this was not an action show...it was a drama about a FAMILY Tony IS DEAD and WAS CLIPPED by someone. We the audience have always seen the episodes from Tony's point of view, and the blackened silence is what Tony sees and hears when he finally gets clipped. Remember the conversation with Bobby at the lake? "I wonder if you hear the one that gets you" - the final episode answers that question. That is why they flashed back to it at the end of last weeks episode. He never heard the one that killed him.

*** OK, update. I just watched the ending scene again and theory # 2 above is total crap. I'll leave it up just for the sake of argument but that is NOT Janice who walks in after Tony and that is NOT the dude who owned the sporting goods store. Tony wasn't in a room full of ghosts whether he was dreaming or not. The scene going black could still mean Tony got shot. Theory # 1 with the dreamscape still holds up; everything went black meaning either Tony got shot or he woke up from a dream. And that's that, my friends. At least, for now.

Crazyface Germ shep bit some kid but instead of putting the dog down a NJ judge gives Cujo a new life as a guard dog of a prison and we love it !
The best Sopranos finale speculation on the interweb be here.
Jay-Z and Steve Jobs know the streets is watchin'
Maoz Falafel of Amsterdam opens in New York!!!
Rome wasn't digitally rebuilt in a day; it probably took at least two
Me vs. Pleurisy plus Michael Moore's new movie
David Chase's Wiki page vandalised by rogue e-Thugs!
The 29th Annual Museum Mile Festival is tonight! 5th Ave from 82nd Street to 105th Street will be closed and all museum admissions fees will be waived from the Met to El Museo del Barrio. Go get your art on!
101 Really Useful Websites besides MySpace and Craigslist.
The 3rd Annual Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival starts on Thursday, June 21, at the Tobacco Warehouse. Holla!
The Rock Capitol of Brooklyn is Back... in Staten Island
Mega-designer/billionaire Giorgio Armani, 72, in a speedo.
The Enola (is) Gay: Pentagon confirms long-standing reports that, a decade ago, military leaders had considered building a bomb that would turn people gay.
Bush had his watch stolen by some Albanians.
Ish is so bad in Metro Detroit due to all the automaker job cuts that they'll give you a new Land Rover if you just buy a loft.

David Chase's Wikipedia Page Vandalised By e-Thugs!

Now we all know that a lot of Sopranos fans thought that the series ended on a terrible note -- but taking a hit out on creator David Chase's Wikipedia entry?! Oh maronna mia!

We were checking out Chase's Wiki page this morning, and noticed that the first line read, "David Chase ... is a homosexual American television writer."

Now we're all for the gays, but the sexual-orientation thing seemed odd, since Chase has been married to the same woman for over twenty years. Well, it turns out that the entry was "vandalized" by some Wiki thugs, which then caused the Wikipedia folks to clamp down immediately, disallowing any changes to the page. Wikipedia didn't comment on the changes in Chase's entry, but it won't be available again for editing until next Monday.

We wait with baited breath.

The moral of the story is that we're amped for Sicko

I rang in the goddamn 2001 New Year watching a giant blizzard from my hospital bed; for 2 weeks doctors had no clue what was wrong with me. They had me on blood thinner first then thought I might have cancer... they were really shooting fish in a barrel and it was f*cking scary to feel so helplessly at the mercy of these dudes who are supposed to know it all. They had medical students coming to poke me with ish.

The height of the lunacy was when the vampire who came two or three times a day to draw my blood couldn't find a vein, for some reason he decided that if he raised my bed up it would be easier. The dude cranked my bed almost to the ceiling of my room! I felt like I was on the top of a bunk bed and I'm dangling my arm down so this nut can find a vein. It was quickly becoming a Chevy Chase movie.

Just when it couldn't possibly get any worse an awesome cardiothoracic surgeon figured out I had pleurisy and basically saved my life. Pleurisy is basically really bad pneumonia; like really, really bad. I'd never heard of pleurisy and thought it sounded like something they'd come down with on Little House or something.

I was told most people don't get pleurisy these days because the pain becomes too unbearable before it advances to that stage, but since I'm such a rugged hard-ass I bared the pain for almost a week before I surrendered that something was wrong; that dangerous stoic gene had been passed down on my fathers side (along with my hairline) where I won't go see a doctor unless there's lots of blood and its pouring out of my eyes or ears and even then, I'll go begrudgingly. The pain was insane in the membrane; every breath I took felt like I was being stabbed in the ribs; I couldn't laugh, I couldn't cough, I could only take very, very shallow breaths.

I can vividly remember eating a sangwich alone in my old office at the radio station overlooking the traffic on 57th street and seriously thinking that I was going to die. I was scared ishless. So, a few nights later, we went to the hospital haha.

ANYWAY, I'd just started working a new gig............ a union gig in radio, but naturally my benefits hadn't kicked in yet. In fact, I think they kicked literally 2 or 3 days after I was released from the hospital a month and change later. I had chest tubes up the wazoo, 2 or 3 operations, the works. It was a mess. All told I think I'd amassed close to $170,000 in medical bills that I was 101% uninsured for. I had nothing.

It was ironic because a year or two prior I had written an album of songs basically about this exact situation; healthcare in the U.S. and such. My dad would be diagnosed with cancer around the same time we were writing the record about conspiracies within the healthcare industry and the mammoth revenue from treatments rendering absolute cures dangerous because of catastrophic loss of cash. The theories aren't all that hard to comprehend, it's not like UFO's and the Lochness Monster. Let's say someone had a cure for AIDS; you swallow a pill and you're cured. Even if the pill cost one million dollars, these huge corporations would lose so much money that it makes a cure nearly unimaginable. SO much revenue is made on keeping people alive (which is different than curing them); treating their disease; extending their life while still infected not on CURING them and sending them off with a clean bill of health.

Why would I wanna sell you a single pill that will cure you for good when I can treat you and sell you a million pills over and over and over again while you slowly die? It's completely f*cked but it's possible; tragically it's not too far fetched a theory to believe. And I ain't the only one thinking this ish.

I was writing songs about cancer and these same theories; that cancer treatment is so lucrative that a cancer cure would cripple the industry. Without sounding too catch-phrasey, for these merciless companies; pain is profit and health is poverty. Get it?

The whole thing about if you're poor you'll die is a bunch of bullsh*t however. They treated me and asked questions later. If you're left on the doorstep of a hospital with a bullet in your eyeball, you will be treated, they aren't going to let you die or ask for your insurance card before they operate. That's a souped up extreme myth of the left to try and prove an extreme point.

OK, fair enough.

The best part was, we were able to talk the insurance company down from $170,000 to a little more than 10% of my bill and they were happy; which is totally insane and speaks volumes. If there were willing to take that, how much of my bill was just total bullsh*t?! How much of bill wasn't necessary if they were willing to play let's make a deal rather than eat the entire costs?

I've traveled all over the world; being on tour means fistfights, food poisoning, earaches and gashes from guitars colliding with heads on stage so I've seen the white walls of many a foreign hospital. For all the times any of us ever visited a hospital in Europe (or anywhere outside of the U.S. for that matter), we were never charged a dime. We were treated and released; prescribed medicine for free; stitches for free; crutches for free; casts for free; wheelchairs for free; all of it. No charge, no questions asked, ever. MAYBE they'd photocopy your passport if they were in a bad mood; otherwise they fixed you up and sent you packing. I recall one time we even bought amoxicillin over-the-counter in Spain just because we could.

So, yeah. The rest of the world definitely has it down right and actually respects the Hippocratic Oath whereas the U.S. only respects the mighty dollar.

ANYWAY, we're all excited for Michael Moore's new movie "Sicko" which comes out June 29. Here's an interview with Michael Moore from The Times.

Holla: J's fixin to take his ball and go home

So the word on the block is J & Bee are allegedly starting a new label venture with Apple iTunes. As you all have heard by now, Jay’s contract with Def Jam will expire soon and him renewing his contract is becoming a big question over at Def Jam. In the contract, Jay has the rights to bring the entire group of artists he signed anywhere he goes. So big hitters like Rihanna, Ne-yo, Rick Ross, Kanye, and Nas will follow Jay to this new label. Also Beyonce will fill out her obligation with Sony by the end of '07 with just 2 more albums to go. Details are still sketched but look for new contracts and new moves to happen around November-December. Beyonce and Rihanna on the same label…very interesting. from Highbrid.

Everybody Wang Tao Tonight

101 Really Useful Websites besides MySpace and Craigslist.

I'm intrigued by the idea of solar powered air conditioning; it is just so logical as you need it most when the sun is blazing.

27 Confessions Of A Former Circuit City Worker..."I had worked at Circuit City for quite some time, until recently when I could no longer stand the shady operations of its business. While working at Circuit City I worked in the Media and Technology department. I believe there are a few things that people should know about Circuit City..."

Ish is so bad in Metro Detroit due to all the automaker job cuts that they'll give you a new Land Rover if you just buy a loft. From Jalopnik

Pack a hella tight bowl for this one and blaze: Scientists Believe Nerves Might Run on Sound, Not Electricity

Don't stop now: Alien worlds, once hidden from knowledge, are now being discovered in droves, stunning astronomers with their unique features and sheer numbers. The discoveries are so common that more and more don't even get reported outside scientific circles. What exactly happens in one of these 'scientific circles'?

What a douche: Celeb fashion designer Anand Jon will be charged with 13 more counts of sexual misconduct today in Los Angeles County Superior Court, including three new counts of rape -- raising the total number of charges against him to 46. TMZ.com has learned that six new accusers have joined the case, bringing the total number of potential victims to 18 -- all ranging between the ages of 14 and 27. Among the horrific new charges, Anand Jon, 30, is accused of sexual penetration by a foreign object, assault with intent to commit a felony, forcible rape and forcible oral copulation. Peace out, bro.

Mega-designer/billionaire Giorgio Armani, 72, in a speedo.

The Enola (is) Gay: So the Pentagon confirmed long-standing reports that, a decade ago, military leaders had considered building a gay bomb. An Air Force proposal suggested the concept of an offensive weapon that might render its victims homosexual. "One distasteful but completely non-lethal example," said the proposal, would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior." Read the article here.

Feline-featured New York society mess Jocelyn Wildenstein proves cats and dogs can get along after all. Poor thing, what has she done to herself?!

Mueller? Mueller? Mueller? When the FBI asked Congress this spring to provide $3.6 million in the war spending bill for its Gulfstream V jet, it said the money was needed to ensure that the aircraft, packed with state-of-the-art security and communications gear, could continue to fly counterterrorism agents on "crucial missions" into Iraq. Turns out, these "crucial missions" have included FBI Director Robert Mueller's speeches, public appearances, family vacations and field office visits. Oh, dip!

Bush gets got: One moment Bush was glad-handing Albanians on Sunday, proudly sporting a watch with a dark strap on his left wrist. Moments later, it was gone. Hahaha! those darn Albanians at it again!

Everybody Wang Tao Tonight: Current Chinese law states that children are only allowed take the surname from either their mother or father, but the lack of variety means there are now 93 million people in China with the family name Wang. Chinese authorities are considering a landmark move to try to end the confusion. The survey found 92 million people shared the surname Li, while 88 million were called Zhang. A further seven surnames -- including Chen, Zhou and Lin -- are held by at least 20 million Chinese. Another report by the Chinese Academy of Sciences found at least 100,000 people share China's most popular name, Wang Tao.

You know those big inflatable houses they have at street fairs where kids can go inside and jump around like loons for 10 minutes? Well, there was one in Hawaii and I guess it somehow floated into the sea with the kids still inside, bouncing around. Video is here.

Rome wasn't digitally rebuilt in a day

Some bona fide neirds from UCLA's Cultural Virtual Reality Laboratory? and the University of Virgina got together and well, digitally reconstructed Rome as it would have been in June of 320 A.D. Go here and take a looksee.

Go listen to NPR, now!

Leonard Lopate is on the air right now 93.9 FM and wnyc.org talking to Alexander Litvinenko's widow. Last November, former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko was fatally poisoned in London. On today’s show, Alex's widow and his friend Alex Goldfarb give their inside account of the international murder mystery.

Sonic Youth recorded "Daydream Nation" nearly 20 years ago. But the album’s impact is still being felt in indie rock circles, considered one of the most influential albums in rock history.

Today on Soundcheck, John Schaefer talks with Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley about the record's genesis, and why the band’s now performing it, in its entirety, on stage.

John also talks to Greg Kot, critic for the Chicago Tribune, and Michael Azerrad, author of "Our Band Could Be Your Life," (a must read book by the way!) about how a collection of dissonant guitar noise became a seminal rock album.

Tune in today, at 2pm 93.9 FM or online at wnyc.org

Sonic Youth will be performing the Daydream Nation album on July 28 at the McCarren Park Pool in Greenpoint.

Tennis ace Serena Williams: Whatcha gonna do with all that junk All that junk inside your trunk?

Holla.

The Sun Shall Rise and Set on the Maoz Empire!! MAOZ ARRIVES IN NEW YORK

I'd been meaning to write about this for some time but kept forgetting. My apologies!! You all must be starving! I have the perfect cure.

The World Famous Maoz's of Amsterdam has FINALLY planted its flag in Gotham. The maiden voyage of Maoz is located at 38 Union Square East betwixt 16th and 17th street.

"The first Maoz branch was opened in 1991 in Amsterdam. The motivator behind this pioneer shop was the idea that it was time Dutch people were introduced to a new and nutritious vegetarian dish". Oh, how deelish!

We used to play this club called The Melkweg whenever we toured Holland and the original Maoz was but a cobblestones throw away; it's been a love affair ever since. We'd always say they should open one in NYC and now they finally have. You can thank us later.

Oh, they serve falafel by the way. Forgot to mention that; and it's perfect. Mangia Bene!

The 29th Annual Museum Mile Festival is TODAY with more creativity than you can shake a stick at all concentrated in a festival on 5th Avenue (from 82nd Street to 105th Street). From the Met to El Museo del Barrio all museum admissions will be FREE. All of Fifth Avenue will be closed as well so you can wander around like a nut. Other museums involved in the day are: Goethe-Institut, Neue Galerie, Guggenheim, Cooper-Hewitt, National Academy Museum, The Jewish Museum and The Museum of the City of New York. In addition to museums, you'll find artists of all ages showing off their work in a pedestrian mall. A full list of this years events here. Some things to put on your checklist: the Met's newly-renovated Greek and Roman galleries and Neue Galerie's popular Van Gogh and Expressionism exhibit. City Guide suggests taking a bus up Madison Avenue to 104th Street, walking one block west to Fifth Avenue, and begin at El Museo del Barrio, then work your way down. The festival is this evening, June 12th from 6 to 9pm. Get your art on, people!
The venerable Prowler, which went into service during the Vietnam years to protect attack jets, is now being used for something far more mundane.These days, the Prowler focuses its jammers on signals from mobile phones and garage door openers that are used to remotely trigger roadside bombs in Iraq, the biggest killer of American troops. One of the Prowler pilots says it's hard to prove that a roadside bomb failed to explode because the aircraft jammed signals, but he says there's no doubt that fewer explosive devices go off when it flies by.
Rottweilers Rip Off the Ear of Long Island Man... awww, they were just hungy!
208 Arrested at Puerto Rican Parade, more than in previous years and in spite of a lack of widespread mayhem at the sometimes rowdy event. Police said they made the arrests after advance reports that the Latin Kings were going to crash the parade by marching uninvited. All but 10 of those arrested were suspected gang members, police said."The parade organizers did not invite the Latin Kings, and they did not want them in the parade,'' said some cop.
Continuing the city's environmental kick, Bloomberg said that City Hall is planning to use solar power and cleaner-burning heating oil in municipal buildings. JETSON!
3rd Annual Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival --- on Thursday, June 21, at the Tobacco Warehouse, it's "Hip Hop Under the Bridge with Ralph McDaniels". Uncle Ralph will be video-DJing classic and new-school Hip Hop. The closing concert is an all-day affair, on Saturday, June 23, at the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park... Ghostface Killah, Consequence, Large Professor, Sean P, Dres, Emily King, J.Period, Blitz The Ambassador, Print, and Kidz In The Hall will all be there. Tickets are required for those two events, but no tickets are needed for the June 14 showing of photography by David Alan Harvey at the Powerhouse Arena, and the June 22 screening of the influential 1982 film "Wild Style". Here be the flyer. HOLLA!

Dog Spared Death, Instead to Serve Life Guarding a Private Prison

A New Jersey judge spared a German shepherd who attacked a child from being euthanised for his bad deed. Instead, 7-year-old Ozzy will have to spend his life in prison, well, guarding one.

Back in April, Ozzy attacked a neighbour's child and was sent to an animal shelter.

A municipal judge ordered the dog be put down. But his owner arranged another option: He could have a job patrolling the perimeter at the privately run George W. Hill Correctional Facility near Media, Pa.

On Monday, Superior Court Judge John T. McNeill III agreed to the plan, calling it......................... "the right alternative.''

"He'll be in there until he dies,'' McNeill said. "Ozzy will not be adopted by a family. He will never be released to the public.''

I sort of love this bittersweet idea. Sadly there are a lot of unadoptable dogs; they're just too vicious or crazy from being abused or whatever, but there's no reason these dogs should be euthanised and I've always thought so.

My heart jumps out of my chest for these dogs I see in shelters who growl at me uncontrollably and show their teeth because I know they're doomed and just counting the days until they're put down.

But the world needs crazy growling junkyard dogs and dogs for protection and the like so this is perfect! I wish more judges would do stuff like this. It makes me very happy.

The Rock Capital of Brooklyn...is now in Staten Island?

L'Amour, the "Rock Capital of Brooklyn, New York" for over 25 years, recently re-opened its doors at 2354 Arthur Kill Road in Staten Island ??!?!!!

The world-renowned club is featured in "Get Thrashed: The Story of Thrash Metal", and bands like METALLICA, MEGADETH, SLAYER, ANTHRAX, OVERKILL, TYPE O NEGATIVE, CRO-MAGS, AGNOSTIC FRONT, BIOHAZARD, MERCYFUL FATE, VENOM, RAVEN and many others have graced its stages over the years.....................

"Get Thrashed" will be screened on Friday, June 22 at 9:00 p.m. at The College of Staten Island - Recital Hall (2800 Victory Blvd, Staten Island, New York 10314). Tickets are $6.00 and are available through www.sifilmfestival.org.

The after-party for "Get Thrashed: The Story of Thrash Metal" will be held on Friday, June 22 at the new L'Amour.

All those attending the "Get Thrashed" screening on Friday, June 22 can bring their ticket stub to L'Amour that same night to receive half price admission to the club.

I guess the main theme here is GET THRASHED!

Back in Black

Woke up this mornin and people are still discussing this goddamn Sopranos finale. Not since Seinfeld has there been so much discussion over a TV show's depiction of ''nothing.''

Chase's decision to use an ambiguous black screen to close out one of the most epic series in TV history has some singing his praise for refusing to close with a cheesy Hollywood ending and others cursing his name for keeping them guessing — possibly forever.

Chase flew to France................. before the airing of the much-debated finale because he wanted to avoid what he called "all the Monday morning quarterbacking." But like a true New Jersey loyalist, he granted one interview to The Star-Ledger of Newark.

Chase said he would leave it to fans to interpret the show's last scene for themselves.

"I have no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting, or adding to what is there," he said.

"People get the impression that you're trying to mess with them, and it's not true. You're trying to entertain them," he said. "Anybody who wants to watch it, it's all there."

What's all there? you ask...

Here's the latest speculation:

The most prominent suggestion is the screen going black was Tony getting shot; by who we aren't sure. But everything suddenly going black hearkens back to Bobby Bacala telling Tony in the boat a few episodes ago about how when death comes, you won't even know it, it'll just "all go black".
Others are saying it wasn't just Tony being paranoid at the burger spot. He recognised the few brothers that had walked in as the dudes who had been hired to rub him out years back when they were only able to shoot off a piece of his ear, remember that? "Your ear, its disfigured"... Also, the dude at the counter in the Members Only jacket apparently was one of Phil Leotardo's cousins that allegedly can be seen at a sit-down a few seasons ago and disappearing into the bathroom could be a Godfather reference.

So yeah, its brilliant basically and David Chase saying "Anybody who wants to watch it, it's all there" means he is a f#cking genius and all this stuff could def be true.

Quite possibly the only thing that is for certain is that Journey's guarantee will definitely go up. People are even interviewing them about what they think.

The Tragic Story of Banaz Mahmoud

Banaz Mahmoud Bakabir Agha, a 20 year old woman of Kurdish origin was brutally murdered on 23 January 2006 in a presumed 'honour' killing.

Police believe she was murdered by her own family after wishing to remarry after ending her forced marriage by divorce. Her body was found in a suitcase in April. Banaz had contacted London Metro Police many times to express her fear of murder, but was sent back into the arms of the family that they suspect murdered her.

As one of five daughters in a strictly-traditional Kurdish family, Banaz Mahmoud's future was ordained whether she liked it or not.

She was kept away from Western influences, entered an arranged marriage at the age of 16 with a member of her clan and was expected to fulfil the role of subservient wife and mother.

But Banaz, a bright, pretty 19-year-old, fell in love with another man.

And for that, she was murdered by her father, uncle and a group of family friends. The very people who should have protected her from harm plotted her killing, garrotted her with a bootlace, stuffed her body in a suitcase and buried her under a freezer.....................

Banaz's crime was to "dishonour" her father, Mahmod Mahmod, an asylum seeker from Iraqi Kurdistan, by leaving her abusive marriage and choosing her own boyfriend - a man from a different Kurdish clan.

Her punishment was discussed at a family "council of war" attended by her father, uncle Ari and other members of the clan. In the living room of a suburban semi in Mitcham, South London, it was decided that this young woman's life was to be snuffed out so that her family would not be shamed in the eyes of the community.

Banaz was only ten when she came to Britain with her father, who had served in the Iraqi army, her mother Behya, brother Bahman and sisters Beza, Bekhal, Payman and Giaband.

The family, who came from the mountainous and rural Mirawaldy area, close to the Iranian border, were escaping Saddam Hussein's regime and were granted asylum

But Banaz's move to a western country changed nothing about the life she was made to lead.

She had met her husband-tobe only three times before her wedding day, once on her father's allotment. He was ill-educated and old-fashioned but her family described him as 'the David Beckham of husbands'. The teenage bride, who was taken to live in the West Midlands, was to tell local police in September 2005 that she had been raped at least six times and routinely beaten by her husband.

In one assault, she claimed, one of her teeth was almost knocked out because she called him by his first name in public.

To leave the arranged marriage would have brought dishonour on the Mahmod family and Banaz's parents apparently preferred their child to suffer abuse rather than be shamed.

But after two years of marriage, she insisted on returning home to seek sanctuary. It was there, at a family party in the late summer of 2005, that she met Rahmat Sulemani.

For the first time in her blighted existence, Banaz fell in love. She was besotted with Rahmat, 28, calling him 'my prince' and sending endless loving text messages. Her father and uncle Ari were furious; the young woman was not yet formally divorced by her husband and her boyfriend was neither from their clan nor religious. More importantly, perhaps, he had not been chosen by her family.

Mahmod became enraged when his daughter refused to give up her boyfriend and talked of being in love.

The threat to family honour was immense and made worse by the fact that Banaz's elder sister, Bekhal, had already brought "shame" on the family by moving out of the house at the age of 15, to escape her father's violence.

Bekhal's defiance meant that Mahmod lost status in the community because he was seen to have failed to control his women and his younger brother Ari, a wealthy entrepreneur who ran a money transfer business, took over as head of the family.

It was he who telephoned Banaz on December 1, 2005 to tell her to end the affair with Rahmat or face the consequences.

The following day, Ari called a council of war to plan her murder and the disposal of her body. She was secretly warned by her mother that the lives of her and her boyfriend were in danger, and she went to Mitcham Police Station to report the death threat. But she was so terrified of her family's reaction that she asked police to take no action and refused to move to a refuge.

The next day, an officer called at the family home but Banaz would not let him in.

She believed that her mother would protect her from harm but as an insurance against her disappearance, went back to the police station a week later to make a full statement, naming the men she believed would kill her.

One of the men was Mohamad Hama, who has admitted murder and two of the others named fled back to Iraq after the killing. On New Year's Eve 2005, she was lured to her grandmother's house in nearby Wimbledon for a meeting with her father and uncle to sort out her divorce.

When her father appeared wearing surgical gloves, ready to kill her, she ran out barefoot, broke a window to get into a neighbour's house and then ran to a nearby cafe, covered in blood from cuts to her hands and screaming: "They're trying to kill me".

The officers who attended the scene and accompanied Banaz to hospital did not believe her story.

However, the distressed and injured victim was able to give her own testimony about the attack to the jury in a short video recorded on Rahmat's mobile phone at St George's Hospital, Tooting.

The terrified lovers pretended they had parted but they continued to meet in secret. Tragically, they were spotted together in Brixton on January 21 and the Mahmods were informed.

Mohamad Hama and three other men tried to kidnap Rahmat and, when his friends intervened, told him he would be killed later.

When he phoned to warn Banaz, she went to the police and said she would co- operate in bringing charges against her family and other members of the community.

The policewoman who saw Banaz tried to persuade her to go into a hostel or safe house but she thought she would be safe at home because her mother was there.

On January 24, Banaz was left on her own at the family house and her assassins, Hama and two associates, were alerted.

The full details of what happened to her are still not known but two of the suspects, Omar Hussein and Mohammed Ali, who fled back to Iraq after the killing, are said to have boasted that Banaz was raped before she was strangled, "to show her disrespect".

There followed a "massively challenging" investigation into her disappearance by detectives, fearing the worst. The family's appalling crime was finally exposed when, three months after she went missing, Banaz's remains were found, with the bootlace still around her neck.

The discovery of her body provoked no emotion in her father and uncle. Even at her funeral, the only tears were from Banaz's brother.

"She had a small life," a detective on the case said. "There is no headstone on her grave, nothing there to mark her existence."

Yesterday, her devastated boyfriend, who has been given a new identity by the Home Office under the witness protection programme, said: "Banaz was my first love. She meant the world to me."

The dead girl's older sister, Bekhal, urged other women in the same position as her and her sister to seek help before it is too late.

Even today she continues to fear for her life, lives at a secret address and never goes out without wearing a long black veil that covers her entire body and face apart from her eyes.

She strongly rejected the suggestion that Banaz had brought "shame" on her Kurdish family by falling in love with a man they did not approve of, saying her sister simply wanted to live her own life.

"There's a lot of evil people out there. They might be your own blood, they might be a stranger to you, but they are evil.

"They come over here, thinking they can still carry on the same life and make people carry on how they want them to live life."

Asked what was in her father's mind on the day that Banaz died, Bekhal replied: "All I can say is devilishness. How can somebody think that kind of thing and actually do it to your own flesh and blood? It's disgusting."

Bekhal says she is scared whenever she sees somebody from the same background as her.

"I watch my back 24/7."

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap; Monday PM

Up and coming rapper shot dead in his Far Rockaway flat. The artist, Stack Bundles (real name: Rayquon Elliott) was shot once in the head and once in the neck as he entered the lobby of his Queens apartment building just before 6 am Monday morning. Bundles burst onto the rap scene after he brazenly approached Dipset's Jim Jones and asked the Harlem-based rapper to put him on. Stack was also down with Fabolous. Holla.

Police Find Human Head Near Water Filtration Plant in Trenton.

The Farm Aid benefit concert is planting itself in NYC. Co-founders Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp made the announcement with Bloomberg at Union Square today. The show will be held at Randalls Island on September 9. They didn't say who'd be playing yet.

There will be a Sopranos movie and alternate endings on the final season DVD.

I HATE this song but I've always loved the theremin.

Dan Rather calls out Katie Couric; says she dumbs down and tarts up the news.

A college student who died of tuberculosis Friday in Colorado could have had the contagious form of the disease for more than four months. Sweet.

Al Roker is a f*cking tool. The NBC weatherman who helped spearhead the campaign to get Don Imus fired is now coming under fire for a joke he made on air about people with epilepsy. Hypocrite.

NYC About Due For Major Hurricane... Blinding winds. Driving rain. Massive floods. We've seen the pictures of a hurricane's destructive power. Now emergency officials say it's time for NYC to prepare for the worst. They just don't know when. Panic. Now.

Baby mountain gorilla found clinging to body of mother executed by rebels in Congo.

It's been awhile Amy, where you been hidin? Holla

Boring Machine Arrives For East Side Access

"God this machine is so boring", said a construction worker on his lunch break.

"No, you meat head it's a BORING machine!", said said MTA spokeswoman Mercedes Padilla.

"Yeah, thats what I just said lady", he bellowed "we been watching this thing for an hour now and it's absolutely f*cking BORING!"

The city began a major step toward expanding public transportation services today with the arrival of a huge "earth-eating" machine that will carve a tunnel to complete a long-awaited linking of the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal on Manhattan's East Side.

Huge components of the 200-ton borer were lowered into the mouth of an excavation in Long Island City on the Queens side of the East River, from where it was to be pushed through an existing tunnel under the river to a starting point on the Manhattan side.

The equipment, known as a TBM, or Tunnel Boring Machine, was built and tested in Rome, Italy where it put 45 men to sleep before being shipped by sea to New York in May and trucked to the installation site.

Read more if you aren't already too bored

Monday night the party is ALWAYS at 151 Rivington

Every Monday you be knowing where to find us letting our hair down and ~~searching for left over blow on the sink~~ knocking back a few at 151 Rivington on the L.E.S.

Go see Danny the dashing bartender and tell him his old doorman sent ya.

Yes folks, for it was here as the gatekeeper of the beloved 151 that I cut my young teeth hobnobbing with Swedish models and lighting cigarettes for the lower echelons of the New York elite; the bottom-feeders, the catfish if you will, of Gotham's labyrinthine socialite scene.

For it is here at 151 that those on their way up straddling rockets and those on their way down with bricks in their pockets meet for drinks like passing ships at a distant port... For it was here that I dreamt of peaches and cream; dollars and dreams and a blog that would pave my way with roses and gold, standing amongst good stead upon carpets of crimson red, thy bright future unfold.

Monday and Wednesday nights at 151 is where dreams come true, my friends. Be seen there.

The inside story of John and Yoko; Drugs, abortion and life with John; Yoko Ono lifts the lid on her marriage to the Beatles legend

Yoko Ono gave the BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs listeners an insight into the world she shared with the former Beatle, including revelations that the couple were regular heroin and users and that she almost aborted their only son, Sean.

Yoko claimed that a greedy heroin dealer was all that kept her and John Lennon from a deadly addiction. Because the dealer mixed baby powder with the drug to maximise his profits, she said, it meant the couple were exposed to lower concentrations than many of their contemporaries. She said the combination of the pair's fear of needles and the diluted nature of the drugs they were taken meant they had been able to kick the habit of heroin, which she described as "the big one". "Luckily we never injected because both of us were totally scared about needles. So that probably saved us and the other thing that saved us was our connection was not very good. "But that saved us actually."
She revealed that their son Sean might never have been born. When she discovered she was pregnant, she had been prepared to have an abortion but left the decision up to John. She and Lennon had just become reconciled after an 18-month separation, and she "didn't know if it was the right moment to have a child. I just didn't want to burden him with something he didn't want". She said Lennon's response was "Of course we're gonna keep it." It was "like he was really upset with my question or suggestion. And, I thought, well, we'll go ahead with this".
She also revealed how Lennon's insistence on going to see his son might have cost him his life. In the moments before Lennon was gunned down by a crazed fan outside their New York apartment on December 8, 1980, she had suggested going for a meal - but Lennon was adamant he wanted to go home and see his child. "We were returning from the studio, and I said, 'Should we go and have dinner before we go home?' and John was saying, 'No, let's go home because I want to see Sean before he goes to sleep'. That was the last thing he said."
Yoko admitted that she and Lennon had been "narcissistic" by staging their honeymoon "bed-in" for peace at the Amsterdam Hilton in 1969.
She blamed the massive public affection for Lennon combined with an element of racism for the way she was vilified over her relationship-with him.
Yoko took the reigns and guest DJ'd for a spell but spun no Beatles tunes and just one Lennon solo tune. Among other things she played Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien by Edith Piaf and Seoul, by Amiina. At least she didn't play her own records.
Read the whole story, here.

Hey, go take a hike!

A Bay Ridge transplant and some other dude attempt a 150+ mile hike through NYC. "Five-days, 150-mile walk through the streets, trails, beaches, and parks of New York City. Beginning on the boardwalk in Staten Island, concluding at the Battery." Read their blog and see how it went.

Here's the press release.

Here's their scavenger hunt-esque checklist.

And an interview with the one of the duo on Gothamist.

Holsten's Since 1939; Stage of Sopranos Final Scene

From Eater: For those with morning-after Sopranos withdrawal, perhaps you'd care to know a bit more about Holsten's, the diner that played backdrop to the final scene of the show. It's a New Jersey relic, alive and well since 1939. Director David Chase, a subtlety specialist to the end, picked a venue steeped in history and Americana—and for which life does have a tendency to carry on, independent of outside forces:

One such place that seems to have resisted the destruction of these quaint landmarks of the 1950’s is Holsten’s, in Bloomfield. Opened in 1939, going there is literally like being sent back in a time machine to observe the social habits of pre-WW2 and 1950’s American youth. The menu of ice cream treats and food items it serves are totally retro. This is not by design like one of the newer established 50’s chains like Johnny Rockets or Cheeburger Cheeburger, but because it has ALWAYS been that way — it is the Real Deal in every respect.

I need some goddamn onion rings. Holla!

More Monday; An Addendum

There's just so much fresh fruit out there ripe for-the-pickin' that I had to return to the nest with some more scoop for that ass.

As it turns out Madge and JFK Jr. were gonna bang one cheap night in Chicago but neither of them had any condoms. Holla.

Interpol finally updated their ~~mustache~~ website.

Click here to watch a preview from Kylie Minogue's upcoming documentary film White Diamond, which she just posted on her website. HOLLA!

It was a very, very, very, violent weekend... and I'm not even talking about the TONY's, the P.R. parade or the BarfBQpalooza in Madison Square Park.

Don't sleep, The Traveling Wilburys' albums are being reissued this week.

And at least we've got AJ listening to Bob Dylan, right? If you aren't exhausted of it all yet, read what some of what those paid to be critical are saying about the Sopranos finale:

- USA Today's Robert Bianco called the last few minutes the series' "final dark joke."

- Slate's weekly discussion is underway. Says Timothy Noah: "I think (David) Chase didn't know how to end this wonderful series. So he created a lot of fake tension and then pulled the plug of my television set."

- The San Francisco Chronicle calls the ending "both perfect and annoying."

- Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum liked the finale, calling it "a clue-strewn valedictory episode and a beautifully unresolved stopping point."

- The Washington Post's Tom Shales notes the episode's pop-culture references, saying, "Only Chase could mix Yeats with the theme from The Twilight Zone and Simon & Garfunkel's Cecilia played as a cellphone chime and make it all jell." Holla

- Time.com: "I've already heard the complaint that Six Feet Under's finale was right in all the ways that this one was wrong. But Six Feet Under was a show that was, literally, about the fact that everything ends. The Sopranos is a show about the fact that nothing does -- until you die, you just repeat the same patterns over and over."

- and lastly "I think it's a great ending. It's a good way to go out," Michael Imperioli said at a cast party last night.

I don't wanna hear about your weekend, thanks: Monday morning fixins station

Tony reflects upon his recent L.L. Bean purchase.

Whaddyawant from me?! Everyone is pissed about the ending of the Sopranos finale. Oh, shut up. It is what it is. No one would have been completely satisfied no matter what happened; there was no way for writer, director, creator David Chase to please everyone; no way to put to bed something so perfect and so cherished by so many. I'm already exhausted from reading all these blogs about it and its only the morning after! "After building tension for six seasons over 8-1/2 years, "The Sopranos," one of America's most critically acclaimed television shows, ended on Sunday with nothing more than a black screen. " Yeah, just like life! It just continues on or it just stops and we never know when it's gonna end. That was probably the most REAL and true-to-life ending of a hit TV show, EVER... It was a brave, bold and defiant way to end the show; to make it so realistic and life-like instead of Tony riding off into the sunset or tying up every single loose end. Still "the ~~blog~~BARFosphere is busy dissecting every final moment, with some wanting to see profundity in the screen going black because of Tony's conversation with Bobby -- you wouldn't even know it had happened: everything would just go black." Yep, thats exactly it, so shut the F up. "Even if David Chase was demonstrating the existential and endless loop of Tony's life or the moments before the hit that causes his death, it still robbed the audience of visual closure." So WHAT?! Go watch Entourage. It's funny that for a show that was loved and revered for being so real and authentic, people still were searching and hoping for a typical Hollywood ending. Instead, what they got was a REAL true life ending and now everyone's upset and canceling their HBO subscriptions. Choke on it. "The ending was a reminder of what made David Chase’s series about New Jersey mobsters so distinctive from the beginning. “The Sopranos” was the most unusual and realistic family drama in television history. There have been many good Mafia movies and one legendary trilogy, but fans had to look to literature to find comparable depictions of the complexity and inconsistencies of American family life. It was sometimes hard to bear the encomiums — the saga of the New Jersey mob family has been likened to Cheever, Dickens and Shakespeare; scripts were pored over as if they were the Dead Sea Scrolls. But its saving grace was that the series was always many different things at once. " Holla

Roller Coaster Riders Left Hanging... Power Outage Strands 12 Upside Down On The X-Coaster At Magic Springs... A dozen riders on an Arkansas roller coaster spent half an hour hanging upside down — 150 feet above the ground — after a power outage shut down the attraction. It took about 30 minutes for the city Fire Department to rescue the riders using a ladder truck Saturday evening.

London... Two dicks were arrested Saturday on suspicion of harassing a dolphin known locally as "Dave" off the Kent coast in southeast England. Brilliant.

BEIJING... Torrential rain has killed at least 66 people in floods, house collapses and rockslides across southern China with more heavy rain predicted for much of this week.

Paris Hilton has found god. She told Barbara Walters on call-waiting.

Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman says the United States should be prepared to take "aggressive military action" against Iran in response to its purported killings of U.S. troops inside Iraq.

Though the mob’s ways have remained the same, its old neighbourhoods have not. The NY Times goes to Bath Avenue. Hysterical.

Marvin Schneider is New York City's clock master.

TMZ.com has obtained the first photo of Tracy Morgan's new SCRAM (Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring) device -- an ankle bracelet worn to test for alcohol vapors that exit the skin. The device tests every 30 minutes for 90 days. If Morgan tests positive for alcohol use, he will have to start his 90 days over, and if he fails a second time he'll be forced to spend 30 days in a county jail.

Somewhere in Montana... A prison inmate accused of plotting to kidnap David Letterman's young son is on the loose after he and another man fled the Montana State Prison ranch in a truck. Top 10 places he could be hiding anyone?

Arielle Newman, a 17 year old cross-country runner at Notre Dame Academy on Staten Island, died after her body absorbed high levels of methyl salicylate, a wintergreen-scented anti-inflammatory ingredient found in sports creams such as Bengay and Icy Hot. "She either lathered herself with it, or used way too much, or she used a normal amount and an abnormal percentage was absorbed into her body," Dr. Ronald Grelsamer, of Mount Sinai said. Her mother, Alice Newman, said she still couldn't believe her daughter's death was caused by a sports cream. But Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the NYC medical examiner said "there were multiple products, used to great excess, and that's how she ended up with high levels. The products were used and the chemical absorbed over time, rather than from a single instance of overuse. The methyl salicylate likely caused a seizure after the teen returned home and went to bed." The girl died on April 3, they just figured what the F happened over the weekend. Craziness. Listen to a report about the story.

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto

Many of us think of the movie "Tron" as the the first film to use computer animation or effects in any form. But the technology goes back a lot further than 1982, when Tron was released. Here are some notable milestones in computer animation and effects in film...

The concept of infinity has tantalized and sometimes troubled mankind...

I just wrote my friend a long babbling letter, as I normally do. I often get lost within the hedge maze of my own tangents, often neglecting to answer the things she's asked me about. But, I try. I just cross my fingers and hope maybe she'll find it endearing and I'll get away with it.

For some reason, it popped into my head earlier that my dad's dad had sat down one day attempting to explain the concept of "infinity" to me. I have no idea how or why it popped into my head today and even more haunting is that I have no idea how or why he was given such an insurmountable task.

He wasn't a very loving type, not the typical grandfather, he was more stoic and chill. The type of grandfather that as a kid you're sort of averse to but when you get older you realise he was the man and you see a lot of your own self inside the memories of him and what he was all about. Do you know what I mean? Good. I'm gonna pretend you just answered: "Yes!"

He was a WW2 vet that just hung out and smoked a pipe. My grandmother was lovely and nuts and used to rescue strays that would soon fall in love with my grandfather and lay at his feet near his maroon leather slippers. My grandfather ruled those little dogs with an iron fist; his iron fist was in the form of an old newspaper wrapped tight in black electrical tape. It was hysterical. He used to call me "hamburger" and that was as just about as loving as he got.

One time he was supposed to pick me up after school and he didn't see me, so he just split. Looking back now, it's amazing and I love him SO much more for something like that but as a kid, that's pretty abrasive for a grandfather; he wasn't looking to win any fans; he just didn't care. He was a cynical, stoic, free spirit. And I love him for it, now. I just didn't understand it then.

So anyway, somehow he was given the task of explaining to me one of the most puzzling concepts in the entire universe; a concept which has tantalized and sometimes troubled mankind for a billion years... the concept of INFINITY.

How do you explain the concept of unbounded space, time, or quantity to anyone much less a little wide eyed tyke? How does one explain the continuum of experience in which events pass from the future through the present to the past to a 6 year old?!

Well, as it turned out, quite simply.

He gave me two examples. For one, he drew a crude picture with a marker on a pad of recycled paper. I used to have all these sketch books at my dad's parents house that I'd draw on when we went over there. They were the more hands-off grandparent set, so I was often left to my own devices so I locked myself in my own little world and just drew and drew. I left the more hands-on involved projects to my mom's parents.

So my grandfather took a marker and told me about infinity. He said, "picture a man wearing a tall hat", and he drew a guy who looked a lot like Abe Lincoln with a giant stovepipe hat.

"Then", he continued confidently, "on the mans hat is a picture of a man wearing a hat", and then he drew another guy who looked like Abe Lincoln wearing a giant stovepipe hat.

And I imagine I must have looked up at him blankly.

"Then", he said "in the picture on the mans hat of the man wearing a hat, is another a picture of a man wearing a hat".

By now, I was surely puzzled; puzzled by him, by the drawing, by just about everything. I was six years old and starting to question life itself.

I understood what he was drawing but I'd never heard of a photograph on a hat and why would this guy have a picture of a man wearing a hat on his hat? It wasn't helping. My grandfather was asking me to suspend my disbelief in order to illustrate a most elusive concept and no one had briefed me on how to suspend my disbelief yet; that would come many years later from comic books.

He must've sensed my growing confusion and it probably frustrated him more than me. He was the type of grandfather who just wanted you to understand everything; that you should just be born with the same infinite wisdom as a 60 year old WW2 veteran.

Exasperated he set down the marker on the kitchen table and said, "Ok, picture an audience at a movie theater... and they're watching a movie of an audience watching a movie of an audience watching a movie". I understood what he was describing; I could picture it quite clearly, but I just couldn't wrap my 6 year old noodle around the concept of the continuum and time without end.

I just pictured a really boring movie.

We Are The Champions; Shit from an old notebook # 236

I went to a Mets game with my friend JF and his father, in their light blue Honda. He lived on Oliver Street, as a bunch of my friends growing up did.I spent a lot of time there playing street hockey and football, causing trouble, throwing stuff off the roof and getting chased by the supers. Then I’d walk home while everyone else cleaned up the mess and dealt with the aftermath of our mischief; the consequences of our good time.

Oh, and Sid was the ice cream guy. He looked like Larry King's younger and more hunchbacked brother. He had giant boxy black glasses, a pocket protector, and an immortal Boca Raton tan. He wore an impeccably starched and pressed short sleeved white shirt tucked into black polyester pants; he had the change dispenser and sold all that Ferrara Pan candy; the candy you could only get from a Good Humor truck really: Lemonheads, Cherryheads, Cherry Sours, Jawbusters, Boston Baked Beans, Red Hots... But everyone hoped for a “Lucky Stick”; it was truly a modern-day Willy Wonka golden ticket.

Sometimes, when you were done licking the chocolate off that splintery Good Humor stick, you’d notice yours wasn’t just any normal popsicle stick but the highly elusive, highly revered, LUCKY STICK; and this meant next time Sid rang his summer bells, you were entitled to a free motherf&cking ice cream!

So where was I, Oh, the light blue Honda, on our way to the Mets game… There used to be this little fish store on 3rd and 74th that sold old school true-to-form fish and chips, authentic and oily, wrapped in white wax paper. J’s dad ordered us three for the road. Didn’t even ask if I liked fish. I didn’t.

I remember sitting in the back of the car with this mound of steaming, throbbing food in my hot young lap and I didn’t know where to start. I felt helpless. I didn’t want this pulsating cod and I didn’t really know what to do. I felt as if a steaming meteor had landed in my lap, and I didn’t know who to tell. A slow panic boiled like a dream's silent scream.

They had WFAN on. I just remember my heart pounding and I was working myself up into a frenzied fever feeling my heart labouring in my chest with this horribly fried smothered mess. The windshield was fogging up from the steam of their piles of fried mess. They were having a great time navigating their piles; suddenly I saw fire and flames in their eyes and they were cackling as I desperately tried to rein in this pile of deep fried like I'd caught a Whale Shark with a lowly twig and some some bakery string.

I think the Mets won and after the game, as we were inching our way out of the labrynthian parking lot, WFAN played most of Queens “News of the World” album.

It must’ve been ‘87 or ‘88 and WFAN was a relatively new station then and didn’t have much original programming, so once the Mets game was over, they’d just play music.

I don’t remember the game or anything else, just the fish and chips and Queen on the way home.

Shit from an old notebook # 312

I'm writing this like a Rob Reiner melancholic-cum-sentimental coming of age tale; I'm hearing it narrated by Richard Dreyfuss in his familiar Stand By Me cadence. So read it back that way in your head, ok?

A late 90's white Cadillac whizzes by and I hear Robbie Krieger's inimitable rhythm guitar tone; it's the solo from... my mind is trying to place it; When The Music's Over? No. Then I think it's something off L.A. Woman... No. Finally, after bouncing it around my head and imagining the verse that follows it comes to me; it's Five To One; it's the guitar solo from Five To One. Ok.

I descend into the park with my trusty B on a relaxed leash. She's seemed depressed lately and sick so I figured a good dash through the grass would fix her up and it did. Dogs are so simple. Like old cars. Perfect.

Being in the park at night made me think back to playing catch with my dad in the summer. He'd be home from work early and we'd grab our gloves and go. We'd stay a good hour or so just throwing the ball back and forth; working our way further and further apart, throwing harder. Like clockwork towards the end of our round of catch three dudes would appear.

One dude was really big, he waddled, the other two dudes walked. The big dude always carried a giant Do The Right Thing ghetto blaster. I couldn't make it out or maybe at the time didn't recognise who it was but it was some Led Zep / Black Sabbath derivative like Mountain or Trouble; those big colossal 70's drums; back when drums sounded like actual instruments. It was very ominous in the distance. Suddenly I had one eye on the ball and one eye on these three ritualistically taking their places in one of the dugouts with their boombox blasting and a case of beer. And they'd just sit there and drink and drink. They'd set the radio down on the bench, the big guy sat atop on the bench and they just hung around. It was my dad and I and these three dudes and we had the entire park to ourselves.

And this would happen time and time again; the exact same way; the same three dudes, the same boombox, the same beers, the same pounding 70's drums. Like clockwork. And we were there playing catch with a summer sweat on our father and son brows.

I'd see the big boombox dude later on, I recognised him immediately, working at the local supermarket and he looked exactly the same, just bigger. Same babyface. I wondered what the other two wound up doing and if they still kept in touch and listened to Cactus and Nazareth.

I put B back on her leash and walked back up the ramp where the trees slouch in the heat. I started thinking about all this stuff I'm writing about now and thought to myself I'd write this all down when I got back upstairs.

Just then, that same white Cadillac drove by again and I heard that same Five To One solo, cued up to the same exact spot! That guy must really love that solo. Either that or he couldn't find a parking spot.

Anyone down for a coffee enema party?

Enemas are an ancient form of hydrotherapy. They have been used for hundreds of years for mechanically cleansing the colon. Enemas and colonic irrigation used to be routine procedures in hospitals. There are many types of enemas used for varying purposes.

Coffee enemas were first popularized by Dr. Max Gerson, author of A Cancer Therapy - Results of 50 Cases.

Dr. Gerson pioneered nutritional therapy for cancer and other diseases with excellent results. His therapy combined coffee enemas with a special diet, juices and other supplements. The enemas were an integral part of the therapy. The major benefit of the coffee enema is to enhance elimination of toxins through the liver.

A coffee enema is believed to detoxify the liver by rapidly emptying the colon, enhancing liver detoxification, and increasing the flow of bile and the elimination of toxins through bile. Some people claim that it provides immediate relief to toxicity symptoms, such as congestion, indigestion, pain and headaches.

Here's a detailed How To you can follow at home

And here is a two-part story on the history of the coffee enema. It has been reprinted often around the world. Originally from The Cancer Chronicles #6 and #7 written in 1990 by Ralph W. Moss, a Ph.D.

More on coffee enemas

Have a great weekend!

Paris sent back to jail; Do not pass go; Do not collect $200

Screaming and crying, Paris Hilton was escorted out of a courtroom and back to jail earlier today after a judge ruled that she must serve out her entire 45-day sentence behind bars rather than in her Hollywood Hills home. The full story is here. Oh well, Paris. That's life for a normal person. Deal with it.

FAA Computer Problems Force Departure Delays

FAA Computer Problems Force Departure Delays
(CBS) NEW YORK CBS 2 HD has learned the Federal Aviation Administration is experiencing computer problems in departure planning, forcing numerous departure delays at airports nationwide.

Airports are apparently being forced to manually plug in flight information in order for planes to depart. It is not yet known how long delays could last for.

Peter Mertz, a New York City resident, was on board Spirit Air flight 313 to Detroit and said he had been sitting on the tarmac at La Guardia Airport for nearly 90 minutes. By 2:45 he said the plane had begun to move slowly for takeoff, and that it appeared other flights were taking off again.

"We boarded at like 5 after [1 p.m.] and we didn't even move out of the gate until like 2, and then they said it was gonna be like an hour, but they're taking off now at least," Mertz said.

Flight Delay Information - Air Traffic Control System Command Center MAP

FAA's computers reported down across East Coast... Developing...

The FAA is primarily responsible for the advancement, safety and regulation of civil aviation and air traffic.

Story is developing now...

Sunset Park is now The South Slope. Oh really?

The Rise of the Evil Condos; The Virus Spreads South.

Here's a new 11-story tank arising on 19th street and 4th avenue, an area now affectionately known as "$outh $lope".

Stab me in the eye, please. South Slope my ass.

Friday; Post Meridiem

I remember driving to work a few months ago and The Will Smith Extravaganza had taken over the Brooklyn Bridge. Warner Bros. spent around $5M for a 6 night shoot in New York, after getting approval from 14 government agencies, with hundreds of extras, including 160 members of the National Guard in full combat gear. It was all for his new movie "I Am Legend" where Will Smith plays a scientist who could not contain a terrible virus that was unstoppable, incurable, and man-made. Somehow immune, Will Smith is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City and maybe the world. What about Jazzy Jeff?! Anyway, the trailer is out now and I guess in the movie they blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. I've had post 9/11 nightmares where this happens so it freaked me out. Gothamist has posted up the trailer. Check it out.

Scientists have sounded the death knell for the plug and power cord. In a breakthrough that sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, they have discovered a way of 'beaming' power across a room into a light bulb, cellphone or laptop sans wires or cables. This reminds me of a foggy night several years ago when I heard a report over the radio about scientists developing some sort of new technology that would do away with outlets and light switches. Via fiber optics or some other ish I can't fully comprehend, they said you would basically be able to "paint" a light switch on a wall wherever you wanted it. And with ish like this coming to fruition now, I bet the days of painting outlets and knobs on walls aren't all that far away. JETSON!!

Gawker actually posted something amusing and NOT from the NY Times. "The Kitchen Of Passive-Aggressive Post-It Notes: Living with a Douche". I chuckled and chortled. I've lived with roommates where we only spoke through emails. It was very healthy and totally bad-vibe-free.

Interesting video of how a new water tank is installed on top of a new downtown hotel by a crew from Rosenwach, a 120-year old company that still produces the tanks in their Queens workshop.

Ooooh Aaaaahh: new brushed aluminum iMac coming out

This picture is amazing.

A team of Canadian surgeons got a shock when the patient they were operating on began shedding dark greenish-black blood! AGGGGHHHHHHHH!!! The unusual colour of the blood was due to the migraine medication he was taking. Eh. Lame.

According to the latest research, remembering is an unstable and profoundly unreliable process. It’s easy come, easy go as true memories are obliterated and false ones are added. But can you add memories? The Diva of Disclosure, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus says Yes, we can. Elizabeth is a psychologist who works on human memory and how it can be changed by facts, ideas, suggestions and other forms of post-event information. Her research shows that you can implant memories—wholly false memories—pretty easily into the brains of humans. Her work challenges the reliability of eye-witness testimony, and is so controversial that she once had to call the bomb squad.

Lately I've been saying how I love me some Bloomberg, but I may need to retract all that. Under Bloomberg's proposal, cars entering Manhattan south of 86th Street (basically the entire working city) would be charged $8 and trucks $21. Under a 3-year pilot program, the fees would be collected only during the worst traffic hours, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. The FDR Drive and the West Side Highway would be exempt. Environmentalists love the idea for their own reasons while others argue it will punish the middle-class with an unfair tax. But is anyone discussing what a f&cking mess its going to be?! I think its going to make things absolutely worse. How will having cars and trucks stopping to pay tolls help the flow of traffic? I don't get it. Can you imagine how much MORE backed-up the BQE would be if u had to pay a toll for the Brooklyn Bridge?!!

Love my Blue Öyster Cult. Hate my "Don't Fear The Reaper"...

but this whole thing started with Devo. I realised I really do love my Devo and I think the "Are We Not Men?" album is a bona fide prophetic classic, however I cannot stand the song "Whip It" which just so happens to be their most famous song. If you say Devo, chances are someone will say "Whip It" and then I barf. So this sort of eroded into a phenomenon of sorts and I realised this Devo/Whip It thing was actually true for quite a few bands.

For instance, I love my Blue Öyster Cult but I loathe my "Don't Fear The Reaper". Blue Öyster Cult's "Secret Treaties" is one of my favourite records of all time. But the song everyone knows is goddamn "Don't Fear The Reaper" and its by far their cheesiest song, ever. If you say Blue Öyster Cult, chances are they'll know "Don't Fear The Reaper" either from some Freedom Rock cassette or from that "I need more cowbell" skit on SNL.

I love Bob Dylan more than almost anyone, but I can almost say that I love my Dylan but I hate my "Like A Rolling Stone". Theres no arguing the song is a bona fide classic and I know every lyric and all that, but "Like A Rolling Stone" is probably the only Dylan song I'll skip past on the radio. Sometimes the heavy organ on that particular track just annoys the shit out of me. So, yeah. I love my Bob Dylan but I hate my "Like A Rolling Stone"; and again, even if you don't know any other Dylan tracks, chances are you know this one. It's arguably his signature song.

I love my Doors but hate my "Light My Fire". The Doors were my first favourite band, ever. I was obsessed with them, their story, their everything. I own every record, but that goddamn 10 minute Ray Manzarek masturbation in the middle of "Light My Fire" often loses me. Most radio stations play the edited version sans the solo but if its the unedited version, chances are I'll switch the station or hit fast forward before that solo kicks in.

There are many more examples but I'm bored with this now. You get the idea. Peace.

Attention Phenylketonurics!

This site contains phenylalanine

Finally! What I've always, ALWAYS wanted! A pair of Joy Division running sneakers!?!
It's June in Wyoming. What better a time for a snowstorm?
Fist-fight breaks out on floor of Alabama Senate... Oh, please.
I've always thought about doing this.
U 2 Many Cooks In The Kitchen... U2 is in the studio with super producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. Holy cockfight, Batman! Oh, and they're recording in Morocco. I mean, where else can you get that perfect kick drum sound?
The head of a limousine service has been indicted on charges of helping to loot his business of more than $1 million and using much of that for a successful political campaign in Africa. The rest of his body has not been indicted however.
A fiber-optic network linking Wall Street to the Poconos will be built as part of Pennsylvania's effort to persuade financial services companies to establish back-up operations in the state. Sweet, now I can buy and sell from the comfort of my bubbling heart-shaped jacuzzi at the Mount Airy Lodge.
Cops shoot burglarizing bear. Allright! Go get 'em boys!
Livin' La Vida Not Too Loca, OK guys? Ricky Martin has been chosen as the King of this weekend's 50th annual Puerto Rican Day parade and he is asking all his boricua brothers and sisters to behave.
Though famously press-shy ever since "The Sopranos" blindsided him with stardom, Gandolfini opens up to AP about the finale and life after Tony.
Burger Krieg and its famous Whopper ass returned to Japan yesterday after a 6-year hiatus. Customers lined up for hours at the first new branch! I don't know why but hamburger meat in Japan seems overly sketchy to me. Japanese denim is just fine with me however.
From the largest bank robberies in the world, to art-stealing con men, to backwoods bull semen theft, to fishermen jealousy -- here are 13 of the biggest, most profitable, strangest -- but most importantly, real -- from around the world

Gehry to Design Sharp New Jagged Metal Edged Playground in NYC

Zany architect Frank Gehry, renowned for his daring and whimsical urban designs, will create his first playground -- at the historic Battery public park in Lower Manhattan.

And truly what goes together better than titanium panels and razor-sharp edges than hundreds of little people engaging in running, skipping, falling and playing? Answer: Nothing!

Has a scientific study ever been done to prove that young rich kids lack the basic motor skills that normal kids have? Because, its 100% true.

I mean hey, it's TriBeCa, the land where parents barely even notice as their kids skid across their loft's whitewashed hardwood floors and slam into the Mies Van Der Rohe daybed with a sickening impish thud before returning to peruse the latest issue of Architectural Digest.

Bob Barker is auctioning off one of his original signature tall, skinny microphones. It's on Ebay and the money will go to benefit the United Activists for Animal Rights. Right now its going for close to $7,000
7 Dead in 24 hours of rash shootings throughout NYC
U.S. Death Toll Tops 3,500 in Iraq
A plane carrying a donated organ and organ transplant team crashed, killing all aboard.
Warm weather makes felines feel frisky; Droves of cats and kittens are swarming into animal shelters nationwide, and "global warming" is to blame.
Is the new Williamsburg-Greenpoint condo iKon trying to become hell on earth—or is it just doing so inadvertently? After using a fake Lenny Kravitz to hawk the opening, they've moved on to punk rock pre-tweens to sell the open haus. Meet the iKon Kid. This is so famously lame. There is nothing punk about $500K studios and $3M Penthouses. BARF!
Alex Kucynski gives us über douche-chills gushing over designer John Varvatos in The Times. You know him, he's the dude who invented boxer-briefs and those Conver$e sans laces.
NBC's Brian Williams waxes The Sopranos.
Celeblog of the day: David Byrne @ DavidByrne.com... The former Talking Heads frontman has long had one of the best blogs on the Web. He's very consistent in posting his thorough, well-written entries; expect a large diet of music, biking and modern art. What makes Byrne's blog especially enjoyable, though, is how he shines through - like us - as a fan. If he goes to an excellent concert or museum exhibit, he returns to his computer bursting at the seams to discuss and analyze it. Same as it ever was. Holla!
As I was feverishly aggregating for this installment I came across a lot of depressing sh&t, more depressing than usual, that I'll spare sharing with you. You can thank me later. The world is f&cked and the goddamn "Ducks" won the Stanley Cup! BARF.

The Body/Mind Connection
Psychic powers and ESP
Near-Death Experiences and Life After Death
UFO's
Dejà vu
Ghosts
Mysterious Disappearances
Intuition
Bigfoot
The Taos Hum
An Honourable Mention to shameless televangeli$t, Creflo Dollar.

1. The Body/Mind Connection
Medical science is only beginning to understand the ways in which the mind influences the body. The placebo effect, for example, demonstrates............. that people can at times cause a relief in medical symptoms or suffering by believing the cures to be effective--whether they actually are or not. Using processes only poorly understood, the body's ability to heal itself is far more amazing than anything modern medicine could create.

2.Psychic powers and ESP
Psychic powers and extra-sensory perception (ESP) rank among the top ten unexplained phenomena if for no other reason than that belief in them is so widespread. Many people believe that intuition is a form of psychic power, a way of accessing arcane or special knowledge about the world or the future. Researchers have tested people who claim to have psychic powers, though the results under controlled scientific conditions have so far been negative or ambiguous. Some have argued that psychic powers cannot be tested, or for some reason diminish in the presence of skeptics or scientists. If this is true, science will never be able to prove or disprove the existence of psychic powers.

3.Near-Death Experiences and Life After Death
People who were once near death have sometimes reported various mystical experiences (such as going into a tunnel and emerging in a light, being reunited with loved ones, a sense of peace, etc.) that may suggest an existence beyond the grave. While such experiences are profound, no one has returned with proof or verifiable information from "beyond the grave." Skeptics suggest that the experiences are explainable as natural and predictable hallucinations of a traumatized brain, yet there is no way to know with certainty what causes near-death experiences, or if they truly are visions of "the other side."

4.UFO's
There is no doubt that UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) exist--many people see things in the skies that they cannot identify, ranging from aircraft to meteors. Whether or not any of those objects and lights are alien spacecraft is another matter entirely; given the fantastic distances and effort involved in just getting to Earth from across the universe, such a scenario seems unlikely. Still, while careful investigation has revealed known causes for most sighting reports, some UFO incidents will always remain unexplained.

5.Dejà vu
Dejà vu is a French phrase meaning "already seen," referring to the distinct, puzzling, and mysterious feeling of having experienced a specific set of circumstances before. For example, a woman might walk into a building in a foreign country she'd never visited, and sense that the setting is eerily and intimately familiar. Some attribute dejà vu to psychic experiences or unbidden glimpses of previous lives. As with intuition, research into human psychology can offer more naturalistic explanations, but ultimately the cause and nature of the phenomenon itself remains a mystery.

6.Ghosts
From the Shakespeare play "MacBeth" to the NBC show "Medium," spirits of the dead have long made an appearance in our culture and folklore. Many people have reported seeing apparitions of both shadowy strangers and departed loved ones. Though definitive proof for the existence of ghosts remains elusive, sincere eyewitnesses continue to report seeing, photographing, and even communicating with ghosts. Ghost investigators hope to one day prove that the dead can contact the living, providing a final answer to the mystery.

7.Mysterious Disappearances
People disappear for various reasons. Most are runaways, some succumb to accident, a few are abducted or killed, but most are eventually found. Not so with the truly mysterious disappearances. From the crew of the Marie Celeste to Jimmy Hoffa, Amelia Earhart, and Natalee Holloway, some people seem to have vanished without a trace. When missing persons are found, it is always through police work, confession, or accident never by "psychic detectives"). But when the evidence is lacking and leads are lost, even police and forensic science can't always solve the crime.

8.Intuition
Whether we call it gut feelings, a "sixth sense," or something else, we have all experienced intuition at one time or another. Of course, gut feelings are often wrong (how many times during aircraft turbulence have you been "sure" your plane was going down?), but they do seem to be right much of the time. Psychologists note that people subconsciously pick up information about the world around us, leading us to seemingly sense or know information without knowing exactly how or why we know it. But cases of intuition are difficult to prove or study, and psychology may only be part of the answer.

9.Bigfoot
For decades, large, hairy, manlike beasts called Bigfoot have occasionally been reported by eyewitnesses across America. Despite the thousands of Bigfoot that must exist for a breeding population, not a single body has been found. Not one has been killed by a hunter, struck dead by a speeding car, or even died of natural causes. In the absence of hard evidence like teeth or bones, support comes down to eyewitness sightings and ambiguous photos and films. Since it is logically impossible to prove a universal negative, science will never be able to prove that creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster do not exist, and it is possible that these mysterious beasts lurk far from prying eyes.

10.The Taos Hum
Some residents and visitors in the small city of Taos, New Mexico, have for years been annoyed and puzzled by a mysterious and faint low-frequency hum in the desert air. Oddly, only about 2% of Taos residents report hearing the sound. Some believe it is caused by unusual acoustics; others suspect mass hysteria or some secret, sinister purpose. Whether described as a whir, hum, or buzz--and whether psychological, natural, or supernatural--no one has yet been able to locate the sound's origin.

11.Shameless televangelist Creflo Dollar
In 2007, knowing what we know about religion and religious figures, people who continue to pour money into televangelists and their pursuant promises are certifiably insane; but people who give money to a guy named "Creflo Dollar" are simply off the chain as we say in the hood.

Cat vs. Printer

Cat Vs Printer - Watch more free videos

Thursday AM

This may very well be the craziest shit I've ever heard... A 21-year-old wheelchair bound dude was taken on a wild ride yesterday afternoon when the wheelchair he was in became attached to the grille of a semi-truck and was taken four miles down a highway at about 50 mph. "You are not going to believe this, (but) there is an 18 wheeler pushing a guy in a wheelchair on Red Arrow Highway," an unknown caller told the Michigan State Police. Police at first believed the calls were pranks. But when troopers responded to where the semi had come to a stop, they noticed the wheelchair with the man sitting in it, still attached. The driver was in disbelief when he stepped out of the semi and saw what he had picked up along the way, police said. An investigation revealed the truck driver had pulled out of a local gas station when the man in the wheelchair pulled in front of the semi, according to police. His wheelchair somehow became lodged by its handles to the front grille. "It was quite a ride," the wheelchair bound man reportedly told police. He was unfazed and unharmed.

I've been thinking about the B-52's a lot lately so it was interesting to hear this morning that 15 years after their last album of new material, The B-52's are wrapping up work on their next one. Fred Schneider said the 11 new tracks will maintain the B-52's danceable, party vibe but will showcase some new directions for the band. "There's more electronica on it," he said. "It's up-tempo and a bit sexed-up. It's sexier than ever." Schneider said post-production work on the album is expected to begin soon, with plans to release it early next year. The band owns the master recordings of the album and is now shopping for a record label to release it. Meanwhile, the group plans a handful of U.S. and European tour dates this summer, with a full concert schedule planned when the album is released.
"It's great to perform when we have new material," Schneider said. "That makes all the difference." The last time I saw my boy Fred must've been 1998, he was going to check his PO BOX near Varick Street. Holla!

In Pictures: A History of Cell Phones: From Motorola's first phone, which weighed in at 2 pounds, to Apple's upcoming iPhone, here's a look at how cell phones have evolved over the years from nothing into something we can't seem to live without.

State troopers crackin' down... More than 20 teens were arrested for underage drinking before last night's Fall Out Boy concert at PNC. The shake down came following a concert in May in which 13 kids had to be taken to hospitals because of alcohol. The youngest was 11 years old.

Why didn't anyone tell me there was a public diamond park !??! Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas is the world's only diamond-producing site open to the public and visitors are allowed to keep the gems they find. On average, two diamonds are found each day at the park. A 13 year old chick found a tea-colored, 2.93-carat diamond yesterday. The largest of the 25,000 diamonds found since the state park was established in 1972 was the 16.37-carat Amarillo Starlight, a white diamond found by a visitor from Texas in 1975. Does JetBlue fly to Arkansas?

Iowa Hill, California: Alone in the woods with his left leg pinned beneath a fallen tree for 11 hours, a 66-year-old Al Hill used pocket knives to cut off his leg below the knee to free himself. My grandma will read about this in Readers Digest 6 months from now.

The Spice Girls are getting back together.

Paris Hilton is out of jail already. She was originally sentenced to 45 days, but that was reduced to 23. She served a total of three days.

Williamsburg street-artists Faile are having their first solo NYC gallery show this weekend at an old glass factory on Chrystie Street just south of Stanton. If you've enjoyed their street work and are in the neighbourhood, check out the show-- today through Sunday, 11am-6pm, at 201 Chrystie.

Her life was filled with intense fame and tragedy. Four decades after her death, Edith Piaf remains one of the most renowned singers of all time. She was born into poverty, rose to become the toast of Paris, and then struggled with alcohol and drugs until she died at age 47. Today on WNYC the director of the new film "La Vie En Rose" tells why it took 40 years to bring Piaf’s remarkable story to the big screen. Tune in to 93.9 FM at 2pm.

Have you seen this nerd?

Joey Lawrence is a clown, yes, that we all know... Joey turned up at some event in New York yesterday, coiffed and posed within an inch of his manscaped life... with his Staten Island Alaskan Sun spraytan, über<

21 June 2007

20 June 2007

19 June 2007

18 June 2007

17 June 2007

15 June 2007

14 June 2007

13 June 2007

12 June 2007

11 June 2007

10 June 2007

09 June 2007

08 June 2007

07 June 2007

06 June 2007