Happy New Year - let's hope '08 is a good one

Thank me later

Some tips for you.


1. Do not, repeat, do not allow yourself to be finagled into watching a disaster called "Music & Lyrics" as I was Saturday night. It's two hours of your life you will never get back. Incredibly insipid, a ridiculous plot, and not even musically fun even though it's about songwriting. Just awful.

Drew Barrymore is in it, and she is usually quite adorable, but it's just a horrible film. Especially since Hugh Grant is the costar. You know, the guy who cheated on Elizabeth Hurley! With a street hooker! And he's trying even harder than usual to be cute and charming in this clunker. Ugh

2. Kinsale, the Irish pub on Third, does a sandwich called the Wonder Sandwich, roasted turkey, black ham and cheese on a baguette - delish. It's only on the regular lunch menu, though, which begins at 12 noon, but I was able to charm the waitress with my flirtatious magic and she convinced the kitchen to prepare it for me at 10:30. I was having brunch with my husky right-wing friend who had dutifully accompanied his wife to the big city to get her hair done. (I think he held her pocketbook while she was in the salon). He wasn't able to charm the waitress and was stuck with baked beans, chicken fingers and French fries - very healthy, I'm sure.

3. A great new drink I've discovered you should try - brandy and ginger ale. Quite tasty. It helped make the movie somewhat bearable.

15 billion a month

The ongoing war and occupation in Iraq is costing U.S. taxpayers $15,000,000,000 a month.

Remember, this is the war that was going to pay for itself once all the Iraqi oil got freed up and gas prices would plummet. Whatever happened to that theory, by the way?

I don't have to drive so gas prices don't directly affect me (although indirectly they do when goods are shipped to the stores and they pass along higher energy costs in their prices), but I hear the kvetching from my friends who are paying something like $3 a gallon at the pumps.

But $15 billion a month is astounding. And, of course, that's just what the government is telling us about. It's likely much, much higher, with costs hidden in other agencies (you know, like Rudy did when he shifted the costs of his security detail who accompanied him on his booty calls to the Hamptons with then-mistress, now third wife, Judi Nathan, to the city's loft board).

Not to mention, they just don't even reveal costs like the CIA and other such agencies.

Imagine what that money could do here at home. How many houses could have been rebuilt in New Orleans, the city Bush left to die, with $15 billion a month? How many teachers and cops and firemen and FBI agents and border patrol agents and FDA inspectors could have been hired by the federal government?

Hell, that amount of money could buy about 2,500,000,000 Jack & Cokes a month - even I couldn't drink that much.

Another one

Mischa Barton Arrested For DUI

And another one is arrested for drunkenly careening down the road, another who should be taken under my wing for protective custody.








I won't go through my rant again, you can just read it here.

Merry Christmas

Happy holidays to all, yes, even our Republican friends.

This is why the Republicans are called "The stupid party"

Mike Huckabee, currently in the top tier of the GOP presidential candidates, apparently didn't impress a young girl in Iowa.

“Who is your favorite author?” Aleya Deatsch, 7, of West Des Moines asked Mr. Huckabee in one of those posing-like-a-shopping-mall-Santa moments.

Mr. Huckabee paused, then said his favorite author was Dr. Seuss.

In an interview afterward with the news media, Aleya said she was somewhat surprised. She thought the candidate would be reading at a higher level.

“My favorite author is C. S. Lewis,” she said.

Now I'm not saying that all stupid people are Republicans. I'm just saying all Republicans are stupid.

Classy as always

The right-wing noise machine was something to behold this week. It started when Matt Drudge, the closet case Internet gossip columnist, ran a very unflattering picture of Hillary Clinton. (By the way, I hope I don't have to note that I don't care that he's gay, or even that he's a closet case. It's just really distasteful when gay folk like Drudge are also right-wingers and help a political party that would like nothing better than to throw them all into concentration camps. I digress).

The photo of Hillary was shot as she was campaigning in Iowa. It was a candid shot from the AP taken as she was out in the freezing weather in the middle of a conversation. It showed her looking exhausted, with lines on her face, bags under her eyes. Pretty unflattering picture taken in the middle of a grueling election process.

Drudge headlined it something like “The Toll of a Campaign” and then the fun started.

Rush Limbaugh – yes, Rush Fucking Limbaugh, the man who I believe the phrase “he's got a face for radio” was invented – jumped into action.

Fatass said: '"Does Our Looks-Obsessed Culture Want to Stare at an Aging Woman? Will this country want to actually watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?”

I hardly know where to begin. First, how about the ridiculous double standard inherent here. Hillary is a 60-year-old woman. I've seen her with the proper makeup and in a comfortable situation and she looks just fine for a 60-year-old.

Look at some of the men running – Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain. Is that a bunch of beauties we are somehow supposed to enjoy watch aging?

But for Rush “To the Buffet” Limbaugh – who hasn't had a salad since the Nixon administration – to comment on someone's looks? Holy crap.

This three times married and divorced, drug-addicted (Oxycontin – also known as Hillybilly Heroin - was his drug of choice) piece of shit has some nerve.

By the way, his latest drug escapade, in case you forgot, was being busted with a case of Viagra that wasn't prescribed in his name as he was coming back from a “vacation” in the Dominican Republic. He's currently in between marriages, so why was this God-fearing right-winger carrying medicine for a limp dick? I thought these folks didn't believe in sex outside the holy bonds of matrimony?

And what was he doing in the Domincan Republic anyway? It's a notorious sex tourist destination for pervs looking to score underage prostitutes.

Let's recap: Rush Limbaugh - fat, drug addicted, limp dicked and possibly a pedophile.

That's some resume to be commenting on Hillary Clinton.

Roh roh

Let's just say, it's not a good day for your campaign when The Washington Post runs a front page, four-page report on your links to Bernie Kerik and a jailed mafia-tied accomplice.






Really a shame when that sort of thing happens.

Random thoughts #27

TWO WORDS

Please don't.

That's to even more tourists thinking of coming to NYC for Christmas to see the lights and the fancy store window displays and the big tree.

I had to go into midtown on Tuesday, and, in a bizarre spirit of holiday generosity, called my friend Sarah to meet me for drinks and appetizers at Gordon Ramsay's restaurant on 54th Street after she got out of work. We were hoping to see him yell at some staff, but, alas, did not. (Ridiculously overpriced, by the way. I had a mini burger for $16, Sarah had a BLT for 14 bucks. Both were amazingly good, but you are sure paying for the ambiance and the name. And don't even ask what wine costs.)

Anyway, I passed through Rockefeller Center to get over there from Third. What a mistake. What a zoo. What a claustrophobia-inducing, touristy nightmare.

I have never seen so much annoying humanity milling around, cooing at the sights and taking pictures. Ugh.

KUDOS TO MOTHER NATURE

And the job she has done with Kristen Stewart.

I got talked into watching “The Messengers” on Starz. Apparently, one of the guys from “Sex and the City” was in it, and, of course, that's a perfect reason to watch a horror movie, don't you know.

Anyway, the girl in it looked very familiar but we couldn't figure from where, so I IMDB'd her. It turns out it was the same girl who played Jodie Foster's daughter in "Panic Room,” which was five years ago, who knew.

Well, let me just say, she has turned out very well. She's 17 now, almost 18, the perfect girl age. Has no boobs to speak of, but great cheekbones and looks amazing in a pair of jeans. I'm now convinced I'm a leg and butt guy.

UNAPPRECIATED SKILLS

We all have little skills that go unrecognized. One of mine is loading a dishwasher. I amaze myself at the multitude of dishes I can load into my dishwasher simply by rearranging pots and bowls on the different levels. (I have the same ability with my freezer, loading boxes upon boxes of Omaha Steak goodies into it that you would never think could all fit in there.)

Thank you.

Two to funny

I always enjoy reading The Washington Post's online chats featuring one of their political reporters interacting live with readers each morning at 11 am. But sometimes when you read these chat dialogues - they happen in real time and don't have copyeditors - it gives you pause.

Again, this is The Washington Post, one of the country's great newspapers, and, given its location, has perhaps the best political team out there. But here was how this morning's chat, featuring the Post's White House reporter Michael Abramowitz, started:

Michael Abramowitz: Good morning everybody. Good to be hear.

Oy.

At least he's being honest

The AP asked the presidential candidates what their most prized possession was. While most of the candidates went for safe answers like their grandfather's pocket watch or a baseball autographed by Ted Williams, Fred Thompson, presumably trying to be amusing, gave the response most people think of when they see him with his much younger boobalistic bride.

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson: "Trophy wife."

Ugh.

A slow motion human train wreck

It is fascinating, and really tragic, to watch some of these slow-motion train wrecks of performers who have the world on a string and throw it away.

Here in the U.S., we have Britney and Lindsay of course, now more known for their druggy/boozy/party antics than their talent. I would include Paris Hilton in the list, but, really, what else is she famous for? Winning the gene pool lottery and being born a Hilton? Giving what looks like a decent bob job? Most girls in NY can do that. (Although, inevitably I seem to find some who can't.) I digress.


But in the UK they have Amy Winehouse who makes Lindsay Lohan look like a PriceWaterhouse accountant.

Watching her deterioration over the scant few years she's been in the public eye is just sad. She's been in and out of rehab, misses shows, cancels tours, has performed clearly high on TV programs, and is involved in all sorts of wacky, zoned out public episodes, including being seen once doing a bump of cocaine on stage.

She was never a great beauty, but in the early clips she's presentable enough in that sultry Jewish way I enjoy. Now, shes emaciated, tattooed, and a freaking mess. The photo in the Brit tabloid The Sun was taken just a week or so ago when she was spotted wandering alone in the middle of a freezing night in London, barefoot, mumbling and wearing just a bra and pants.

I always wonder where the agents or managers or – hell – parents of these 20-something girls are, why they aren't sitting them down and saying, “You're not only throwing away a huge career, you're going to die unless you stop this shit.” It's probably my giant ego, but if I had control of them for a month, I would have them turned around. I like control.

Anyway, the first clip is Amy when she was just starting out, she appeared on a show on the UK's Channel 4, and is singing a great old Dinah Washington tune, and looks healthy and cute even. (She's 21 in this clip, the perfect girl age, of course).



Then one of her first big hits was her own “F Me Pumps,” a great title and concept for a song. For some reason, in this video, they bleep out a lyric about doing E, which is probably the least of her worries.



Then, in what might be the most perfect match ever for a performer and song, she's singing another of her own compositions, “Rehab”



The last clip is just a few seconds of a common sight at one of her live shows now, when she manages to stand up, she's slurring her words and drinking on stage. Oy, what a mess. She turned 24 in September. Who knows if she will make 25. What a waste of a good voice and song writer.

Sadistic creep alert

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Ka-ching

So I stop in for lunch at Mustang Grill on 2nd. I get a chicken quesadilla and, throughout the afternoon, six Blue Moons, two of which the bartender, the lovely Victoria, bought for me. It's a half price happy hour from 2-6 pm. The entire bill comes to only 18 bucks. Including six Blue Moons!

And it's a bar on my Continental Airlines One Pass dining program, for which I get three miles for every dollar spent. But, here's the beauty part, I just need to use my card twice more before the end of the calender year at any of the participating establishments and then my One Pass miles go to TEN for every dollar spent. Happy birthday to me.

Is she smarter than a fifth grader?

It's probably safe to say most Americans are pretty dense about history or politics or even just basic general knowledge. God knows, some of my friends astound me with their cluelessness sometimes.

But you sort of expect the press secretary of the President of the United States, who faces the media every day, often on live television, and who represents the White House on all issues, to be perhaps in the top percentile of smarties.

Unless it's the Bush White House, of course, and press secretary Dana Perino:

Appearing on National Public Radio's light-hearted quiz show "Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me," which aired over the weekend, Perino got into the spirit of things and told a story about herself that she had previously shared only in private: During a White House briefing, a reporter referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis -- and she didn't know what it was.

"I was panicked a bit because I really don't know about . . . the Cuban Missile Crisis," said Perino, who at 35 was born about a decade after the 1962 U.S.-Soviet nuclear showdown. "It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I'm pretty sure."

So she consulted her best source. "I came home and I asked my husband," she recalled. "I said, 'Wasn't that like the Bay of Pigs thing?' And he said, 'Oh, Dana.'"

Oy.

By her logic, I guess she also doesn't know about WWII or the American Revolution because, you know, they happened before she was born.

At least she's not too bad looking. And, of course, the sad thing is she's probably still smarter than her boss.

Rudy Giggliani

The pundits were up in arms a few months ago about Hillary Clinton's laugh, calling it a "cackle." Rudy Giuliani - even when he's out of his dresses - is quite the giggler, as TPM notes in this video compilation of his rather coquettish appearance on "Meet The Press."

Good!

Bastard.

NYC Councilman Tony Avella for President

If this happens, I will be very happy.

My mouth is already watering

The Omaha steak has left The Bronx...

UPS Tracking:

BRONX, NY, 12/07/2007
5:57 A.M. OUT FOR DELIVERY

Rack Of Lamb 1.5 lbs.
6 Filet Mignon
12 Omaha Steaks Burgers
6 Chicken In Pastry
12 Filet Mignon Spring Rolls appetizers
12 seafood stuffed mushroom appetizers
Chicken Sampler - 2 Each Of
Chkn Kiev
Chkn Cordon Bleu
Chkn W/wild Rice
Chkn W/broc/cheese
12 Gourmet Franks
4 Stuffed Sole W/scallops & crabmeat
12 Pork Sausage, Breakfast
1 Carnegie Deli Cheesecake
4 Top Sirloins

It might be cheaper than staying at the Venetian

If anyone was still unsure that the housing market is in trouble in this country, this picture might put their doubts to rest.

That's in Las Vegas, where a crazy building boom and the subprime mortgage crisis has really done a number.

But two homes for the price of one? I'm thrilled when the Key Food does two cartons of Tropicana orange juice for the price of one.

Fortunately, New York still doesn't really seem to have been affected by the collapse in real estate values. If I was really smart -- and also wanted to live somewhere else -- this would be the time to sell out now, get the crazy Manhattan prices, and go buy a goddamn mansion in some other place. But, you know, who the hell wants to live in Delaware?

The chickens are coming home to roost

Some of the Republican candidates are getting upset that they are being questioned about their religious beliefs. Mike Huckabee, who has vaulted to the top tier in the Iowa GOP caucuses, bristled at an NPR interview recently which brought up his stated belief in creationism - and subsequent disbelief in evolution - and yesterday, according to an AP report, "expressed frustration that he is asked about it so often, arguing with the questioner that it ultimately doesn't matter what his personal views are."

Mitt Romney, who had been leading in Iowa until recently, is facing a lot of skepticism among the Christian base that makes up a big part of the GOP because of his Mormonism. In fact, he's been forced to schedule a speech Thursday to try to alleviate fears and address the issue - like JFK had to do some decades ago as the first (and so far only) Catholic president.

The difference is JFK had to face religious bigotry because he was not one of the usual crowd. The U.S., until he came along, had only been governed by Protestants. There was a fear there would be some sort of Vatican influence, and he had to assure the yokels his religion would not affect his presidency.

Today, the Republican candidates have no one to blame but themselves. They have enabled the ongoing bigotry. They spend so much time invoking Little Baby Jesus to rail against gays and abortion, they have created a powerful right-wing Christian, Bible-thumping block to which they have to curry favor.

But now they don't like it when their wacky theories are challenged by the press, or their not-quite Christian faith is being used against them by that very Christian base.

I believe it was the Lord himself who said: What goes around, comes around, suckas.

I don't believe it!

"US Weekly's cover story regarding Scarlett Johansson and its clear implication that she has had plastic or cosmetic surgery on her nose is an outrageous and defamatory fabrication lacking any conceivable basis or proof, despite vehement denials by Ms. Johansson prior to publication," reads a statement from her rep, exclusively to OK!. "Not surprisingly, US magazine cannot provide the dates when she supposedly had this surgery, who performed the surgery, or what was supposedly done — all because there simply is no truth to the story. The publication made a pathetic attempt to validate its story by using two cover photos of Scarlett that were taken years apart with obviously different make-up and lighting, and then relying on an "expert’s opinion” (based solely on looking at the two photos) on what "might" have been done. It wasn't."
- OK magazine

How dare they. That nose, like every other part of her, is perfect. And natural.

Magic 8 Ball says...yes

Bigger is better?
Breast augmentation on the rise with college women despite health risks

I had drinks with a friend yesterday at Southern Hospitality, the Justin Timberlake dive bar on 2nd. Let's just say the bartender probably pulled in an extra $500 a day in tips.

At least I think it was a boob job. I actually wasn't sure, but my bud, who is not bad in that department herself, assured me it was.

Of course, every girl insists every other girl with large breasts has had to have had them done, so who knows.

Couldn't they have taken the picture AFTER she fell face first in that cake?

Britney Spears spent her 26th birthday with Paris Hilton.

I'm sure that went well.

Very cool

If you're into dinosaurs - and who isn't? - this is a fascinating story.

Best campaign ad of the season

This could almost convince me to vote for Rudy.