This is the last post about the oil spill. Promise.

This is what the Russians are saying….

The British Petroleum oil spill is threatening the entire eastern half of the North American continent with “total destruction,” reports say.
An ominous report by Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources warned of the impending disaster resulting from the British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico, calling it the worst environmental catastrophe in all of human history, the European Union Times reported.
Russian scientists believe BP is pumping millions of gallons of Corexit 9500, a chemical dispersal agent, under the Gulf of Mexico waters to hide the full extent of the leak, now estimated to be over 2.9 million gallons a day.
Experts say Corexit 9500 is a solvent four times more toxic than oil.
The agent, scientists believe, has a 2.61ppm toxicity level, and when mixed with the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, its molecules will be able to “phase transition.”
This transition involves the change of the liquid into a gaseous state, which can be absorbed by clouds. The gas will then be released as “toxic rain” leading to “unimaginable environmental catastrophe” destroying all life forms from the “bottom of the evolutionary chart to the top,” the report said.

Call me an alarmist, but I’m ready to believe anyone besides BP or the United States Government.
Nice knowing you.

Is it bad if you dream that you travelled forward through time and found yourself working as a post-op tranny hooker? That can’t be good, right? Ah, dreams, you murky, evil, disturbing glimpses into the subconscious, you. What’ll be unearthed next?
Imagine having your dink removed in a bid to become more like a woman. I can’t imagine it. I love my little guy; sure, he’s ugly, but I’d never hack him off. I wonder what the surgeons do with it after they it cut off? Does it go in the medi-trash with all the rubber gloves and used syringes? And what do they do with arms and legs after they’ve been amputated? And how do they bury conjoined twins when they die? Do they separate them or just build a ‘V’ shaped coffin? And why hasn’t anyone invented water-proof cigarettes yet? And how come, and why? And when? And, indeed, who?
What?
It’s important to ask questions. It’s important to be curious. Otherwise you’ll turn around one day and the government will be fucking your ass off. Wait! They already are (don’t get me started).
One person who asked a lot of questions was William Cooper, author of Behold a Pale Horse.
I’ve never read Behold a Pale Horse, sheerly because I’d rather not trouble myself with anymore paranoia, but I’ll bet it’s a real page-turner.
Bill was the son of a U.S. Air Force officer, and after he graduated college in 1961 he too enlisted in the U.S. Air force. Then, when he was honorably discharged in 1965, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served in Vietnam, rising to the rank of petty officer. Bill was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal with V device and the Navy Achievement Medal with V device. Then he became a conspiracy theorist. Why not?
While serving, Bill claims to have seen a disc shaped craft- the size of an aircraft carrier- come out of the sea and zip off into the sky. He also claims that he, and the other servicemen who witnessed the craft, were told that they hadn’t seen anything, and if they talked about what they hadn’t seen they’d be dealt with severely. Suddenly, Bill found himself privy to all kinds of crazy top secret documents (assassinations, coverups, sub-goverment organizations, stuff about UFO’s) and he felt it was his duty to show them to the American public, so he published his findings in a book: Behold a Pale Horse. After that, Bill was pretty much on the run. The government busted his balls endlessly, ceaselessly, mercilessly, and they even ran him off the road in a black sedan causing him to lose a leg! A LEG! Then Bill started a worldwide shortwave radio show called Hour of the Time, where he talked about civil, criminal and political conspiracies, past and present. Bill Clinton, who was President at the time, said, “Bill Cooper is the most dangerous radio host in America.” Which he possibly was; it was a very popular show. However, it was really unpopular with the powers-that-be, which sort of validates all the paranoid shit he was sprouting… maybe.
Two months before 9/11, Bill, on his radio show, predicted an impending attack on the United States that would be blamed on a “scapegoat” called Bin Laden (Bin who?). You can listen to that broadcast on Youtube. It’s actually pretty creepy.
Then, on the night of November 5th 2001, Bill was lured out of his Arizona home by members of the Apache County Sheriff’s department who accidentally shot him dead on his front lawn.
Mental. Check it out. Maybe he was bananas, but then maybe “they” want you believe he was bananas. Either way, I’m not reading that book.
Ignorance is bliss. How about that new IPad! Don’t get me started.
Now, here’s a letter we just received:

Jason Crombie, you’re alright. DA LAKERS FOREVERZZZ

Adam Walker

Thanks Adam!
And now here’s a picture of me living the dream in the year 2035.
Weird… That could actually be me in the future. The pecker is uncanny, and I do like crosswords.

And now here’s a song.

You may remember a post from last week where I mentioned a book. And you may have noticed that the cover of that book, and it’s mention, have both been removed. That is because the book sucked massive sweaty gorilla balls and I had to put it up on paperbackswap.com.
Here’s a book, however, that couldn’t have its ball-suckin’ lips any farther away from the ape enclosure if it tried: The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby by Tom Wolfe.
I know it’s not time for another BOOK CLUB! BOOK CLUB! BOOK CLUB! but I’m throwing it in now anyway. It’s that good.
The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby is not only a bastard to say at the counter at Barnes & Noble, it’s also Wolfe’s first collected book of essays. Published in 1965, the book is named for one of the stories in the collection that was originally published in Esquire magazine in 1963 under the title “There Goes (Varoom! Varoom!) That Kandy-Kolored (Thphhhhhh!) Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (Rahghhh!) Around the Bend (Brummmmmmmmmmmmmmm)…” Wolfe’s essay for Esquire and this, his first book, are frequently heralded as early examples of New Journalism; so says wikipedia. Check it out. It is good.

Bumming heavily on that oil spill still. The Exxon Valdez screw-up didn’t even register with me back in the day; guess I was too young to give a shit. Sorry for being a hippy, kids, but if they fuck up the beach permanently- I am out. Seriously. It’s not a good situation. The slick has made its way down to Florida, and now it’s slopping north with the Gulf Stream. Soon it’ll hit the eastern coast of the United States, then onto Newfoundland and out across the Atlantic Ocean. I’m just sayin’.
If it makes it’s way anywhere near the Pacific, heads are gonna roll. I’ve got some surfing to do. Yeah, I surf, so what?
In other news: A curse on Ray Allen and his ass-lucky 3 pointers, and Rondo can take a chomp on my pipe too.
Come on Lakers!

I swear to God I saw Gay Talese crossing Lexington at 62nd street yesterday. I was lying about Joan Didion in the bushes, yes, but I swear I saw GT. He was right across the street from me in fedora hat, looking all dapper ‘n shit. I wanted to say hello but then these other two dudes recognized him and shook his hand, and when I got across the street he was trying to break away from them; stopping him again didn’t feel right. Still, I did get to see him and get all fanned-out like a bitch in the noon-day sun, so that’s nice.
I also saw Keanu Reeves sitting outside the Bowery Hotel at 1am on thursday morning. He… whatever.

People always ask me, “Hey, jerk-tits, why do you rely so heavily on sex and sex organs for comic relief?” Good question. Here’s the answer:
When I was six it occurred to me that I was here, alive, on planet earth, but I didn’t know how I arrived. I asked my parents how I came to be and they sat me down and explained human reproduction in all its gory detail. I was disgusted and amazed.
Later that day I wandered around the corner to the park (because my parents were negligent circus folk) and I met a group of teenage girls and boys, four of them, and I told them what I knew about sex: the sperm, the fallopian tubes, the ovaries, the whole bit. They fell about in fits of laughter (which seemed odd at the time) and insisted that I come back to their house for lunch. At their house I sat around a large table with a family of about ten people: uncles, aunts, moms, dads, kids. I gave the lady of the house my phone number (my mother made me learn our home number off by heart as soon as I could speak) and she called my folks to ask if it was okay that I was having lunch with them- the strangers who lived around the corner. It was okay.
Anyway, during lunch the teenage kids asked me to explain reproduction again to everyone at the table, which I did. They were doubled over in their seats before the erect penis had even been inserted into the vagina. Grown men had tears streaming down their cheeks and one of the ladies choked on a sandwich; she ran to the sink and started spitting it up. They were laughing so hard I had to yell the facts of life over their hooting, which only made it funnier. I personally didn’t think it was funny, but I did enjoy making a room full of people laugh just by saying the word ‘penis’.
Anyways, that’s why I always crack wise with the willy gags. What’s your excuse?

In other news: I’ve got a bunch of free magazine subscriptions; some I requested, and others that just turn up once a month all by themselves. One of them is Rolling Stone. You may be revolted to learn that I actually like Rolling Stone. I don’t know why, but I find it comforting. There, I’ve said it. I know it’s not ‘cool’, and I know it’s largely responsible for rigging the charts and making popular music stink worse than a trunk-load of three-week-old kippers, and, yes, I know they seem to be contractually obligated to run at least three photos of Bono in every single issue (This month: Bono with the President!), but there’s something about that rag that feels good, or wholesome, or something… I don’t know… wait, what’s my point?
Point is, RS used to be the hip-bible; RS had all the cool news fit to print, but now it’s staid and lame like an old uncle who used to be fun but now he’s stuck coughing his lungs up in a recliner made from corporate bureaucracy (don’t get me started). The point is: I still love him for the good times. And there really were some good times! Who do you think published that story about the Mint 400 after Sport Illustrated turned it down in 1971? Rolling Stone did, and that’s a legacy they’ll never tarnish, no matter how many times they run Sting on the cover.
This is all gibberish, of course. Pure waffle to winnow out the non-beleivers, the hangers on, the people with the better sense not to read this far into one of my posts. Now here’s the scoop, and thanks for sticking it out: Rumblings. There’s been some serious rumblings and you can expect to see a new issue soon… and then another, hot on the heels of that one, and then more where that came from. It’s all coming together like the mellon-sized turd that killed Elvis, and it’s good. More soon…
Also worth mentioning: the Lakers kicked Boston’s ass last night in the finals opener. 102-89. Pfff.
Anyway, enough of that. What we’re really here for is BOOK CLUB!
I read that My Cat Spit McGee by Willie Morris and it annoyed the living shit out of me. And I’m a cat person! I think it was the melancholy tone of the whole thing, PLUS he never stopped using the word ‘Domicile’ when he could of just said ‘House’. Irked the hell out of me; moving right along.
A Moveable Feast, Hemmingway… Once again, Ernie’s spare style of writing left me bored. I don’t now how I got through this or any of his books; it’s like eating a bread sandwich. I’m sorry. I know he’s an important literary figure and I’m not worthy of the toenail clippings of the guy who collected Hem’s toenail clippings, but he bores me. Old Man and the Sea worked though; it was fable-like, and I likes me a nice bit of fabling.
That concludes BOOK CLUB!

Have you read something? Was it good? Bounce us a review.
Send your book review to me, the editor, on the contact page.

Oh yeah, there’s still a big hole spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico… But how about those IPads!!!!

Of course I didn’t go see it; that’s a major Pandora’s box situation right there. What if you liked it? What if it made you want Rollerblades and share-plates and cup-cakes and dick?
It could happen.
Best not to lift the lid on that one.
More importantly: Thursday, 9PM Eastern Standard, Lakers/Celtics playoffs. Get with it. Get on it. Grow a wang (penis mention #2).

I’m doing my best to make up for lost time right now, bye the way… I know I haven’t been there for you lately; it’s been hard. I feel like you’ve changed, or maybe I’ve changed… something’s different and I don’t know how to make it feel like it used to… Sorry for lazing on the posts.
Anyway, we just found the new spot: Orange Valve!
OV is awesome. It’s like Blade Runner with orange plastic, and they have everything! $1 Jello Shots (for real), Karaoke… actually, that’s it: $1 Jello Shots and Karaoke. Plus- everything’s orange and made out of plastic….
It’s heaven; AND completely douche free, or at least it was tonite (if you don’t count me and my friends).
It looks bad, right? Check out the font on the awning; look at the poxy ATM on the stoop; what’s up with all the prehistoric gum-spots on the pavement? eww. It looks more depressing than a Newark strip club on Halloween; but that’s the secret of Orange Valve’s magic, whereas Screwface’s magic relied solely on having two heads and four eyes. What? I’m just sayin’.

I love you. You’ll read anything.
See you there.

Lazy, lazy, lazy! Well, at least that’s how it looks from your end of this thing. I’ve actually been retarded busy (you know how busy retards can get. not funny), and haven’t had a chance to post much lately.
PLUS- Gary Coleman, Dennis Hopper, and Louise Bourgeois- a major creative trinity- all kicked the bucket in the last seven days. We’ve been grieving to say the least…
Incidentally, BOSTON SUCKS BALLS!

More better posts soon; swear to Kobe.

Good morning, Studs.
Quick one today; gotta roll. Busy, busy, busy. x

Okay, one more thing: that picture of Grace Kelly.
You know when you and your girlfriend play the “one person you’re allowed to fancy” game? I chose Grace; my bird chose Dr. Dreamy, George Clooney, some Dolce Gabbana model-dude, Big from Sex and the City, Steven Seagal (really) and the postman.
But whatever. I got Grace. Phwoar!

Anyway, that’s it for today. Happy midweek!

Why on God’s green earth do I consistently leave tasks to the very last minute? There’s no way anyone can deliver their best effort when they’re scrambling to make a deadline. I think I need help.
I know there are people out there, other writers, who suck much worse than me. I know because I know them; I’ve met them. But they’re submitting better work because they don’t sit on it until the day before it’s due. You know who you are, you trollops, and you know that I know you know what I just said is true… Just you wait. I’m off to see a hypnotist and he’ll rewire me so I’m not such a pathetic slugabed twit: “You’re getting sleepy…sleeeepeeeeey…when I count to five you’ll stop farting around all the time… you’ll get your work done early…and…you’ll lay off the chips…” And when that happens- you are screwed, pal. I’m taking all your work off of you and doing it better than you ever dreamed.
You’ll review CDs for Vice magazine for the rest of your life in exchange for peanuts, actual, literal peanuts. No, not free CDs. Peanuts, delicious peanuts. Peanuts.
Now, look at this-

I found that in my inbox today. It’s from my uncle Gary.
Gary is forever emailing me pictures of naked fat women getting into mini minors with the words “Does my ass look big in this?” And videos of elephants eating from each others butts; and lame jokes like:

A teacher is explaining biology to her 4th grade
students. “Human beings are the only animals
that stutter”, she says.

“My kitty raised his back, went ‘Fffff, Fffff,
Fffff’…And before he could say “Fuck”, the
Rottweiler ate him!”

Because he’s only six years older than me- owing to my mother giving birth when she was just 19, and he being the youngest of her four siblings- Gary was a big part of my childhood. He was always doing cool things like badging cars, throwing shotgun shells into fires, rolling balls of pilfered mercury around on his bedroom floor, fashioning knives and pellet weaponry from everyday objects, stealing and collecting various speckly bird eggs, proudly mounting car badges on pieces of ply wood, showing me my first picture of a naked lady (standing in the entrance of a fancy hotel in nothing but heels and a mink stole. I was six.), growing an enormous pumpkin, raising pigeons, killing fish, throwing bricks at horses, riding his bicycle through puddles and splashing people, calling his stone-deaf mother (my grandmother) every name under the sun when her back was turned, deciding he was too old for his interminable matchbox car collection and bequeathing them all to me, ingeniously hiding contraband under floorboards and in heating ducts, throwing rocks on people’s roofs at night, throwing bricks on people’s roofs at night, ringing people’s doorbells and running away at night, badging cars, shoplifting, eating raw spaghetti, making sandwiches with just bread and tomato sauce (ketchup), making prank phone calls, inventing clever and hurtful nicknames, badging cars… I could go on forever.

These days Gary has his hands full with two precocious brats of his own, so his mischief-making has been limited to sending group emails containing stuff like this-

I’ll post up more of Uncle Gary’s retardedness as it comes in.
Happy monday!

How is it that we only got told about this yesterday? Sad.
We used to be all over the pulse like a bad suit.

How’s that for an epigraph?! Joan Didion’s rolling in her grave- and she aint even dead yet! Oh!
Yeah, I know I’m no Mark Twain, but this tickled me pink. Come on! Didion? UFC? Get serious, bro.

Speaking of JD, I’m pretty sure I helped her across the street last week at 66th and 3rd. Was that you Joan? I’m in two minds about it: It sure as hell looked like you, but then… No way. As if you’d be standing on the corner waiting for a bright handsome stranger to help you cross. If it was you, sorry for pushing you in the bushes and taking your purse. Just kidding.
Actually, there’s no way it was Joan; this woman was just too heavy. Joan Didion is built like a kite.
I will spot her eventually, though. And when I do I’ll scream out, “Hey Didion! You SUUUUUUCK!” even though I love her. You know who else I love? That Kristen Wiig! She cracks me up more than any man ever has, and that’s saying something… something very sexist, actually…

In other news: Why is this still soooooo good?

The Youtube comment section is, for the most part, hilarious. In fact, you don’t even need to watch the videos or have them in context to enjoy them, as we’ve proven below in a new thing we like to call ‘This Week in Youtube Comments’… or something. If you see any doozies please screen shot ‘em and send ‘em over.

HA-larious. Now it’s time for BOOK CLUB! BOOK CLUB! BOOK CLUB!

I know, I know, standard first year of Uni “I just discovered drugs!” type book; bit embarrassing, isn’t it?
I tried to read this when I was I going through my ‘Beat’ stage (when I was about 17? Right after the equally cringeworthy ‘Doors’ stage) and I found it was way too heavy for me. From memory, I couldn’t really wrap my head around the free association. I’m really enjoying it now, though! It starts off all adventurous and fun- a group of people discover acid and travel around in a big psychedelic school bus acting weird in 1964- but then it turns kinda dark, as crew start flipping their lids and getting hauled off to the nut house or jail. That’s the best bit- it doesn’t glorify drug use. Also, Tom Wolfe gets gang rapped by bikers at the end. Just kidding.
One cool thing about the book- and this makes me feel like a first year uni student living on ramen and trying to grow dreadlocks- is the presence of the bus driver, Neal Cassady; he quite literally steps from the last chapter of On The Road and into the first chapter of The Elctric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Almost like a movie star going from one movie to the next…
Anyway, check it out if you haven’t already; The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
Here’s a video of Cassady blowing Ginsberg’s mind in San Francisco, 1965. I guess he really was that frenetic, though he seems a little subdued, possibly because of the camera?

What else is there to tell you on this rainy Wednesday… not much… Oh wait! Look at this! This was sent to me as a brief for a magazine ed-letter-page-thing I’m supposed to be penning right now instead of playing the internet (that reminds me, about a month ago my mother said she doesn’t know how to ‘play’ facebook…really) What am I meant to glean from this? Carte blanche is bullshit, man.

Oh great. Kristen Stewart is all set to play that grim looking bitch who can’t stop fussing over her hair in Kerouac’s On The Road.
Glad I woke up today.

This is good news though, fer sure!

…sorry for being a hippy yesterday.

Big news in The New York Times this week: terror suspect arrested for Times Square bomb scare thing… Big news, big news. Really important… Oh yeah, there’s a hole in the ocean floor that’s spewing a quarter of a million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every 24 hrs and no one knows how to stop it. It started two weeks ago, though, so… you know, what’s new?
Good one, humans.
Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, has called the oil spill an act of God. “From time to time there are going to be things that occur that are acts of God that cannot be prevented.” No, dude. It wasn’t God; it was the stupid fucking humans.
What a bummer. BP has offered a $5000 cheque to coastal residents affected by the spill, provided they wave their right to sue… So that’s some good news.
Seriously, who gives a fuck about a try-hard Pakistani terrorist wanna-be when there’s an ever-growing pool of oil filling the ocean and killing everything? It’s bigger than Puerto Rico! And the way BP are accepting full responsibility for the fuck-up is killing me as well. It’s like they’re proud of how grown-up they’re being about taking the blame (they’re accepting responsibility for the spill, not the accident that caused the spill).
BP CEO, Tony Hayward, you are a cock-smoker.
I’m a bit upset; the oil is approaching the Loop Current, which would carry the oil along the Florida coast and down into the Florida Keys, and I’ve got some fishing to do down there this summer.
If they cancel the annual Mother’s Day Dolphin Tournament I’ll be pissed.
Here’s some critters who’ve already bit the big one as a result of the spill…
the “spill” Whoopsies!

You know when you’re walking down the street and you see an “elderly” person with more style than they know what to do with, and you think, “Wow! I wish I had the balls to ask that lady for a photo. She looks incredible!”? It happens to me every day here on the upper east side. You wouldn’t believe the threads some of my neighborhood octogenarians hobble around in; it’s awesome in the truest sense of the word (extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear).
Anyway, I was looking for a suitable picture of Gay Talese for this weeks BOOK CLUB! BOOK CLUB! BOOK CLUB! when I came across this “what the cool fossils are wearing” blog called advancedstyle.blogspot.com. The site’s creator, Ari Seth Cohen, roams the streets looking for “New York’s most stylish and creative older folks” to photograph and interview. And then he beats them. JUST KIDDING! Not funny. Respect your elders.
Am I crazy BTN (behind the news) on this one? Did you already know about the blog? No? Speak up, man! Well, it’s really cool; you should check it out, especially if you have a thing for old birds; and, lets face it, who doesn’t? They’ve been ‘around the block’ a few times, haven’t they? Know what I mean?
JUST KIDDING! Respect your elders.

Now it’s time for BOOK CLUB! BOOK CLUB! BOOK CLUB! YEAH!
(What’d you think of the ‘YEAH’ at the end? Too much?)

This week I wanna talk about The Gay Talese Reader and what a complete and utter head-fuck it is. I know I mentioned GT about a month ago when I first started this book, and I know I should be able to read more than one single book in a whole month, but what you don’t know is I read four books at once at all times; that way I can’t be overly influenced by any one thing that I’m reading. I call it the ‘fruit salad method’. Check it out.
Now, Gay Talese. How could anyone be this good at telling stories? It’s unearthly; not only that, it’s not fair. GT is absolutely incredible, and -at the risk of sounding deeply racist- I hate the Dutch. WAIT! That’s not what I meant to say! I was going to say something about him reminding me of a bad-ass, Al Pacino, Italian American stereotype, but then I thought better of it… Then I thought I’d mention feeling self conscious about carrying around a book with the word ‘GAY’ on the cover; what am I? Twelve? Pfff, idiot.
Here’s an excerpt from The Gay Talese Reader‘s first story: ‘New York is a city of things unnoticed’

New York is a city of things unnoticed. It is a city with cats sleeping under parked cars, two stone armadillos crawling up St. Patrick’s Cathdral, and thousands of ants creeping on top of the Empire State Building. The ants probably were carried there by winds or birds, but nobody is sure; nobody in New York knows any more about the ants than they do about the panhandler who takes taxis to the Bowery; or the dapper man who picks trash out of Sixth Avenue trash cans; or the medium in the West Seventies who claims, “I’m clairvoyant, clairaudient and clairsensuous.

How’d you feel when you read about the ants on top of the Empire State? Brilliant. Can you please read this book?
Here’s Gay talking about his influences as a writer and stuff.
Catch you tomorrow.