David And Susannah

The Reverse Cowgirl dispenses some advice, which is excellent even if you're not a writer:

Yesterday, I received this email from a young writer seeking guidance.

Hello Ms. Breslin-

My name is David, and I've been reading your blog "Reverse Cowgirl." I'm a young (24) aspiring writer, and by aspiring I mean, hoping to someday be reimbursed my for contributions. I don't mean to bore you, but I'm intrigued by your style and topics, and would like to know more about how you forged your writing career. If you have time I would love to know more about:

1. Did you attend journalism school? Is it a good way to "break-in?"
2. Are you able to support yourself solely on your blogging and writing? If so, how long did it take for this to become possible?
3. What was your "break"?
4. What suggestions might you give for someone like myself who has a years experience writing for a handful of small magazines?

I understand you're very busy, and however you prefer to answer my questions (via email, phone, later on) please just let me know. Thank you again for your time, and the best of luck to you.

Thanks,

David Johnson-Igra

Today, I respond.

Dear David:

Most of the time, when I receive emails like yours, I delete them, leaving them ignored and unanswered. Now 12 years into a little-rewarding writing career, I have grown bitter, jaded, and tend to see bright-eyed, bushy-tailed upstarts such as yourself as little more than potential competition. Why would I help you? I was about to delete your email, which I found to be particularly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and therefore especially worthy of deletion--when I stopped myself. What was it? Your odd name? Your supplicating ways? Your seeming understanding that I am "very busy," when, in fact, I am not? Anyway, I decided to respond. Consider yourself ... lucky? Or, maybe, unfortunate.

1. No, David, I did not attend "journalism school." Is there really even such a thing? I guess that's what they call j-school. For some reason, I only associate it with Columbia. Go figure. I took one "journalism" class in college. I remember something about pyramids. And a book. But I remember all too clearly the day the professor said how much journalists made. That was the day I changed my mind about becoming a journalist.

I have no idea if that's a good way to "break-in." Considering that the state of journalism today is like that of a bank that has been robbed, it's hard to imagine why anyone would want to "break-in" to it anyway. Mostly, I think schools are for dipshits and traditional ways of going about things are for losers. You can see where that got me. Blogging. And writing to you. And ruing my life choices. Go if your parents pay. If they don't, forget it, or you'll end up with $50K in debt you can never hope to repay.

Conclusion: Fuck "journalism school."

2. Am I able to support myself solely on blogging and writing? Well, David, nosy, aren't you? I guess that would make you at least a half-decent journalist. Either way, I am too chronically obtuse to answer your question other than to say I have a day job that involves writing and editing without which I would be shaking a tin cup on the corner and shouting at you about the coming end of civilization in 2012. (All journos are deeply invested in the Mayan calendar, FYI.)

If you think I make money off blogging, you are misguided. Once, I made some money off this blog by running some American Apparel ads featuring porn star Sasha Grey wearing some thigh-high socks and a thick genital shrug of pubic hair. Welcome to journalism 2009. It's an ugly world.

Sometimes, I like to torture myself by thinking back to 2000, or whenever it was, before the dot-com bubble burst and we all died. It was an amazing, heady time. I used $20 as toilet paper and ate Chicken Kiev flown in from the Russian Tea Room for breakfast. Truly, I wrote for a website called Beer.com that paid me, like, a $1,000 for, I can't remember, a monthly 500-word column or something. That was a good time. Until it wasn't. And then it wasn't.

Conclusion: Don't quit your day job. Ever.

3. What was my "break"? Ah, surely you jest. Do I seem like someone who has had one? I'm like the grimy-faced canary in the mine that the head coal digger keeps on a tiny dental floss leash so he can beat it with a miniature sapling whenever he likes.

Seriously, kid, my first big break was when I was corunning some asinine site about postfeminism and cajoled a booker at "Politically Incorrect" into letting me on the show. They pitted me against Erica Jong. It was kind of awesome.

More recently, the word "break" brings up less happy connotations. Like the idea of a broken person whose industry is slipping through her hands like a gelatinous jelly fish. Make it stop, David.

Conclusion: There are no breaks.

4. What suggestions might I have for someone such as yourself "who has a years experience writing for a handful of small magazines?" Well, to be honest, my first mental response was: Learn how to use apostrophes. But that's not very nice, is it?

In the past, I've written my response to aspiring writers: Don't. It's just that simple. Pick something else. Don't do it. Go become a rug cleaner like your mother suggested. Writing is a hideous, torturous art fit for expert masochists and idealist losers. Learn a trade. Marry a cougar. Go away and leave me the few jobs that remain. You little shit.

But, Young David, if you insist, my advice is this. Become a writer. I actually bothered to Google your name, and it seems like you can write, a little bit, at least, which is really the only reason I bothered to respond.

So, if you insist on becoming a writer, against my wishes, do this. Do something different. Most writers can't write. Most journalists are shit. Go where no one else will go. Write what no one else will write. Tell the stories nobody wants to hear. Write for love. Do gigs for free. Stop churning out the same boring fucking copy that your peers are dutifully filing like a bunch of self-congratulating monkeys and find out what "beyond the pale" really means. Read this. And this. And this. Go into the ghetto. Interview a homeless person. Find out what it's like to get jizzed on for a living. Fuck the pyramid, fuck j-school, fuck writing for a living. Fuck your computer, fuck your rent, fuck whatever your parents said. Go and live. Go be in the world. Go push yourself until you cry and then go back for more and then write about it. Because that's what real writers do. They don't just write about it. They live it. And then, if you're lucky, you can find out what it's like to lose everything, how to get the guy to show you the AK-47 that you know he has hidden in his closet, or joke with a soldier about giving a stripper the implant in his head that's stretching his burned skin because he drove over an IED in Iraq after he's done with it. Why? Because then you can die knowing that whatever you did, or whatever you wrote, hey, at least you weren't a fucking coward like all those lame-asses that went to j-school, wrote shit copy for lame newspapers, and thought they were really pushing it because they did an email interview with Sasha Grey.

Conclusion: Get out of here, kid.

You're welcome.

Love,

Susannah

The Opposite Of Destiny

Poor Harvey Kindlon. This kid just can't seem to catch a break.

Kindlon, the 11-year-old goofball who became an interweb sensation after pictures of him unsuccessfully trying to give a rose to Megan Fox on the red carpet of the London premiere of Cybershifters: The Bad Guys Strike Back circulated, has been blown off yet again.

Kodak made good on their promise to fly the boy out to New York so he could meet Fox, who had apologized for brushing off his gesture in London, but the meeting never happened. The company had hoped to arrange the encounter during the filming of Friday's installment of the Today show, which had booked Fox for an appearance. However, Fox's segment was bumped due to Michael Jackson's untimely death , and Fox high-tailed it back to Los Angeles—without ever meeting with her spurned fan.

Okay kid, maybe it's time to pick a new crush object...

I Will Go See These

Usually, It's Old Jazz Musicians Who Get Mention

I could have said something Saturday or Sunday, but I didn't really care, considering I never saw any of his commercials. I heard he was loud and obnoxious, and even gave away OxyClean to guests at his wedding. But after seeing this picture, I had to post.

So here's your obit...

People Older Than I

A blessed happy birthday to H.R.M. Idle Eyes The See-Thru, who every year, slightly edges me out for ticks on the calendar. Brother, continue to be excellent!

Season 2 Chapter 5

A fifth of His Words - Not Mine for you...chapterwise, and almost lengthwise. Read it. And go back and read our other, first story too while you're at it.

This is every week, for six months.

Crazy Bullshit? No. Triple The Crazy Bullshit!

Travellers From The East Weekend

The best of the week: Nerds like me already saw the epic snub of the an adolescent boy trying desperately to show Megan Fox his affection at a premiere of The Revenge Of the Evil Changebots, but there is a happy ending (not the kind he gave himself every day thinking about her leading up to his encounter).

The London schoolboy left looking unhappy after being snubbed by star (?) Megan Fox is being flown out to receive an apology and finally meet his idol. According to one of those London rags, a $5,000 reward was offered to find out the boy's identity, and thusly Harvey Kindlon was discovered by a Facebook user. Must have been hard, searching the Megan Fox and Autobot fan groups. Harvey's cousin, confirmed the boy will be flying to New York tonight to meet Megan with his mother and a friend.

Kodak, ripe with money after killing their Kodachrome film line, are flying the dissed romeo over to the States so he can give Fox the rose in person. Or get rejected again, which would be hardcore. At the advice of a team of publicists and managers Apologetic, Megan promised she will be more receptive to her fans. Go, you magnificent bastard. Live forever in this moment. Preteen English girls are going to be a disappointment after this.

Also, Famous Sister gets to be the first victim to stay as a guest at the new Fortress IOvUF. Crazy gal that she is, she managed to slam a concert in with the hurried bi-annual visitation she'll making on the left coast. How else were Scarlett and I going to see Carbon Leaf on tour?

The worst of the week: The career obsessed in the entertainment business!

Earlier this week we got a nice taste of the pot of shit calling the kettle anything but black. The backlash was well deserved, but it was not, and will never be enough to make such a self-involved mosquito change. Although it doesn't hurt to try. Even his initial coverage of the Michael Jackson death was, in typical douche fashion, tasteless (and not the amusing kind, like where I insinuate MJ pulled an Elvis and is secretly living in Iowa). Pardon the language, but Perez Hilton is a cunt.

Here's the worthless perspective blabbering of Billy Bush, who, until this, was slightly less than the half-a-fag that is fellow 'entertainment host' Ryan Seacrest:

What did God say when Michael arrived? DID he arrive? Was he consoled and embraced and ultimately released from all of his childhood pain or was he admonished for what many suspect but thankfully don't have confirmed?

There is an inescapable question mark as to the ethics and balance of Michael Jackson that goes with him to his grave. It is most assuredly not what Michael had in mind when he set out to be pop music's "P.T. Barnum", the man in the middle of the circus. Although, let's be real, anyone who reportedly invites a gossip tabloid to shoot him in a hyperbaric chamber courts the bizarre.

I was the last person to get Michael Jackson to go on camera. Technically, it was his last interview as I asked some questions and he answered them, but it's not one I'd choose to hang my hat on. Michael was alternately petrified and obsessed with my camera. He loved the small HD handheld 24P size camera and demanded to know where he could get one. But, before the cameras got rolling, while sitting in the small kitchen of his temporary Irish countryside cottage, Michael asked, "Is 5 minutes OK?"

Interviews hadn't gone well for him in their aftermath since pre-Oprah in 1993.

Our meeting took place in October 2006 about two hours outside of Dublin in a recording studio. Will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas was there, mixing and collaborating with Michael. Michael was much relieved to have Will join us and in truth, Will mostly did the talking. When the music came on, MJ started tapping and moving. He got up and danced, he sang. I was 8 feet away. Wow. I'll always have that.

Of course my intent was to get him relaxed and talkative. It never really happened cuz that wall wasn't coming down. I saw the pain in Michael. I knew he could not take one more ounce of disappointment. Michael simply wanted to be universally adored. Loved by ALL. That leads to the ultimate conclusion of his death:

Michael will never be disappointed again. He is right now universally adored. His legacy of hits and impact on music and everyone that came after him is undeniable and EVERYONE in the music community will see to it that THAT wall does not come down. Michael will be immortalized like Elvis, Lennon and JFK. Michael never met an honor he did not want to accept. The love of yesterday and today means so much to him, so I'm sure he is finally.... happy. But back to God.

What did God say? "You are forgiven?", "I'm sorry?", "I made Quincy Jones, Berry Gordy and John Landis as well as Joe and Katherine, so therefore I made YOU!"? "You should have trusted Billy Bush and loosened up. He was NOT there to 'catch' you in any way?" (My personal regret related choice).

The enigma of that scenario is very much like its subjects, The Lord of Hosts and the King of Pop.

Fuck you Billy Bush, Fuck you with a sequined-gloved fist. Please give us your sermon on the life and times of MJ, since you spent a few minutes with him three years ago. The balls on some people to use whatever means available to make the focus themselves and not the story at hand. It's the same drum that Jessie "the original Entourage" Jackson has been banging for 40 years, and has spawned countless opportunists who look for fame and fortune by association. Heathers nails it - folks willing to say or do anything to get into the spotlight, playing up friendships and involvement - even the first minute of this clip says it all.

And while I'm at it, let's just be clear that one's "career" is no excuse - ever - to become single-minded, narcissistic, and possessed about advancing it, carnage be damned. I truly wish failure upon anyone who is so cold and callous to lose sight of general decency or decorum in their quest to succeed. I'd wish cancer on them, but that can be sent into remission or give them the release of death. Failure, is long, stinging, and bitter tasting. A great chilled side dish with revenge!

Runner Up: The Republican Party!

I almost made this a 'best of' runner-up, because it gives me such pleasure watching those motherfuckers act so smug and judgmental, yet continue to implode as a political entity as their own hypocritical actions devalue their rhetoric. Like Senator Ensign the week prior, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford couldn't keep his dick in his pants, but rather than just make a mockery of his matrimonial vows, he went off the grid for almost a week. As far as the GOP goes, that is presidential material.

Socket To Me

New genius idea: the outlet wall.

Instead of hiding your outlets behind furniture and worrying about the mess of wires tangled behind your entertainment center, consider making an entire wall that’s nothing but outlets. Then you can artfully plug in your appliances wherever the cords look pleasing to you.

Imagine no more crowded outlets or multi-plug adapters.

Of course you don’t have to actually wire all the outlets on the whole wall for electricity, but you’d better come up with a good way to remember which ones are live.

The Terrible Secret Of Space

He Beat It

Holy surprising shit! We know they go in threes, but this is a shock! Here's the rehash of the AP story:

Michael Jackson, known largely as the "King of Pop", emerged from childhood superstardom to become the entertainment world's most influential singer and dancer before his life and career deteriorated in a freakish series of scandals, died of cardiac arrest at 50.

Jackson was not breathing when Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics responded to a call at his Los Angeles home about 12:30 p.m.. Paramedics performed CPR and took him to UCLA Medical Center.

His death brought a tragic end to a long, bizarre, sometimes farcical decline from his peak in the 1980s, when he was popular music's premier all-around performer, a uniter of black and white music who shattered the race barrier on MTV, dominated the charts and dazzled even more on stage. His 1982 album "Thriller" — which included the blockbuster hits "Beat It," "Billie Jean" and "Thriller" — remains the biggest-selling album of all time, with more than 26 million copies.

He was perhaps the most exciting performer of his generation, known for his feverish, crotch-grabbing dance moves, his high-pitched voice punctuated with squeals and titters. His single sequined glove and tight, military-style jacket were trademarks second only to his ever-changing, surgically altered appearance.

As years went by, he became an increasingly freakish figure. His skin became lighter and his nose narrower. He surrounded himself with children at his Neverland ranch, often wore a germ mask while traveling and kept a pet chimpanzee named Bubbles as one of his closest companions. In 2005, he was cleared of charges he molested a 13-year-old cancer survivor at Neverland in 2003. He had been accused of plying the boy with alcohol and groping him. The case took a fearsome toll on his career and image, and he fell into serious financial trouble. He was in rehearsals for a series of shows in London, billed as his last.

I'm sure we're going to see some toxicology reports and there'll be some painkiller residue (a la Danny Gans and that guy from Wilco), but let's make that post when the time comes. It's too bad he went apeshit bizarro nuts, but when I was a kid in his heyday, he was amazing. We saw the Jackson family Victory tour in 1984...baller.

Angel Of Anal Cancer

The masturbatory pin-up of the 70's is now with the angels she shared the namesake with, though this role will be for more than one season.

Pop icon and sex symbol Farrah Fawcett died shortly before 9:30 a.m. this morning at a Santa Monica hospital. Ryan O'Neal, her longtime companion who had reunited with Fawcett as she fought anal cancer, was at her side, along with close friend Alana Stewart.

"After a long and brave battle with cancer, our beloved Farrah has passed away," O'Neal said. "Although this is an extremely difficult time for her family and friends, we take comfort in the beautiful times that we shared with Farrah over the years and the knowledge that her life brought joy to so many people around the world."

She burst on the scene in 1976 as one-third of the crime-fighting trio in TV's "Charlie's Angels." A poster of her in a clingy, nipply swimsuit sold in the millions. Her full, layered hairstyle became all the rage, with girls and women across America adopting the look, and her image was used to sell everything from t-shirts to lunch boxes, shampoo, wigs and even a novelty plumbing device called Farrah's faucet.

She had been diagnosed with cancer in 2006. Her struggle with painful treatments and dispiriting setbacks was recorded in the television documentary "Farrah's Story." Fawcett sought cures in Germany as well as the United States, battling the disease even as her body weakened. NBC estimated the May 15 broadcast drew nearly 9 million viewers.

Rather than list her credits since then (I'm not IMDB), here's a bunch of photos, which are far more interesting, and a proper tribute to a piece of ass.

Steak And A Butcher And A Dog

And Zachary Quinto.

Absolute Silence

Imagine a giant tank that can roll into town emitting literally no sound. This could be the future of stealth warfare. Scientists have recently devised a "sonic black hole;" any sound that passes its edge can never come out again. Let's try it out at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards!

Scientists in Israel developed this "black hole," creating a well into which air flows faster than the speed of sound. That means that any sounds trying to pass through this moving air just can't keep up with the flow of the air into the "hole." Any sound wave in this air is like someone trying to run up the down escalator. But in this case, the down escalator is four times faster than the person can run.

This is achieved by two clouds of atoms (called a Bose-Einstein condensate) cooled to almost absolute zero, with a pool of very low density between them. Atoms can flow very rapidly, pretty much unhindered, into this area of low density at speeds over four times the speed of sound. The result is a well into which all sound falls and cannot escape. Any sound that passes close enough to the "black hole" essentially ceases to be.

This sonic black hole offers scientists a method for testing their theories about black holes in general. But imagine putting one of these in your car instead of a muffler, or in a rocket. Or wherever Lady Gaga is. A battalion of armed soldiers equipped with a few devices like this could march anywhere silently. These sonic devices wouldn't just dampen the sound; they would virtually obliterate it...and that may be why testing in civilian areas will begin at the Magic Johnson Theaters in Inglewood.

More Of The Same What Meets The Eye

J Montana scored Rybot and I passes last night to the preview showing of Transforming Robots, The Sequel: The Bad Guys Are Coming Back And They're Looking For Revenge.

I'd rather go to the dentist than see Not-The-GoBots Part Deux, especially because my hygienist rules, but given that it was free and showing in IMAX. Total cost to me was $1, for parking, so as little as I had interest it was still a good way to kill a few brain cells hours. Plus we grabbed a bite after to harp on it. I absolutely plan to make good on my threat to live blog the film like I did on the first (gimme a week or so), but that won't keep me from sounding off on the flick.

More Robots That Turn Into Machines was, predictably, bad. It suffered from all the same issues that made the first pass - convoluted story, shitty dialogue, confusing whiplash-fast action, useless characters, and terrible acting. To counter that, every frame is hyper-detailed and boundary pushing technologically. Only Michael Bay can make this kind of movie, and while it may not be something you want to watch, it's a dumb, summer movie that is watchable if for nothing more than to see the scope and spectacle.

The director himself shared these facts about the movie in hopes to impress you:

Robots

• 14 robots last time, 46 robots this time (many of which you won't be able to tell apart)
• If you had all the gold ever mined in the history of man, you could build a little more than half of Devastator (apparently, Bay has deduced some kind of gold to robot ratio and applied that formula to the screen)
• Optimus Prime will be life size on IMAX screens in many forest fight shots (if a robot is life-sized in a forest in IMAX and nobody cares, what sound is that?)
• Devastator’s hand is traveling 390 miles per hour when he punches the pyramid (though its hard to tell because the whole scene in is slow motion)
• The pyramid destruction simulation was 8 times bigger than the old rigid simulation all-time record holder at ILM (but it is 8 times better)
• All robot parts laid out end to end would stretch from one side of California to the other, about 180 miles (which is less than all the breast implants in LA, if they were similarly laid out)
• Devastator’s parts stacked tip to tip would be as tall as 58 Empire State Buildings (that sounds kinda gay, stacking parts and tips)
• If all the texture maps on the show were printed on 1 square yard sheets, they would cover 13 football fields (and if the Detroit Lions used them instead of their turf would still go 0-16)

Disk space

• TF1 took 20 Terabytes of disk space. Trans2 took 145 Terabytes. Seven times bigger! (and I just got a 1TB drive at Frys for $89...hope they got as good a deal)
• 145 terabytes would fill 35,000 DVDs. Stacked one on top of the other without storage cases, they would be 145 feet tall (that's not impressive, that's just math)

Rendering times

• If you rendered the entire movie on a modern home PC, you would have had to start the renders 16,000 years ago (when cave paintings like the Hall of Bulls were being made) to finish for this year’s premiere (although if you had a time machine to do it, I'm sure you've be able to get a better computer)
• A single IMAX shot in the movie (df250) would have taken almost 3 years to render on a top of the line home PC running nonstop (which means all the downloads I did on dial up back in the day are equal to one IMAX shot)
• IMAX frame render times: As high as 72 hours per frame (maybe you better not let some programs run in the background)

Imax

• Optimus Prime will be life size on IMAX screens in many forest fight shots (yeah, you told us already)
• IMAX frames take about 6 times longer than anamorphic to render (but one the same slow computer?)
• IMAX frame render times: As high as 72 hours per frame (hello, repetition!)

ILM screen time

• ILM Screen Time is about 51 minutes (I have no idea what that means)

Devastator

• Devastator is as tall as a 10 story building (and just as interesting)
• Devastator has more than 10 times the number of individual parts found in an average car (yet still no cup holder)
• Laid out end to end, Devastator’s parts would be almost 14 miles long (size queen)

Devastator totals

• Number of geom pieces: 52632 (so you say)
• The total number of polygons: 11,716,127 (for all the nerds)
• The total length of all pieces: 73090 feet (as if you measured)
• The total length of all pieces: 13.84 miles (we know)

They don't include it, but the film basically breaks down to 5% Megan Fox shots, 12% all the rest of the characters, 50% robots / vehicles, 19% explosions, 8% annoying characters, 32% robots and explosions, 6% useless repetition of things from earlier parts in the movie (in case you missed something when you went to the bathroom or had a visual-induced seizure), and 1% Linkin Park. What, that's 133%? Goddamn right it is - it's a Michael Bay movie!

BTW, the midnight showing alone made $15 million, which is roughly 1/3 the explosions budget or how much Bay spends on staying freshly stocked with Playmate whores and mountains, literally mountains of coke during the shoot.

This Is A Buffy I'd Watch

Beat Street

Toronto police are investigating Will.i.am and the Black Eyed Peas after a confrontation with celebrity blogger (that is, he blogs about celebrities, not, he is a blogger and a celebrity) Perez Hilton after Sunday's MuchMusic Video Awards. The only thing they ought to be doing is working on giving them a key to the city for their good deeds if it's true.

Hilton first alerted the police via Twitter that he had apparently been involved in an altercation with the Black Eyed Peas entourage at an awards show afterparty during the early hours of Monday morning. "I'm in shock. I need the police ASAP. Please come to the Soho Metropolitan Hotel now. Please," Hilton tweeted at around 3 a.m., according to local reports. Hilton's next message alleged that he had been assaulted by will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas and his security guards. "I am bleeding. Please, I need to file a police report. No joke," he added. Will.i.am reportedly created his own Twitter account to deny Hilton's story.

What a media hungry little bitch. If I got attacked, I'd call 911, not twat out a bunch of micro-headlines. Does Tubby McGee think he's so important that even the police are following his twat chatter? And all the Twittidiots came out, not surprisingly, against the doughy leech.

Joe Rogan on Twitter:
PerezHilton talking about how he doesn’t like drama in his life after he called Will.I.Am a fag and got punched in the head made my dayWatch this, it makes you want to smack him.3 He talks shit about people for a living and gets upset when karma rolls

Travis McCoy (of Gym Class Heroes, formerly of Katy Perry's vagoo) on Twitter:
PS. WILL.I.AM- 1, PEREZ-0, It’s about fucking time. AAGH,I just watched him get his Chris Crocker on”I write drama about other peoples lives,I don’t want drama in mine” You got BOOM BOOM POW’D! Violence is not the answer. Trust me, been through it. The fact is, not EVERYONE is going to take being called a vulgar expletive lightly.

Frankie Muniz on Twitter (the only place you'll find him these days):
Perez Hilton, how do you call a man a FAGGOT right in his face and not expect to get hit?

John Mayer on Twitter:
Not true. In fact I’d like to train you in Krav Maga. Then you’ll have the situational awareness not to get in someone’s face. I also want to train you in an old martial art called “Never Call A Black Dude a Faggot Jitsu.”

When Malcolm in The Middle and the white Kanye West of Twitter talk shit to you, you're pwned. The icing on that cake is that GLAAD is pissed off at Perez for using the slur. That faggot should have known better.

On the other side of the fist, Chris Brown pleaded guilty yesterday to assaulting Rihanna...because he totally whupped her ass.

The guilty plea came before a preliminary hearing was scheduled to start. The hearing had been billed for weeks as a public face-off between the pair, with Rihanna set to testify against her one-time boyfriend. Instead, Brown averted the potentially damaging meeting by entering a plea that will subject him to probation for the next five years as well as force him to perform six months of community service.

Living cockroach Mark Geragos, who is Brown's lawyer, said the plea represented the singer taking responsibility for his actions — which included beating, choking and biting Rihanna during a fight in early Feb. 8. Actually, not beating the piss out of your chick is taking responsibility for yourself. After Brown left the courtroom, Rihanna entered and was addressed by the judge, who explained that she had issued a stay-away order. Rihanna had not been seeking such an order, but the judge imposed one anyway, which requires that Brown and Rihanna stay at least 50 yards from each, except at industry events when the distance is reduced to 10 yards.

Since Brown is not a California resident, the judge said he will likely will be allowed to do his service in his home state of Virginia, but she didn't want him to spend his time at churches or community centers. Instead, Brown was ordered to get his hands dirty by doing work equivalent to what he would do in California — clean up grafitti or roadside trash. He'll have to return to California every three months and attend domestic violence counseling. A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said the terms were in line with what others receive when they are charged with similar crimes and have no prior criminal history, which I find hard to believe, but then again, I deal my justice like a vigilante - on my own terms.

Dead Ed

Ed McMahon, the "Tonight Show" sidekick who bolstered boss Johnny Carson with guffaws and a resounding "H-e-e-e-e-e-ere's Johnny!" for 30 years, died early this morning at 86.

McMahon had a "multitude of health problems the last few months", including bone cancer, and had been hospitalized for several weeks. He broke his neck in a fall in March 2007, and battled a series of financial problems as his injuries preventing him from working.

McMahon and Carson had worked together for nearly five years on the game show "Who Do You Trust?" when Carson took over NBC's late-night show from Jack Paar in 1962. McMahon played second banana on "Tonight" until Carson retired in 1992. He also famously teamed up with Dick Clark on "TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes" and hosted "Star Search", before falling on hard times and shilling gold for cash exchanges.

The Greatest Worst Thing Ever

You will spend the whole time trying to figure out if it is all the same dude...like Eddie Murphy in those fat/farty movies.

Also:
• Autotune
• Euro/fruity club/dance
• cookie monster vocals
• cloning
• classical etude thrown in
• Jacob's Ladder movie effect
• keyboard guy rocking out in the sun on his keyboards

In On The Kill Taker

Great white sharks have some things in common with human serial killers, a new study says they don't attack at random, but stalk specific victims, lurking out of sight. We'll I'm no shark, but that's pretty much how I operate when out at a bar...

The sharks hang back and observe from a not-too-close, not-too-far base, hunt strategically, and learn from previous attempts, according to a study in the Journal of Zoology. Researchers used a serial killer profiling method to figure out just how the ancient predator hunts, something that's been hard to observe beneath the surface.

"There's some strategy going on," said a study co-author who observed 340 great white shark attacks on seals off an island in South Africa. "It's more than sharks lurking at the water waiting to go after them." The sharks feeding at Seal Island could have just hovered right where the seals congregated if they were random killers-of-opportunity, but they weren't. The sharks had a distinct modus operandi. They were focused. They stalked from a usual base of operations, 100 yards from their victims. It was close enough to see their prey, but not close enough to be seen and scare off their victims. They attacked when the lights were low. They liked their victims young and alone. They tried to attack when no other sharks were around to compete. They learned from previous kills. And they attacked from below, unseen.

The entire shark-serial killer connection is something right out of a crime novel. In fact, after one detailed the relatively new field of geographic profiling, which tries to find criminals by looking for patterns in where they strike, the same was applied to shark strategy. Observing sharks from sunrise to sunset, the applied idea of geographic profiling showed there was some real stalking going on. Older sharks did better and were more stealthy than younger, smaller sharks, demonstrating that learning was occurring. The study focused on just one location, but the same principles are likely to be applied to other shark hunting grounds. They can't really apply to shark attacks on people because those are so infrequent, but if you could figure out the base of operations for the great whites, it would give you a good idea of places to avoid if you were worried about shark attacks.

Season 2 Chapter 4

Four and three and two and one! Whether youre a B-Boy or looking at the order of the recent posts on His Words - Not Mine it holds true.

We still have no idea where the story is going, since part of the deal is to write our chapters without discussing them, so you're in the same boat as us. go and get caught up if you're lagging.

Rockingest Band

Weekending

This weekend begins with a new section about the best and the worst of the week, because sometimes thoughts, stories, and events linger.

The best of the week: While Faith No More won't be tour the US after a 12-year quit, at least the video and mp3s from their recent Download Festival appearance are up. Be the interweb and find it for yourself.

The worst of the week: Continental Airlines!

Congratulations on landing your flight after the death of your pilot, which much like the best man and groomsmen are dressed like the groom so they can slide over in case of cold feet, auto-and co-pilots were there to take care of things. It does reinforce the notion that folks would rather die than go to New Jersey. And somehow, their dead pilot triumph takes the focus off two different children who were incorrectly routed while traveling unaccompanied on back to back days. And one of them also ended up in Newark! Sorry, you'd think they could be this week's worst (emeritus, if anything), but Continental tops them with trouble from the Justice Department on antitrust immunity for international pricing.

Runner up: James von Brunn coverage

Is there any shock that this racist shitbag had child pron on his computer? Heil the masturbatory race! But what gets me the most, more than this piece of human waste will likely die of ancient age before any real justice can be served, is that every single mention of this prick calls him the "alleged shooter". Really? Because I believe there's not much alleging that he walked into the Holocaust Museum armed, shot and killed a guard, and was injured by return fire (in the face!). Let's just say alleged, because aside from his car parked in traffic outside, the note he left, and the gunfight he instigated that was witnessed to excess, there's only speculation. Thanks, fourth estate, you dumb fuckers! Do a search with those words, and you'll be hard pressed to find them apart. Ever.

Spare A Buck?

Mark Wagner can.

College Dorm Knights

Momma's Boy

Irene Prusik has been dead for six years. But in April, someone showed up at the Department of Motor Vehicles in Brooklyn to renew her driver's license. Her son, in drag!

Thomas Parkin (49) was charged Wednesday in the plot to impersonate his deceased mother so he could collect $117,000 in government benefits. He and his accomplice, Mhilton Rimolo (sweet gay gigolo name), pleaded not guilty to grand larceny, criminal impersonation and other charges, which do not include playing bridge, attending high tea services, or enjoying hard candies.

Both men were ordered held on $1 million bail. District Attorney Charles Hynes said the scam was "unparalleled in its scope and brazenness." Apparently, he'd never seen Weekend At Bernie's or Psycho. Authorities claim that following his arrest, Parkin told them that because he held Prusik when she breathed her last breath, "I am my mother". Damn, that's a bad ass quote, considering the guy is wearing his mother's pantyhose!

Parkin, who lived with his mother (no surprise there), was accused of hatching the scheme after she passed away in 2003 at age 73. He concealed the death by falsifying her death certificate, then collected $52,000 from her $700-a-month Social Security checks over the next six years, prosecutors said. Authorities say Parkin also got another $65,000 in rent subsidies by falsely claiming he had a disability and that his mother was still alive and was his landlord. Parkin used his friend (that should be in quotes...the gay kind) Rimolo to pose as the mother's nephew when going to cash checks and do other business, prosecutors said. A security camera photo being used in the case from the DMV office shows a faggy frail-looking Parkin in a wig and dark glasses, Rimolo by his side, as he fills out paperwork.

The ruse began to unravel amid a dispute over the mother's home, which was sold at foreclosure in 2003. Six years? That's a pretty slow unravel. Parkin challenged the purchase by suing the new owner on his mother's behalf so he wouldn't be evicted. As the property dispute dragged out, both sides eventually contacted the district attorney to accuse each other of fraud. By the time investigators arranged a meeting with the family in May, they already had proof Prusik was dead: a photo of her tombstone in a local cemetery. Oops. Maybe she should have been keep in the freezer.

The investigators played along as Parkin showed up for the interview "wearing a red cardigan, lipstick, manicured nails and breathing through an oxygen tank," prosecutors said. Wow, he must have thought he had them fooled at that point. It's really sad though...if you can fit into your mother's clothes, I mean.

Thursday Is For Headlines (Again)

Young Iraqi Gays Find Safe Haven In Turkey - Which I believe is that hot, new night club. Tuesdays are two-for-one drinks and the DJ on the weekend is really cute!

Got $100? Welcome To Your New Detroit Home - On second thought, I'll keep the $100. Detroit, you're always be a shithole to me.

Tom Cruise & J.J. Abrams Accept 'Mission Impossible IV' - See what they did? They made it a pun! Oh, how delightful. The real mission will be how to revive Cruise's sagging career and make us interested in a moldering franchise.

L.A. Lost: AFL's Avengers Fold After Nine Seasons - Los Angeles is again without a football team...if you count half-court indoor play football. Of all the teams to lose, couldn't it have been the Sparks?

Argentine Glacier Advances Despite Global Warming - All glaciers who give a shit about global warming please raise your hand. Didn't think so. The new Ice Age waits for no one and nothing!

Fla. City To Workers: Wear Underwear, Deodorant - Are you fucking serious? Those goddamn inbred morons are bottom feeders to the nth degree. If North Korea really is testing a rocket in our direction, skip Hawaii and aim for Florida.

Jon & Kate Set To Make 'Life-Changing' Announcement - They're going to execute that cold hearted bitch? Jon finally grows balls? Gosslin kids versus Octomom spawn in 2025? Actually, who gives a fuck about anything they say or do...

Hillary Clinton Fractures Elbow In Fall - Looks like she'll be out of the steel cage battle royale for SummerSlam. Pity too...besides her "Atomic Elbow" she delivered a mean "Secratary Suplex".

Rapist's Sentence Outrage - One year does sound a little light for raping a four year old girl. But she was totally asking for it, wearing that school girl outfit.

Danica To Decide Future After IndyCar Season - Hmmm, drive in a circle or continue to make exceptionally more money in endorsements? Tough call for a gal with 1 win in 70 races, and only 4 other podium finishes.

Dungeons & Dragons Handbooks Subject Of Lawsuits - Mythril elfin chainmail offers no bonuses against + 3 vorpal swords? Red dragon hatchlings are only worth 150 XP? I call bullshit. Where's my local constable's guild?

Fly-Killer Obama Chastized By PETA - Can we finally write off PETA as a retarded joke? It's a fucking insect, although to be fair, PETA members are equally annoying and pesky, so perhaps their aiding their own.

Miley Cyrus Surprises Ga. Fans With Impromptu Show - If you call borrowing a guitar and doing two songs on the patio of a beachside seafood restaurant a "show", then okay. I call that a distraction from enjoying my meal.

Ricky Martin's 'Heart Could Belong To A Woman Or A Man?' - So coy, and so 1999. Are we really still questioning his homosexuality? He's so queer he makes Bruno look like Bear Grylls. Go back to obscurity and South Beach.

Former NFL QB Leaf Arrested At US-Canada Border - Finally putting to rest exactly how far into obscurity he had gone. Apparently he still could get arrested...

Suicide Bomber Kills Somali Security Minister - It was either this or "Morbidly Obese Man Starves At Buffet" for the ironic story of the week. And this story killed it.

Oregon Woman Obsessed With Rabbits Arrested Again - Yes, George, she likes to pet the bunny rabbits. I guess being a Twilight fan or following American Idol just didn't fit her personality...

McCain: 'This Is A Joke' - Can you be more specific? Your candidacy? The Republican party? The existence of Sarah Palin?

Review: Playful Hunch.com Helps You Make Decisions - Get that abortion? Divorce my spouse? Thanks generic website - you're much better than a conscience!

Must Be Sephardic

Entering A Jackson Pollock Phase

I don't think this would have received national attention if David Carradine didn't make every unexpected death a possible sex crime...

Patrick Farrow (66), brother of actress Mia Farrow, killed himself at his art gallery with a single gunshot wound to the head late Monday night. He lived with his wife in Castleton, a central Vermont town of about 4,300 not far from the New York border.

Police had initially classified Farrow's death as suspicious, but later said the medical examiner's ruling of suicide was consistent with evidence found at the scene, meaning his brains were all over the place and he wasn't lynched by his junk with pantyhose. Farrow was a professional sculptor for more than 35 years, and often had local college students and classes through the gallery each year. The Farrow Gallery says it sells jewelry and mixed-media works of art.

(truthfully, it's not much of a story, but once I saw it, I had to post it, if for nothing but the chance to use the image from Full Metal Jacket.)

Big Bad Sound

Half a century since the first working laser kick-started a technological revolution in the field of optics, a new device promises to do the same for acoustics. UK and Ukrainian physicists have built the first "saser", or sound laser, able to generate terahertz-frequency sounds. Imagine getting blasted with that. Ouch.

A laser produces photons that travel in a tight beam instead of dispersing outwards like a regular beam of light. A saser achieves the same for sound waves. Although it's not the first saser ever constructed, it is the first able to produce beams at terahertz frequencies, much higher even than those used for medical ultrasound imaging. As it develops, they could use sasers to manipulate electrons inside semiconductors, resulting in terahertz-frequency computer processors way faster than the gigahertz frequency chips of today.

The new saser is a semiconductor stack, made from thin, alternating layers of gallium arsenide and aluminium arsenide. To fire the device, the upper part of the sandwich is exposed to an intense light beam. That excites electrons in the material, which then release sound waves, or phonons. Those reach the lower part of the sandwich where they bounce off the interfaces between different layers. The spacing of the layers has been carefully chosen so that the weak echoes combine into stronger sounds in which all of the phonons are synchronised. Those strong phonons reflect back into the upper sandwich where they interact with the light-excited electrons – causing them to release further phonons and amplify the signal. The result is the formation of an intense series of synchronised phonons inside the stack, which leaves the device as a narrow saser beam of high-frequency ultrasound.

Saser beams that operate at much lower frequencies, in which the phonons oscillate a billion times per second (gigahertz) rather than a trillion times per second (terahertz), have been made before. However, they have had little impact because there are other methods of generating sound at such frequencies. The team designed and built a similar saser in 2006, but evidence it actually worked was weak. Just recently, they detected the saser by measuring its effect on a surface some distance away and found that it caused phonons to appear in the surface in a confined spot - the equivalent of seeing the dot of a laser pointer on a wall.

Don't forget, like a laser, a powerful beam, could be focused to the point of harm. What, you didn't realize dispersed high frequencies of sound waves can create nausea and confusion when used on people? Oh, you're in for a treat...

B & B

(Lime) Green Lantern

Film Drunk reports the latest on DC Comics atempt to make a new franchise, and it may or may not be better than this fan mashup...

We’ve already established that Green Lantern is a pretty gay idea for a movie, considering his origin is that an alien comes to Earth, finds a young man who is “without fear,” and gives him a power ring. That’s a metaphor for priest molestation if I’ve ever heard one. Nonetheless, the movie is happening.

SciFi Wire recently talked to screenwriter (for now) Marc Guggenheim, who says no one has been cast yet. He doesn’t reveal much, but promises to take “a very loving and respectful approach.”

To me that sounds a lot like a tacit admission that (as once rumored) Ryan Gosling will be playing the lead (and not Bradley "The Hangover" Cooper). In honor of this story, here are other facts you may not know about Ryan Gosling’s Green Lantern:

• Ryan Gosling’s Green Lantern loves to hold hands, but saves interlocking fingers for his special lady.

• Ryan Gosling’s Green Lantern prefers yellow mustard to brown - too spicy!

• Among his hobbies, Ryan Gosling’s Green Lantern lists “gettin’ crazy with the swivel chair.”

• Ryan Gosling’s Green Lantern picks wildflowers for the widow down the street, because gifts mean more without a special occasion.

• Favorite color: periwinkle. Favorite word too!

• Just white bread for him, thanks.

• Ryan Gosling’s Green Lantern once jumped in a puddle on a dare.

• Ryan Gosling’s Green Lantern commutes to Wal-Mart to buy censored CDs.

• Ryan Gosling’s Green Lantern holds the ropes when the neighborhood girls play double dutch, and even invented some new chants. They all end in ‘best friends forever.’

• Ryan Gosling’s Green Lantern won’t kill that spider for you, but he’ll capture it and set it free.

• Between meals, Ryan Gosling’s Green Lantern entertains the soup kitchen crowd on the harmonica.

• Ryan Gosling’s Green Lantern thinks your new tattoo makes you look dangerous. In a good way.

• When he’s feeling adventurous, Ryan Gosling’s Green Lantern puts his straw through the bottom of the Capri Sun and drinks it upside down.

• Ryan Gosling’s Green Lantern doesn’t trade lunches, but he’s happy to share.

• Ryan Gosling’s Green Lantern loves cinnamon.

• Ryan Gosling’s Green Lantern Swiffers when stressed

Unhappily Ever After

Dina Goldstein and her Fallen Princesses, an art exhibit coming in October.

Deadly Freshmaker

iFraud

All the sales so far are legit, but this may be a new angle for MAGNA...

A 9-member British gang used stolen credit cards to purchase their own music on iTunes and Amazon...then collected the royalties — an estimated $300,000 total.

The gang, made up of six men and three women (Chumbawumba?), included one DJ who created the music. They then listed it on iTunes and Amazon and negotiated a pretty plush 40% commission for themselves before using stolen credit cards to purchase $750,000 worth of their music.

The crooks are believed to have compiled 19 songs which were put on the sites, and some were even reported to have attracted attention from music bosses. It was said that the group paid an annual $30-per-album fee to Tunecore, a music distribution service, to get their albums on the sites before downloading them at $10 a time, but Scotland Yard have been unable to confirm this. Apple refused to comment on the story but it is believed that they made around 40% from the royalties.

Unfortunately, the artist name they used hasn't been released, so I can't make fun of whatever clanging noise they passed off as music, especially since it was made by a DJ. And while it was a good cover, if you're going to rack up three quarters of a mil in illegal credit card bills, why not buy things you can flip for the full cost or more?

Season 2 Chapter 3

Chapter 3 from Season 2 of His Words - Not Mine is now online! And while we're plugging ourselves and our sibling projects, have you been to Velvet Glove - Iron Fist yet? I tell ya, between hypens and acronyms, you're covered!

Video Games Keep Getting More And More Awesome

Tits Ahoy This Weekend

Lamenting the sojourn to Croatia that Scarlett is on, if I was a naughty boy I would go to the annual Erotica LA convention.

As I have been it's champion for many years since I went, it's the best place to oggle the damaged goods and get yourself all the David Carradine toys you could ever want.

Sadly, Jennie Ketchum, aka "Penny Flame" won't be there, since she quit the business, but everybody loves a comeback (especially since her journal of her reclamation of her life post-pron conveniently features links to her adult website and merch store). Hell, they show back up more than characters on a soap opera. Because really, when you're in Gangbang MILFs 6, you're not leaving the business with a set of skills that translate into being a Fortune 500 CEO. But like Perry sang, man I love those whores.

Of course, it's not just skanks, stripper poles, and fake dicks. There's a sexy girlfriend/boyfriend contest, the LA Direct Models talent search, a live auction, the Infusion Burlesque show, vacation giveaways, the 2009 F.A.M.E. Awards, and most importantly, a "Career Center". Nice.

The confirmed sluts:

Now go wash your hands. This post is filthy.


UPDATE: Pictures were taken (sadly not by me) - very NSFW.