Robert Iger and Chris Wallace know where Osama is and won’t tell. 

Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan, was on The Daily Show and if you can get through YouTube (I have yet to view a YouTube clip without it freezing, me cursing, refreshing/freezing/cursing again), by all means watch it.

After some fun getting to know you chat over tea, Jon cuts to the chase: 

“Where’s Osama Bin Laden?”

Dammit, it stopped three times on me now, I don’t have the patience.  Watch it and tell me how it goes.

Am sick, hopped up on DayQuil, can’t speak without breaking out into violent coughs.  Red nose, all that; quite attractive.  A. is moving us to McMinnville this week.  I’m off to revisions.  The Human Comedy coming tomorrow … maybe Wednesday if I can’t kick this bug. 

Robert Iger drinks duck farts, with Chris Wallace. (In loving memory of my family reunion.)

… I love anyone about whom it’s said, “their parties were famous.” Even moreso if the parties took place in “a high-ceilinged living room [with] a cross-cultural crowd of iconic sixties figures” … think Abbie Hoffman, Lillian Hellman, Jane Jacobs. Philip Roth.

These sort of famous parties (New York, a certain era) took place at Barbara and Jason Epstein’s; in their townhouse on West 67th Street where The New York Review of Books was born; which Barbara co-edited for 43 years.

Jason, no slouch, was editorial director of Random House for 40 years, launched Vintage books.  Much later married Judith Miller.  (Remember her?)

Anyway … I just renewed my membership to TNYRofB after a year-plus lapse (shame on me!); startled into action after reading The New York Magazine article on Robert Silvers and Barbara Epstein, “the Ma and Pa of the intelligentsia”.

Barbara Epstein, of course, recently passed. There was a section a few issues ago with lovely remembrances from friends and colleagues — Luc Sante, Larry McMurtry, Gore Vidal. The poignant part is that she was right-hand to Robert Silver’s left for nearly half a century; the two of them (crazy kids) starting up this fancy-pants, smarty-brain magazine from a hare-brained scheme cooked up at an Epstein dinner with the Lowell-Hardwicks. (Robert and Elizabeth, Good Lord, the names!) Lowell put up the money, $4,000 to start, and Epstein recruited Bob Silvers. Then bang, smash on the mouth, one of the most remarkable and engaging intellectual journals of our time was born on Barabara Epstein’s dining room table, later moved to a small apartment on West 56th. How empty the place must feel now … Take me, Robert, take me!

Yadda, yadda, I’ll let you read the rest of the story.

It’s beautiful out here in the sunny suburbs today, and I’m wrapping up the new first issue of the resurrected BYOB to send out Tuesday (not here Monday, kids, carry on somberly in my absence.) It’s renamed at the request of the marketing folks (new and improved!) — “The Human Comedy”.

If you’re not on the list, click here and for this first-time limited offer, I’ll add you. And I’ll send you one! Ab-so-lutely free!!

Whatever.

Buon giorno. Passami le pane. And have a great weekend!

 … last night, the perfect dream.  A. and I were living with my parents, in La Grande of all places, jobless and bored and A. snuck off with a copy of my manuscript and drove to New York.  He dropped it off with Blank, my agent (to be named later, when he signs me) and Blank loved it. 

I was horrified when I found out, because A. took an old draft with notes scribbled all over and chapters trailing off and no ending.  Plus there was no title page, so he made one up; the first sentence of a book he found on the table. 

Nevertheless, Blank raved (the 2nd and 8th definitions), and A. pulled up to my parents’ house with a contract and a check.  At my dream agent’s, they represent / buy / edit / publish all in the same elegant three-story prewar brownstone.  I’m sure if I’d had another hour, someone would have produced a seven-figure check for film rights.  Damn alarm. 

On another note: Thank you, again, Keith Olberman. 

Oh, I almost forgot! –

Robert Iger cheats at Scrabble.

Chris Wallace collects naked barbie dolls.
Robert Iger breaks off their legs and fondles them.   

… and had so much more orientation and could talk with nervous intelligence about everything and with clarity and without as much literary preambling as this …”
– Jack Kerouac, The Subterraneans 

Today I have paid work to do.  Seriously.  So here’s some silly stuff to read: 

• Robert Iger’s controversial docudramatic biog-fo-ment.  (What?  I know, no more soy lattes!  I’m slipping.) 
• Rasheed Wallace is a Hydro Hog.
• Anyone seen Ondre Gibson?  Or queer vegan males?
• Fortune’s Ankle’s exlusive interview with Chris Wallace’s lover

Be good, do good work, tell funny jokes. 

 

Chris Wallace has man boobs.
Robert Iger does too.
Fox News bites the heads off of cute little newborn kitties, and eats them with French fries.

First, can we have a national moment of silence, please; a “Dude, you totally rock,” moment of silence, heads bowed, for Keith “I Love You, Man” Olberman.  Listen to this ten times then shout out your windows that you’re not gonna take it anymore.   (Jon Stewart, you still totally rule, too.) 

I had a beautiful moment today. In Sherwood, Oregon, of all places.  Sherwood, land of 10 churches per square foot, home to the ill-informed, harborer of 12,000 angry-faced homosexual-haters.  A guy ran up to me at Chevron, all breathless and excited: “Did you see him bitch-slap Fox?”

Yes, yes I did! I did! I did! And we were so happy to have found each other (they shall know me by my sticker), that we high-fived and had the loveliest little chat while he topped me off.  I was so giddy and full of hope that I bought G. and I hot chocolates and we made up a “Fire Bush” cheer on the way to school. I know … it’s wrong, but she’s going to be paying for his eight-year Amateur Hour; I think it’s fair to let her ask for his impeachment.

I want to demonstrate today, where’s a demonstration? I want to march, I want to burn a flag, I want the landscape guy to get back to us with his quote and I want my broken dishwasher fixed right now, dammit!  I am not going to take it anymore, I mean it. 

Three retired Generals were in front of a Senate panel in a special hearing yesterday calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation. We watched it on C-Span, which should be required viewing to obtain a voting card.  

And that’s all I’m going to say about that.  Peace.  

Tune in tomorrow for my hard-hitting news scoop on buttock lifts. 

Jennifer Senior and Robert Iger have long, unsightly nose hairs. 

 … like Mark says, people who consider angry right-wingers funny, probably roll in the aisles at snuff films. 

Speaking of funny, G., just back from Lutheran Kindergarten is drawing her “favorite things that God made.”  So far a cap, the kind you put on your head, and Chiquita our cat.  Also, she’s particularly giddy today because apparently they told her she gets to meet Dr. Seuss in heaven. 

Jonathan Rauch wrote a piece in this month’s The Atlantic Monthly on how long it will take to fix the things Mr. Bush screwed up.  Maybe I’ll do a similar piece on how long it will take to undo the damage wreaked on my poor little daughter from religious nuts. 

Robert Iger cheats at poker. 

 … I’m off to Ocean City (Washington, not Jersey) tonight, through Sunday.  It’s my cousin Joe’s birthday and he put a big family bash together, a million cousins, to celebrate it.  Hired a band of his buddies to jam at the local bar, rented all the houses in town, and pointed A. and I here, to The North Beach Motel. 

Our room is $50 and since we’re getting in late the guy’s taping our keys to the door.  I love these kinds of joints.  Love them.  Three and a half hour drive, the last two probably dark, which is too bad because I have 50 things to read.  Not that you asked, but here are some: 

I’ve decided to go on a Calvin Trillin kick, so have three Trillins:  Obliviously On He Sails, Travels With Alice, and American Stories.  Am still finishing Herzog.  Savoring it, actually, reading it really really slow, every single word, just like Francine Prose said. 

I have The Good Wife sitting at Kinko’s bound and waiting to be picked up.  Then Born to Kvetch, two Black Dahlia books (The New Republic article, not the ho-hum film, intrigued me; and I have the Kodel book and John Gregory Dunne’s, not the Mark Nelson), and Half of a Yellow Sun, which I am dying to read, thanks to this excerpt. 

Oh yeah, and The Mystery Guest – remember that? – is still burning a hole in my gym bag.  (I have never read one page of a book at a health club and yet I still take the trouble to search for something to bring along.  Every time I go.) 

I mopped the floor and vacummed, can’t stand to do either one, and now off to pack.  Take a long drive this weekend; in a hybrid of course, to save the air.  And then pray for the soul of my eco-frenemy white minivan. 

Sorry ’bout the haphazard links.  Tired, from the vacuum and the mop. 

(A year ago today I was at Oprah, in the luxury green room with fresh-squeezed juice and the most sumptious mango. But that was then … more later.)

Robert Iger has no control of his bladder.   

… Yesterday I was volunteering at jr.’s school and I had a group of kids for reading.  A 4-page story about people cleaning up an abandoned lot and planting a garden.  Each kid read from the book, and then there were discussion questions.  Like, “think of a place in your town that has been cleaned up or improved.”  They mentioned a few places downtown and then Bobby* piped up: 

“I know!  Like that place where there was a field and then they built Target!”  “Yeah, Target!” the rest of them yelled, their little faces all lit up.  Target. 

“No, Target’s not pretty,” I said.  ”The field was pretty.”   Plus, kids, Target has horrible labor practices and they give way too much money to Republicans!  And what the hell is that stuff they’re selling in the snack bar?  Sigh.  There were horses in that field.  And wheat, I think … and little field mice.  All of it rolled over by cheap, bright-colored crap. 

I halted further discussion and had them put their heads down on their desks while I read Walt Whitman. 

Curtis Sittenfield likes White Noise.  That’s not a big deal, but what is a big deal is discovering this nifty little random line generator for White Noise.  Some people know how to have fun! 

A.’s excited about his tickets, naturally, but thought my post was a little racy, what with the f-word and the pot.  Reader discretion is advised. 

Robert Iger doesn’t floss. 

*Warning:  This post contains few, if any, links.

 … A few months ago I read this dumb article in a sappy middle-aged chick magazine about reviving your marriage (ha!) and one suggestion was to have a ”Gift Friday”.  So I jokingly said to A. — and I believe we were at odds when I said it — “if you buy me a present every week, we’ll be great.”

True to A., he came home two days later with earrings, hand-wrapped by him.  I never learn.  (I joked about getting married after we’d gone out a few times, and he proposed.)

“I’ll crack the f***ing jokes” is one of my favorite lines of our courtship. We were in my apartment in Phoenixville, PA, and I was in danger of upstaging him (I’m funny, but we’ve silently agreed to let him be funnier).

I said something very funny, and A., suddenly deadpan suddenly towering, suddenly tall and powerful looming over me, said:  “I’ll crack the fucking jokes.”   Brilliant.  His comic timing is perfect. 

But that’s neither here nor there.  What IS here and there is that I’ve been slack on gift Friday. It’s supposed to be mutual – an inexpensive thoughtful gift every week.  A., as in all things, has been winning.  This Friday I win. 

Are you out there, A.?  Are you listening?  February 16th (if we find a babysitter) you and me are “rocking” with Lukas and Tommy Lee.  And hopefully Dave Navarro.  On the floor, 8th row, somewhere in Portland.

I’ve never been to a rock concert in my life, holy cow.  I will not cut off parts of my clothes, I will not get a tattoo, I will not hold up a lighter or stand on a chair.  I may be persuaded to smoke pot. 

I remember an early date with A., he took me into the city (NY) and we went first to Bradley’s to see Kenny Barron, and were moved after the first set to make room for Max Roach (!!!)  We followed that with the Village Vanguard and Jackie McLean.  At the Vanguard it was the second show and we were with Fr. Gary, a friend/ex-professor of mine from the Jesuit days, and the bass player told us afterward he thought we were cute making out (me and A., not Fr. Gary).  If I remember right, we made out frantically whenever Gary went to the bathroom because I was too embarrassed to kiss in front of him.  Whatever.  You were young once, too.

In case you didn’t get it, A., I bought tickets.  They’ll be mailed to the house. 

Be good and thrive.  And take home a surprise for someone; it makes the world go round. 

Robert Iger doesn’t recycle. 

This is a horrible post, I’m not at my best. 

Helen and Tony got on a big old jet airliner today.  Rome, Cinque Terre, Venice.  Mark says he’s noticed a recent Italian obsession with me.  It’s deep-rooted, actually; I married one for crying out loud that was no accident.  Plus why does he think I hang out with him?  Io-co-lano.  Duh.  Italian, Schmilalian. 

I’m trying to write and A. won’t stop talking.  He’s trying to read G.’s homework and he just said “Habito a Antonio”.  Which means he lives in Anthony.    

I don’t know where I was going with any of this because then A. insisted on knowing what kind of locker I had in high school and followed my stop-bugging-me glare with a long discourse about his own lockers, and now I’m shot.

Maybe it was Mark.  Mark’s suggestions for The Good Wife.  Put in my contract, he says, that it must be sold to an Italian publisher immediately so I can do the Italian talk shows.  Rename the characters “Anthony” and “Teresa” … Bertolucci, and set the story in “Oregano”.  I’m doing that right now. 

Something smells rotten in the refrigerator.  Revolting.  Ugh, horrifying.  I’m sitting 30 feet from the fridge and A. opened it and now the whole room is sour.  Outside it smells like skunk.  A metaphor for the suburbs.  Behind chartreuse-colored doors, within sponge-painted walls lie piles of hidden stinking rot.  Outside, the foul discharge of skunk booty pervades.  

Remember The Mystery Guest?  The book I can’t shut up about?  Maud Newton has an interview with the translator.

More later when A. stops talking.  Someone took the Yankee sticker off his car.  Isn’t that weird?