Men Just Shouldn't Strip

I'm not saying there aren't any women out there who enjoy a good ole-fashioned heterosexual strip-tease, but what I am saying is I've never met one. So I have to assume those types of women are rare.

Mostly, male strippers work bachelorette parties (aka the most boring parties ever) and the girls get really drunk and red in the face and pretend like they are enjoying what is happening, when really they are supremely uncomfortable, perched on the end of their seats, every cell in their body on high-alert, hoping he completely ignores them, living in fear that he might try to touch them.

And so they sit on the fringe of the group and watch their one "whore" friend (apparently there is always one) have some strange man grope her breasts, as he dances like a tone-deaf arrhythmic epileptic and throws his briefs in her face.

In case you've never seen this sort of thing in person, here is a delightfully-vintage video I shot during the Eighties that illustrates what I'm trying to convey here:



Notice how she never uncrosses her legs? There is no way she's giving him anything to hold on to down there--and it appears she is some sort of adult model or porn actress. Imagine how your average woman would react to that dude...


[Thanks for the tip, Videogum]

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Welcome to Los Angeles, 2010

"Take a letter. To yourself.

"Here we go:

"I think everybody strolling the web who would click on this link below (either of them, actually) should be sent to a page where they are instructed to turn their ovens on and put their heads inside them.

"Whatever cog-in-the-wheel schmo we hire to write the copy for the webpage we should have this headline redirect to should make liberal use of his or her powers of persuasion, but it shouldn't be too difficult a task to birth prose effective in effortlessly eliminating that pool of people we're after for some reason I forget.

"Here's a first draft he or she can work from: 

"I probably shouldn't be telling you this, cuz it may put me out a job, but turning your oven on, getting it real hot, and then sticking your head in there for about twenty minutes is actually better for your hair than a professional blow-drying session with Vidal Sassoon. Try it now and I promise--not only will you look your best, but you won't spend any money on blow-drying for the rest of your life!

-- Antonio, Professional Hairstylist in London, England

"With schmaltz like that--and a photo of some handsome vaguely-foreign man in a button-down white cotton shirt holding a hairdryer and smiling in front of a mirror--I bet we'd have 15% of our target demographic put-to-bed after 72 hours on the web, as long as we hit the right sites, which shouldn't be too hard.

"Phase Two, once we earn enough advertising revenue, is to buy a thirty-second spot or two during Real Housewives of Appalachia to advertise our second-generation websites--"LA's Best Places to Encounter Paparazzi" and "LA's Best Corporate Tacos", which both link to a slightly-altered head-in-oven-pitch, with the same spokesman wearing different costumes and assuming different expert roles, so we only need to kill one innocent person when we're done with all this.

"We'd pretty much sack the whole lot after two episodes, by my calculations.

"So, whaddya say, Buddy-Boy? Are we partners?

"Should we take a blood oath and get started tonight?

"Affectionately, Dick Tracy, etcetera, etcetera.

"Well, so you read the letter now, what do you think?"

_

Like Mother, Like Trash

Ava Sambora, daughter of Heather Locklear (right) and Richie Sambora

Yes, she is too young to be dressed like that in public (13).

Yes, that is totally appropriate clothing to wear as a model in a fashion show for a clothing label called White Trash Beautiful.

Yes, that is a clothing line run by her father.

Yes, her mom's face never moves.


The world sure is a messed-up place. But at least it also has this in it:

And this:

And also this:

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The (Near) Future of Sex?

 
Imagine a world where people couldn't masturbate.

I'm talking about men and women here, remember, because women do it, too, whether they are as forward about it or not.

So, in this fantastical world that may only be two years in our future, imagine that, for whatever reason, there is now no masturbation in our genetic coding. Anything other than vaginal/anal/oral intercourse is not going to get the job done no matter how hard you try, so there is no reason to ever think it could happen.

The behavioral changes resulting from this slight reinterpretation (or evolutionary progression/regression depending on your point of view) of the human being would be stunning.

Viz:

- There would be a lot more sex happening. Women could not defer to their hand or vibrator, men could not defer to their hand or Pocket Pussy TM. Both sexes, for various reasons, would be more inclined to actual interpersonal interaction of the sexual variety, which is a truly undebatable result of this restriction, if you ask me.

- A lot more straight guys would be involved in gay sex--since they might get an undeniable urge at some point, be unable or unwilling to pick up a woman for a quickie, and would be unable to masturbate, remember--although my guess is that most straight crossovers would be in the "Only Blow Jobs, Thanks" category, and might even pay extra for some program that fakes men into women with digital wigs and whatnot (most helpful when paired with squinting), since it will happen often enough over a lifetime, let's be honest.

- A digital solution to the "I Can't Masturbate So What Do I Do" problem would emerge almost overnight, since computer geeks are out there and we all know the necessary technology exists at this moment for a virtual sex program.

A virtual sex program? What? Is this some kind of Strange Days meets laser tag meets sexting meets yeah-right-like-that-will-ever-exist bullshit?

Well...it actually could exist, it could be called "Pandora's Box," and hear me out:

A man puts some kind of sensor-equipped sleeve over his penis that is connected to his computer and a woman connects her specially-designed vibrator to her computer, they connect over the internet, and they're off.

Every thrust and clench is made digital, transmitted over the internet, and felt in near-real-time. Piggyback this onto a program like iChat or gChat, and tell me you don't have a near-sex experience with somebody--sound, sight, and sexual sensation.

Some of the long-term effects of this revolutionary leap would be as follow:

- Women will have more sex. Every time a woman would ordinarily reach for her vibrator or rely on her fingers, she would have the option of contacting some male friend of hers, ex-boyfriend of hers, or a total stranger for a virtual-sex session instead. Do you actually think she wouldn't? Disease-free, semi-private (he's not in your home, in your bed, there in the morning, etc), almost-not-really-cheating-since-it-isn't-real, etc...you have to admit this would be an extremely attractive option if a girl could do this instead of whatever she does now.

- Men will have more sex. Every time a man wants to masturbate, he would instead have the option of contacting a female friend, ex-girlfriend, or stranger for a little semi-illicit virtual sex session instead of being alone. He would know exactly who to call, and one of them would eventually say yes. In a pinch, he could always call a guy he knows and play make-believe.

- Cheating as we know it will splinter into a million shades of gray. Is it cheating to use this program? Is it more like cheating if it's an ex-significant-other instead of just a friend? Will fuck-friend finally be a term that makes it into the dictionary? Is it better to have a guy or girl virtually cheat than to actually cheat? Is virtually cheating okay, since it's safe and virtual? Will there be caps placed on the amount of virtual cheating, in order to maintain status quo in the relationship?

- Threesomes and foursomes will skyrocket in popularity once they can be accomplished virtually. Think about it--if it ever starts to feel weird, you just turn the unit off and do whatever you want to do. It pretty much sells itself to that enormous chunk of the population that is currently on the fence regarding group sex.

- Sure, some people will abuse this capability and go off the deep end, spending 20 hours a day with some digital-capture attachment on their dicks, trolling the internet looking for any possible willing partner, but that is to be expected. There are always freaks around who do what they're not supposed to do and skew the data. Your average consumer, meanwhile, would still benefit from this enormously, as it is something that will be a godsend whenever one member of the couple has to travel, whenever people date long-distance, whenever people are just too shy to get it done in person, or whenever people might otherwise go out and date-rape or rape somebody, etc.

- Whoa, yeah--I pulled out the rape card. If people couldn't masturbate, there would be more rapes. That, I feel, is a tragic but inarguable point. Many of the potential-rapists out there today would jump off the fence and start getting into trouble once we removed masturbation as an alternative. But if we come back to the real world for a second, where masturbators are plentiful, and then add this revolutionary new program (Pandora's Box) into the mix, then what we have here is a virtual way to reduce incidences of rape. If some guy could get lucky with a random acquaintance or prank call a girl in the phonebook who's willing to virtually fuck him because she's bored or just horny or whatever, he is less likely to go out there and actually rape a girl. It may not drastically reduce the number of rapes, but if it even reduced that number by one it would be worth it.

Now, whether or not we ultimately get into a David-Foster-Wallacean situation--where people purchase realistic-looking digital representations of themselves that are way hotter than they should be or of a different sex or whatever (from freelancers at Pixar?)--let's just remember that while this potential development is fascinating from a philosophical/pyschological standpoint and full of further economic opportunity, it is also pretty much irrelevant to the conversation at hand.

The fact of the matter is that people who want to wear masks will be attracted to this, as will people who have no need for masks but won't ask too many questions for fear of the answers. When virtual sex becomes fairly commonplace, asking a partner whether their digital representation is real would be like asking your girlfriend today if her eyelashes are real--you won't even bother cuz you could never be sure you're getting a straight answer, so what's the point?

The gay men of today (who have iPhones) have Grindr...what will the gay AND straight people (who have iPhones and/or computers) have tomorrow?

The gays led us to all the trendy loft districts, all the trendy fashion updates...why not to all the trendy means of sexual gratification?

Why not jump into the endgame right away? I know we can do it and it'll be a beautiful slow-build with a seemingly infinite lifespan, add-ons, apps, accessories, avatars, additional sensory receptors...

Have I sold you on this yet? If not, then I don't think you are thinking clearly and I want you to forget you ever read this. If so, let's talk investment stake and get this thing off the ground, hit up Sean Parker for some extra money, etc.

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Of Gilligans and Mary Ann

For those of you out there obsessed with Lost, Survivor, and Gilligan's Island (so many of you out there, I know--GET YOUR OWN WEBSITE ALREADY!), or who haven't been able to shake Lord of the Flies out of their head since high school (mostly because it's the only good book they ever finished), get ready for this fascinating (and true) tale as old as time, courtesy of this strange but informative website:

* * *


June 30 1951 - Anatahan Island
A group of stranded survivors of a Japanese vessel sunk by the American military found their way to the island of Anatahan, 75 nautical miles north of Saipan. The island's coast line is precipitous with landing beaches on the northern and western shore and a small sandy beach on the southwest shore. It's steep slopes are furrowed by deep gorges covered by high grass. This brooding cone jutting from the sea floor is a large, extinct volcano with two peaks and a grass covered flat field, the final resting place for a B-29 Superfortress that crashed upon returning from a bombing mission over Nagoya, Japan on January 3, 1945 killing the aircraft's crew.

By 1951 the Japanese holdouts on the island refused to believe that the war was over and resisted every attempt by the Navy to remove them. This group was first discovered in February 1945, when several Chamorros from Saipan were sent to the island to recover the bodies of the Saipan based B-29, T square 42, from the 498th Bomb Group, 875th Squadron, 73rd Wing under the command of Richard Carlson Stickney, Jr. The Chamorros reported that there were about thirty Japanese survivors from three Japanese ships sunk in June 1944, one of which was an Okinawan woman.
Pamphlets had been dropped informing the holdouts that the war was over and that they should surrender, but these requests were ignored. They lived a sparse life, eating coconuts, taro, wild sugar cane, fish and lizards. They smoked crushed, dried papaya leaves wrapped in the leaves of bananas and made an intoxicating beverage known as "tuba", (coconut wine). They lived in palm frond huts with woven floor matting of pandanus. Their life improved after the crash of the aircraft . They used metal from the B-29 to fashion crude implements such as pots, knives and roofing for their hut. The oxygen tanks were used to store water, clothing was made from nylon parachutes, the cords used for fishing line. The springs from machine guns were fashioned into fish hooks. Several in the group also had machine guns and pistols recovered from the aircraft.

Personal aggravations developed as a result of being too long in close association within a small group on a small island and also because of tuba drinking. The presence of only one woman, Kazuko Higa, caused great difficulty as well. Six of eleven deaths that occurred among the holdouts were the result of violence. One man displayed thirteen knife wounds. Ms. Higa would, from time to time, transfer her affections between at least four of the men after each mysteriously disappeared as a result of "being swallowed by the waves while fishing." In July 1950, Ms. Higa went to the beach when an American vessel appeared off shore and asked to be removed from the island. She was taken to Saipan aboard the Miss Susie and, upon arrival, informed authorities that the men on the island did not believe the war was over.

Meanwhile, officials of the Japanese government became interested in the situation on Anatahan and asked the Navy for information "concerning the doomed and living Robinson Crusoes who were living a primitive life on an uninhabited island", and offered to send a ship to rescue them. The families of the Japanese holdouts on the island of Anatahan , were contacted in Japan and requested by the U. S. Navy to write letters advising them that the war was over and that they should surrender. In January 1951, a message from the Governor of Kanagawa Prefecture was delivered.

The letters were dropped by air on June 26 and finally convinced the holdouts that they should give themselves up. Thus, six years after the end of World War II, "Operation Removal" got underway from Saipan under the Command of James B. Johnson, USNR, aboard the Navy Tug USS Cocopa. Lt. Commander James B. Johnson and Mr. Ken Akatani, an interpreter, went ashore by rubber boat and formally accepted the last surrender of World War II on the morning of June 30, 1951 which also coincided with the last day of the Naval Administration of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

For more information, read Saipan Oral Histories of the Pacific War by Bruce Petty, page 78, 119-120.

* * *

Wow, right? A formal surrender to a US Navy tugboat captain six years after the war ended? From 29 tattered, stir-crazy, deranged, horn-dog Japanese soldiers who had been chugging coconut moonshine and chasing some poor woman around a small uninhabited island with their dirty dicks for five years when not busy brutally murdering each other in order to increase the odds of getting her all to themselves for the rest of the interminable war they were so busy fighting (in spirit)?

War is such gentlemanly sport.

Hey, you know what? Somebody get Aaron Sorkin, J.J. Abrams, and Rip Torn on the phone like yesterday--I think we've got the next hit series here and we need to meet up in the Bahamas and start writing episodes immediately.

We'll shoot one version of the story for every country in the television world, simultaneously so that it's cheaper. It will be the biggest undertaking anyone in Hollywood has ever imagined (eat your heart out, Ron Howard).

Also, somebody track down that recipe for tuba--that coconut moonshine is the best chance I have of finally achieving my billionaire supervillain dreams.

Kazuko Higa with rescuers

Dessert:

Wondering what ever happened to Kazuko Higa? Well, naturally the comely lass joined a burlesque tour in 1952 and regaled audiences with tales of her sexytimes on the island. Moral of her story: "...and THAT is why you never move to a deserted island with your husband!"

Hollywood legend Josef von Sternberg became obsessed with her story and, as one does, wrote/directed/photographed/narrated a movie about her called Ana-ta-han (1953), which has since been remade twice. It was a financial bust and the last movie he ever made. He died of a heart attack 16 years later.

Incidentally, three years after that, Ayn Rand sold Von Sternberg's custom-built, architecturally-significant house (for seven times what she paid for it) to a developer who demolished it--one of her many vile offenses against art and philosophy.

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The Last Two Feet are the Hardest

Tales from the Front:

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- A doctor involved in an "on-again, off-again" relationship apparently tried to force her way into her boyfriend's home by sliding down the chimney, police said Tuesday. Her decomposing body was found there three days later.

Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac, 49, first tried to get into the house with a shovel, then climbed a ladder to the roof last Wednesday night, removed the chimney cap and slid feet first down the flue, Bakersfield police Sgt. Mary DeGeare said.

Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac, 49, first tried to get into the house with a shovel, then climbed a ladder to the roof last Wednesday night, removed the chimney cap and slid feet first down the flue, Bakersfield police Sgt. Mary DeGeare said.

While she was trying to break in, the man she was pursuing escaped unnoticed from another exit "to avoid a confrontation," authorities said.

DeGeare said the two were in an "on-again, off-again" relationship.

The man's identity was not revealed by police, but the man who resides in the home is William Moodie, 58.

Moodie, who runs an engineering consulting firm, said Kotarac was a superb internist who often provided service and medication free of charge to her patients.

Kotarac apparently died in the chimney, but her body was not discovered until a house-sitter noticed a stench and fluids coming from the fireplace Saturday, according to a police statement. The house-sitter and her son investigated with a flashlight and found Kotarac dead, wedged about two feet above the top of the interior fireplace opening.

Firefighters spent five hours late Saturday dismantling the chimney and flue from outside the home to extract Kotarac's body, DeGeare said.

Officials said Kotarac's office staff reported her missing two days prior when she failed to show for work. Her car and belongings remained near the man's house.

A cause of death has not been determined, and an autopsy was scheduled or Tuesday. Foul play is not suspected, though investigators have been looking into the incident as suspicious.

(courtesy Huffington Post) 

Let me get this straight--a man hears his girlfriend trying to get into his house by crawling down the chimney, leaves for three days--in order "to avoid a confrontation," and hires a housesitter (over the phone?) who eventually smells something funny / sees stuff dripping into the fireplace?

What sort of person's first two choices for forced entry into a residence are a shovel and the chimney? Was this Moody guy holed up in some kind of impenetrable fortress? Were there not windows that could have been broken? I mean, the houses in Bakersfield were not exactly built to last...

And where did this guy go all of a sudden, anyway? Was he across town, in bed with some other broad, making this poor sap the laughing-stock of the community, as she breathes her last breath in his chimney--no doubt immediately post-vow to haunt him for eternity?

Probably.

Also, why does it matter that the woman was a doctor? If she were a garbagewoman [Do those even exist? Why are women not forced to represent 50% of the garbage collectors? -Ed], would this article have read "Garbagewoman Dies in Chimney Trying to Break into Boyfriend's Home?"

I think not. You see, we expect that kind of behavior from garbagewomen--when doctors do it, it's newsworthy. It sells papers.

"A doctor did it? Hmmm...well, there must be some kind of juicy story behind this...doctors are usually so put-together and never have to worry about money...oh, look, it says here she was a 'superb internist'..."

-Woman reading aloud to her cat while eating her third bowl of Kix

Meanwhile, the carcasses of her last twelve cats decompose in the nearby chimney, totally unnoticed by the world until Hoarders comes through and turns that ole garbagewoman's life right-side-up in thirty minutes of too-hot-for-TV, soul-crushing depression and feigned re-birth.

Don't miss it!

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And Now For Some Catherine Deneuve

Perfect fodder for your afternoon reverie, ladies and gentlemen.

You're welcome.

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Tired of Being Too Tan, Topless Woman Plunges to Her Death

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Haven't You Always Wanted to Look Like an Old Crone from the '80s?

Well, it's time to finally do something about it! Free parking!


The Knowledge:

Advertisements are supposed to make your product look tempting.

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Men Will Do Anything to Justify Finding Skinny Women Sexy

A group of Dutch scientists recently decided to further probe the fertile scientific mystery of why men prefer to have sex with skinny women, a conundrum that has plagued many of the finest minds in the Western World, as well as most fat women, for millenia.

The pioneering research in the field, which I read about years ago but have been unable to find online, discovered that even men on a remote island who had never seen a copy of Vogue or watched TV found skinny women sexier than larger women--despite the fact that this culture actually prized fat women, as in the Rubenesque heyday for lazy women.

The landmark discovery--that men of all cultures prefer a woman with a waist 70% the size of her hips--was no doubt praised by the avant garde fashion industry, as it boldly refuted the accepted notion that unrealistic images in the media have unfairly shaped sex appeal in the modern age.

7/10 is the biological magic number. Huh. I guess it isn't that unlikely that everything follows a formula, as much as we humans would like to believe we are above the trappings of our biological directives.


Enter the enterprising Dutch rogues, who for some reason decided to outfit a van with two womannequins of different waist-hip ratios (70% and 85%) and drive it around, asking random men to step inside and, in some cases, blindfold themselves, in order to see which inanimate object they would prefer to have sex with. The three categories of test subjects were: blind men, sighted men, and sighted men wearing blindfolds.

Which begs the question--who gets in a stranger's van and blindfolds themselves, much less to grope a womannequin in a "tight-fitting dress?"

You might as well call the soon-to-be-published research paper "Future Victims of Serial Killers Also Prefer Women with a Waist/Hip Ratio of 70%."

Re-posted from USA Today, of all places:

"The blind participants were instructed to feel and touch the waists and hips of the two female mannequin dolls," says the new study. "The experimenter asked them to rate the attractiveness of the body." Then they repeated the effort with sighted men, both the blindfolded and non-blindfolded, recruited by parking the van at a shopping center and asking for volunteers. Honest.

So, you see--it's totally okay for the media to continue promoting skinny women with perfectly-engineered breasts, since men literally cannot help but lust after them. I mean, science is on our side--it's pure biology! It's not our fault! Honest!

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Gotta Re-Post This...

Forehead Tittaes w/ Marion Cotillard from Marion Cotillard

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Prepare to Gouge Your Own Eyes Out

Magda from There's Something About Mary is real!

As if I needed another reason to avoid Florida...

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Italy Takes a Brave Step

Sono spiacente, bambinas, but if you are a woman in Italy younger than 18, you are no longer allowed to get breast implants.

If anybody needed concrete evidence that Berlusconi's power has waned, this is it, folks.

The details, according to The Telegraph:

[Italian Undersecretary Francesca Martini] said: "This legislation is primarily aimed at the growing number of girls under 18 who have breast enhancement surgery purely for fashion reasons and have no idea of the risks involved.

"Far too many adolescent girls are unaware of the fact that there are risks with this type of surgery and it should not be used purely for fashion and looks. At the moment we have a Wild West, cowboy style system of plastic surgery for young women and this must stop."

So, wait. They are not aware of the risks involved and they do it for fashion? I had trouble understanding you since you repeated everything twice; maybe that's why you're still an undersecretary, Frankie?

Anyway, the Undersecretary for Redundancy made it very clear that this "Wild West, cowboy-style" system has gotten out of hand and is out of control. So...exactly what kind of numbers are we talking about here?

According to statistics from the Italian Society of Plastic Surgeons there are around 85,000 breast enhancement operations a year in Italy, of which 70 per cent are for aesthetic reasons and 30 per cent follow cancer treatment.

Okay...but how many teenagers, since that's the point here? Well, it turns out the Telegraph did not feel like that was an important detail, but according to Huffington Post, "approximately 10,000 teenage girls worldwide had the surgery performed in 2008."

Too many? Certainly.

"Cowboy?" No.

Unless 99% of them occurred in Italy, which I find difficult to believe considering the current level of Stateside shenanigans...

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When Will All the Strippers Meet Their One and Only?

Will it be the same day the video-game nerds get theirs? Will these two seemingly disparate worlds one day be cosmically linked, their union blessed by the good Lord, when the customers finally decide to buy the merchandise and the merchandise relents in order to retire to a life of comfort, boredom, painkillers, and torrid affairs with lawncare workers?


It isn't hard to imagine, since it seems just about anybody can find a perfect mate once they consult a computer and find a member of the opposite sex who also likes nachos and Spiderman 3.

Am I being cynical here or is hyper-convenient, low-risk, algorithmically-blessed, manufactured love more than a life raft for desperate/ugly people who would rather settle for something harmless than risk failing in their life-long quest for companionship?

Well, let us put our collective ear to the ground and gather some evidence the old-fashioned way, shall we?

"The first guy I dated was the one for me--I've never been more sure of anything in my whole life, despite my lack of any sort of comparative relationship. We have sex once a year, on his birthday, and I pretend not to notice how much time he spends looking at porn on his computer."

"We got engaged two weeks after we had our first webchat. We just had so much in common that we didn't want to waste any more time than we already had. I mean, he really wants to have kids and so do I. Since I'm 29 years old, I was at the point where that was really the only thing I was looking for in a man. LOL! It's kinda true, though..."

"Anyway, she reached for the potato salad at the exact same time as I went for the buttered poundcake a la mode at the TGIFriday buffet and as soon as our sausage-fingered hands accidentally touched, I immediately knew that, although we may have our differences, we will never, ever part ways, no matter how unhappy we will become."

Hmmmm...I remain unconvinced. It should be noted, however, that as I get around more than a Greyhound bus, I have no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to a man and a woman mating for life. Maybe it's sheer bliss?
That being said, here is my questionable advice to all those would be lovers out there:

Ladies: Stop expecting to meet your man on a yacht somewhere, since you've never even known anybody with a boat and you grew up in Wisconsin. Stop being so picky, expand your horizons, try it on with a lot more guys so you actually know a good thing when you find it. Your savior is near, but he probably has more hair on his back than you imagined.

Gentlemen: You're not all going to wind up married to a model. Lower your physical standards a bit and find a girl who's interesting, because no matter who you are, you two will be doing much more talking than fucking. Oh--and don't just get married because it's what you think you should do after college or because you're afraid you'll wind up alone. In addition to being depressed a lot, lonely old bachelors have a lot of fun--usually more than married old men. Instead of putting two kids through college, how about you take a sex vacation to Thailand four times a year? You have options.

There you have it. Now get out there and make it happen, people!

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I Think This Is What the Kids Call a 'Hot Mess'

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Just Found Another Dream Job!

"Butt Make-Up Artist" for Victoria's Secret fashion shows

Thanks for opening my eyes, Huffington Post!

This year's Victoria's Secret fashion show brought together balloons, lace, fake fur, thigh-high boots...oh, and a $3 million dollar, diamond-encrusted bra. But how do the models manage to look so perfect wearing next to nothing on the catwalk?

Simple: Butt makeup.

One Angel, Selita Ebanks, told the New York Daily News: "It's all about creating the illusion of this amazing body on the runway. People don't realize that there are about 20 layers of makeup on my butt alone."

Ebanks said the body makeup takes an hour to apply, plus hair and face makeup, which takes three to five hours. An average of five people works on each of the 38 models.

Sounds great to me, regardless of pay rate/benefits, as long as they don't fart.

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Overheard at the Office Today

Three of my favorite things overheard at the office today:

1. "I can't wait to be a grandma--I just want to skip all the middle parts and go straight to being a grandma." - said by a 26 year-old woman

2. "I begged my parents to send me to boarding school."

3. "I begged my parents to get divorced!"

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You've Come A Long Way, Baby!

The saddest thing to come across my desk for at least 24 hours:

"If we give the money to the widows, they will spend it unwisely because they are uneducated and they don’t know about budgeting. But if we find her a husband, there will be a person in charge of her and her children for the rest of their lives."

- Mazin al-Shihan, director of a city agency in Baghdad, on his plan to pay men to marry Iraqi war widows.

To read the rest of the frustrating NYTimes article, click here.

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What Women Want

So, unsurprisingly, the current #1 most emailed story on nytimes.com has nothing to do with the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, the situation in Guantanamo, the continenet of Africa, the chaos in the Euro currency system, the unadulterated greed of Western bankers and businessmen, or Obama's first days in office.

Surprisingly, it is NOT a fluff piece about George Bush spending more time with his pets now that he's retired from politics (as if he wasn't at home in Crawford 80% of the time anyway...).

No. The most emailed story is titled "What Do Women Want?"

Meredith Chivers--whose photo is unavailable anywhere and whom you'll notice does not have her doctorate, oddly--has been studying sex since the age of five and is currently doing it for pay, at a Canadian university. She is trying to find out what turns women on, what they crave...and is having a tough go of it.

So are three other women studying the question from slightly different approaches.

After reading all eight pages of this article, the one thing that is clear is that these women are clearly studying sex about 500,000 times more than they are having it. I know they're smart, but are they really the best women for the job?

The long and the short of the article is that while men were 100% accurate in judging whether or not they found something arousing, physically, women had no clue; their minds and their vaginas were complete strangers to one another.


Why is this? Why do they get aroused when they see monkeys mating but not admit it? Why do heterosexual women get more aroused when they see lesbians going at it than they do when they watch a man and a woman? Why would they rather see a woman than a man? Why do they lie about it?


As a man, I need no persuading that women are a mystery--but they are a beautiful mystery. Why try to explain it? Why waste your life and research dollars trying to reduce nature's most beloved nonsense to a science? Why not just kick off your clothes and get busy with some strange man you met in the elevator?

Especially when all anyone brimming with curiosity has to do is watch the Mel Gibson movie!
I won't spoil the ending for you, but just so you know, it's fabulous!!!



Actually, without even thinking about it, I might have hit on something there. Maybe all women want...Mel Gibson?

Let's see...it worked for Helen Hunt, Rene Russo, Pocahontas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jodie Foster, the chick from Braveheart (although she had her throat slit for it)...and the average woman drools over awful romantic comedies...maybe...that has something to do with the fantasies of the average woman? Or is it merely a symptom of the problem?

"Hey, God! Are you there? It's me, Charlie. I have another question for you..."

If he doesn't answer me, I'll just petition the government for $150,000 to insert scientific instruments into a hundred women's vaginas while they work their way through Mel Gibson's oeuvre. Might as well...


Question of the Day: What is it like to bring yourself to orgasm with your head in an MRI scanner?



Incidentally, if any women out there are looking for Mr. Right, I think I found him hiding in plain sight!

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What Does It Take to Become a Woman?

In these trying times, which are so trying for everybody but rich people, oil companies, and Norwegians, it is easy to forget how simple life can be sometimes.

For example, ever wonder how a little girl becomes a woman?

Well, chuckle-chuckle, it doesn't happen overnight, I assure you.

In fact, according to scientists, the process takes years. Those lovable little females go through such subtle changes it can sometimes be hard for the layman to notice through that delightful parental beer/white-zinfandel haze.

Yet, at the same time, the journey itself, refined over millennia by a mythical overlord, is deceptively simple and can be broken down into easily-identifiable stages.

Leave it to the Canadians to figure it out!

The Stages of Womanhood

Age 5-6 ------- Sparks
Oh, look at the babies with their blankets!

Age 7-8 ------- Brownies
So hot right now.

Age 9-11 ------- Guides
This is when most of the pretty girls disappear.

Age 12-14 ----- Pathfinders

Too ugly/unfriendly to get any closer, which is fine.

Age 15-17+ ---- Rangers
Total loss of fashion sense, bodily coordination, and hope.

Age 18+ ------- Women!
Finally, the life they've always dreamed of!

Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself!
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