In just the same way Americans can't get enough stories about obese middle American women and girls, Anna Nicole and, to a lesser extent, Britney's breakdown - people can't seem to get enough feel good stories about hideously disfigured animals.

What's the appeal? They're little and horrifying to look at so you get to feel bigger and prettier than something? Why not just go down to the park and pick on a short ugly kid? I suppose that's what is happening when people stare at the hideously deformed animal contingent anyway and better to do it to an animal that'll probably die pretty quickly anyway.

And, the public aren't the only ones who love deformed freaking organisms too. Nature itself never seems to tire of churning them out. One would be forgiven for suspecting, in fact, that Nature has a conveyer belt and an endless parade of maleable farm animals all eager to be beaten with the ugly stick, solidified and born.

This week's offering is a two faced pig (um, we just had a two faced calf - what's the matter? Running out of ideas?) whose face actually looks like the back of a stuffed toy pig crossed with a Jim Henson muppet born in China.

What an odd thing to happen in this, the Year of the Pig.

For the longest time it seemed like little baby Dannielyn, Anna Nicole Smith's orphan, would be all alone in the world when it came to meeting other kids like her.

How many kids would she possibly be able to meet up with that could also say, "Oh, your mother and brother died shortly after your birth and then you inherited tens of millions of dollars for what - as far as you're concerned - appears to be completely no reason? Well, we can be best friends forever! I totally know what that's like because..."

Until now.

Thanks goodness for infantile idiot men living in Romania like the father of a little girl who was recently registered under the name SLK after the class of Mercedes he liked.

Thanks to him, another little girl will grow up in the world scarred hideously by circumstances way beyond her control too. Let's just hope Dannielyn and little SLK find each other and start a lesbian art community in the Venezuelan jungle.

Celebrity Madness

Prince Charles makes an off the cuff remark suggesting that the United Arab Emirates ban McDonalds. McDonalds isn't happy about it. Amazingly.

Virgie Arthur is finally granted a chance to see her grandchild. She is allowed 15 minutes only with the kid. Meanwhile, with all the flights to and from the Bahamas, the lawyers, the lunches out etc. it really begs the question, who is paying for all of this? It can't be Virgie Arthur. all her money was probably spent on the trailer and a crate of moonshine. Well, it's Cindy Adams to the rescue - who explains here that in fact, a British News Agency is paying her legal fees. The entire thing is media funded when you think about it. Entertainment Tonight and the Insider have been paying out dividends for exlusives. Did Anna Nicole really have Lupus? Is Lupus just a shock of electricity to keep the story pumping blood?

Funny how fast things move when you're a celebrity. One minute David Geffen is attacking the Clintons in the media, the next he's Newsweek's celebrity guest at the White House Correspondent's dinner.

Following George W Bush's embarassing and yet, probably highly calculated basketball embarassment (look everyone, I'm uncoordinated just like you are!) CNN runs a retrospective of the amount of times Bush has looked like an ass in the newsmedia.

Elizabeth Taylor turns 75.

Wolfgang Puck potentially poisoned hundreds of people by serving food that may or may not have been riddled with Hepatitis A as part of the catering he provided for 13 high profile events in Hollywood. Is it fair to say that his motto should now be the exciting mystery laced: "Eat the food; see if you get jaundice! It's a nausea potluck with Puck!" Hep A could be anywhere in LA.

The only thing that can happen now is a collective of LA wannabe celebrity freaks get painted up and act like they have Hepatitis A, or better yet, actually go and get the disease by, oh, let's see - eating the shit out of a hospital dumpster or something (I cannot beleive I just wrote that) so they can walk around town, ill to the hilt with dark sunglasses on pretending they don't have it. Just so people know they were there.

"What?! WHAT ARE YOU STARING AT? YES, FINE! I have Hep A. I was at the private celebrity party hosted by Wolfgang Puck and I got sick. What? I was invited by the host, duh. I see you're pretty well. Obviously you weren't invited."

Unemployed and therefore unable to afford a banquet for 60, a German man did what anyone else would do and ordered a banquet worth close to 5000 dollars to be delivered to a club house and when everyone's backs were turned, he more or less stole it all and drove away.

Would you not just steal food from a grocery store, or do an eat and run in a restaurant? Surely you lose precious minutes and heighten the chance of being caught while you're carefully packing the food into a van and everyone is standing around wondering what you're doing.

Or, perhaps that is exactly that everyone expected him to do so he simply did the stupidest thing he could think of. Maybe this German man is a genius. He most certainly is, come to think of it.

Just for deciding to do the stupidest thing ever. AND he got away with it until he went back to the club house where the food arrived. the very same place that people had, at length, interracted with him and watched him manipulatively steal that food.

No, he is the stupidest German ever. Well, maybe not ever. But stupid, sure.

Not entirely certain what the point was, especially if he wants to continue his subversive hijinks in anonymity, but a probably bipolar narcissist created an ad for a Gucci fragrance, put himself in the ad in a nearly naked pose through, we're assuming, photoshop.

Then he went to Sonntags Zeitung, one of the biggest newspapers in Switzerland, and convinced them to run the ad - saying he was from Gucci. He indicated that the $50,000 bill was to go to Gucci. And it all happened.

It would have been funnier if he'd paid for it himself. The way he did it, it just seems like he's an immature political science student acting on an adderal induced dare.

Celebrity Madness

Instead of some form of completely rare and frightening mental illness that results in animals leaping from her skull as she attacks people with umbrellas as any thinking person might have concluded, Britney probably has post partum depression. It's the nice answer for everyone but the media and people who resent her because she's rich.

Heather Mills, who, let us all remind ourselves, is only famous for divorcing Paul McCartney, is gearing up for "Dancing with the Stars" and was recently photographed walking away from a rehearsal carrying - among other things - a bag of fake legs. This isn't a story so much as it is a fixation on an image. Heather Mills has a lot of money and a fake leg. Just so you know.

ANOTHER person comes forward and adds a little plot twist to the Anna Nicole fire. Unbeknowned to all of us, she'd apparently had Lupus all this time as well. It's interesting because not only will the entertainment media now be using the word Lupus like it's second nature but it also brings to light the fact that Anna Nicole never really looked healthy. She always looked dehydrated and stretched and constantly in a state of healing from surgery. She emulated healthiness because she just painted it on.

Those zany, meaning deprived Catholics are most certainly at it again. This time, meaning and inspiration has been found in Texas on the bottom of a pizza tray. Yes, the Virgin Mary has appeared again.

Quick summation: The Virgin Mary - or the ghost of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ - has decided to make an appearance in the physical world and she has done so by appearing in the form of carbon residue on a pizza tin.

If you look at the imagery on that relic pizza tray, you'll see that it isn't in fact, the Virgin Mary, its the Virgin Mary that Medieval and Renaissance artists portray.

For all we know, the ghost of the Virgin Mary may actually look more like whatever it was in the corner of that shack at the end of the Blair Witch Project. If she's dead and lurking, perhaps that is a more likely option. These visions are heavily reliant on human artist depictions rather than actual physical form. So, it all anchors back to human interpretation and that puts it in cultural perspective if you aren't a Catholic.

If you ARE Catholic, it's an entirely different story.

If you're Catholic, it's important to really hammer home to everyone that outside of the child molestations, the Pope's insistence that the last 100 years of science hasn't happened (although, the Pope did say, when presented with an iPod, that he thinks "computer technology is in the future" so let's all hang out and see if his informed prediction comes true) and the beleif that sex is evil, being a Catholic is fulfilling.

It's so fulfilling and purpose delivering, in fact, that your average Texan harbinger of guilt is regularly so tortured by the lack of point and total presence of mind numbinly irrelevant social hang ups that they hallucinate about where divine intervention is occuring.

Wow, sign me up. I'm SO becoming a Catholic.

I'm kidding. Catholics! Stop it! Now!

What an intriguing way to rationalise a chronic fear of intimacy and maddening sexual inadequacy! Just link celibacy to longevity and it looks like you meant it. Not to mention the fact that it's a way to be enchantingly distasteful in the media - which, of course, most people are looking for. Especially in attention hungry Asia.

Chan Chi of Hong Kong who is 107 (ha!), rather ironically, shares a name with the Chinese title for life force/male sexual energy and claims he's still alive because he doesn't have sex and hasn't in over 70 years. It's important that we think about this because old people never exaggerate and they are also normally having a lot of sex at 107.

He does smoke though so it probably evens out. Either you smoke and don't have sex or you don't smoke and you do have sex. Obviously this isn't official or anything but it seems likely that America could prove somehow that sex and cigarettes are a dangerous combination. At least in light of this news article. Maybe a thoughtful drug company will come out with some treatment that will help solve the problem too. For two hundred dollars a month.

Oh, plus the Chinaman eats low fat too. Shouldn't we be writing everything he says down? He's sure to know everything. Let's get it all.

ALL.

The image included isn't actually of Chan Chi because there don't seem to be any. This one is fine though because it reminds us of what old Asian men look like. In case you can't imagine without help.

Celebrity Madness

It is revealed that Al Sharpton's ancestors were slaves, owned by the descendants of sexual harrasser and all round right winger, Strom Thurmond. Meanwhile, Mit Romney's descendants were polygamist Mormons and that's hilairious because he has a vehemently anti-polygamist political platform. See? Celebrities DO represent humanity better than humans can. They are not just people. They are living symbols of progress and conflict.

The Academy Awards happen. Jennifer Hudson contains the self composure of a normal person but she's still a solid performer who pretty much does outshine Beyonce. Hudson should not have beat Adriana Barraza. Forrest Whittaker's speech is freshingly human. Helen Mirren loses her mind at the very end of her speech. Martin Scorsese gets an oscar and everyone swells with pride. Eddie Murphy storms out in a huff when Allan Arkin beats him.

Because cinema - as a cultural medium - has no more room for James Cameron to equate himself with God on some level, he moves to documentary film making and attempts to prove that Jesus Christ had a son. Religious scholars are skeptical but the Post still runs "breaking news" story which indicates that the mission has been accomplished.

Peter O'Toole is old. Hugh Hefner is also old but he is getting secretly married.

The hottest type of chilli pepper. the Red Savina, has just been knocked from it's sparkling, internationally lauded and stage lit pedestal in the Guinness Book of World Records, by a new variety, literally twice as hot and with an even more extravagant, vague and mysterious name, Bhut Jolokia.

How can we know for certain that it's literally twice as hot? Chilli heat is measured in Scoville Heat Units. A jalapeno is 10,000 on the Scoville Scale, a Red Savina is about 500,000 which places the Bhut Jolokia at around 1,000,000.

At one million, it seems that the glamorous new showbiz oriented Bhut Jolokia (whose market value is predictably skyrocketing now that it is in the media spotlight) is more of a weapon or form of controlled abuse than an actually consumable vegetable but one woman, Indian of course, is gearing up to fly to London to create a record by slamming a whole heap of the mothers down.

She says she never really noticed how hot they were from eating them in the past, so she's prepared to fly to the UK to just go through the motions so she can get famous. Why doesn't she notice the heat? Probably because she's burnt her entire head empty and she now feels no pain.

Or anything else come to think of it.

Week #8 In Review

It was all beaver and boyish haircuts by the end of the week because, like a beacon in the darkness of news media obsessed with covering 12 fat rats who had taken over a Taco Bell in the West Village - for the first time in two hundred years, a beaver swam up the Bronx River and, probably through no coincidence at all, last thing Friday night CNN’s tough love finance expert Suze Orman came out as a lesbian at 55. What kills Orman, apparently, is the fact that half of her fortune will go to the state in the real estate tax once she’s dead.

And speaking of issues that hit the lesbians hard, babies were in the news this week. Well, specifically one baby, the world’s smallest living premature baby as it happens, went home after 4 months of observation still no larger than a ball point pen but very much alive and while little Amillia Sonja Taylor was still alive despite her clearly abnormal body shape and feet that resembled organically colored gummi candy, her duck compadre in the “we’re odd but you love us anyway” camp – born this week with 4 legs died a mere 48 hours after hatching.

The baby daddy drama continued like a chaotic hurricane about an essentially oblivious Dannilyn, daughter of the late Anna Nicole Smith and this week proved that no matter how fucking insane the situation gets, it can always get slightly more fucking insane. While the insanity appeared to be at the hilt when Prince Frederick von Anhalt claimed to be the father of the little girl, it was pushed to new levels when the lawyer of Virgie Arthur, collapsed on court due to diabetic complications and it was revealed, just incidentally, that he owns the Bat Mobile and a couple of vehicles in which various Popes have traveled. Anna Nicole’s body was embalmed at the order of the judge in case the decision about what to do with her body was to take substantially longer. Larry Birkhead took the stand and not only revealed that, for all intents and purposes, he looks like a cross between Christopher Walken and an early Nick Carter, but that he also thinks Howard K Stern is a gold digging drug addict enabler who more or less pimped Anna Nicole out. The fact that Anna Nicole’s biggest asset was her body became painfully clear when a Bahamian immigration official resigned amid allegations that he was having an affair with Anna in return for an expedited visa. After a little melodramatic deliberation, in a moment of totally unnecessary showboating, the judge presiding over the case wept as he read out the ruling that said Anna Nicole’s body should be buried in the Bahamas next to her son’s. Hugh Hefner chimed in that he agreed with the judge’s ruling.

And while it is easy, when you strip away all the madness, to see why Anna Nicole was interested in living in the Bahamas – its a sunny, charming place and if you’re not well endowed intellectually – the commercialism will wash over you and not really matter, it may not be easy to come up with many reasons why you’d move to Poland and the Polish are more than likely pretty aware of that. Consequently, a Polish travel firm this week announced tours where visitors can follow in the footsteps of CIA agents and terror suspects by wandering through an alleged US detention center – which authorities deny even exists – which must roughly translate to “we’re still torturing people here, get out”.

And speaking of trying to spruce up the appearance of things that aren’t so charming when you get down to it, lame ass homophobic basketball player, Tim Hardaway, produced another inane apology for his bigoted rant about a fellow player who came out as gay by saying that when he said he didn’t like gay people he didn’t mean he didn’t like gay people. Karma started in on another aspect of his life probably because he sucks ass so badly, and he’s being sued for almost a million dollars for not keeping up with bill payments.

If Tim Hardaway is desperately and moronically afraid of gay people because he is in fact, afraid of his own latent homosexual desires, the perhaps he should move to Dar es Salaam where he will find groups of petrified men that at least have the balls to say they are in fact desperately afraid of being raped by men rather than realizing it through mindless naïve self revealing hate. Groups of men in Dar es Salaam are currently living in fear of a demon called Popo Bawa – a bat like creature that allegedly arrives in the middle of the night and sodomises them for hours and then leaves. Interestingly, it seems to only target men and while no actual sightings have been reported, groups of men this week were found huddled together at night, in groups, covering themselves in pig fat to scare away the beast and any potential to have any kind of gay sexual experience.

And speaking of completely missing the rational thought mark, Britney Spears this week confirmed that something is very wrong when she shaved her head. The hair that fell off her was found for sale on ebay for over a million dollars. With a wig and sunglasses she looked like a weird cross between Margot Kidder and J T Leroy. After flipping out she went into rehab, exited rehab for the second time after only a day, went to her ex’s houses and lashed out at a car and was promptly taken back to rehab by her mother. The Fed Ex pushed for an expedited child custody hearing because, next to her, his gold digging talentless wannabe wigger ass resembles a find upstanding adult.

And while in the world of billionaire divas under the age of 26, Lindsay Lohan, the very same Lindsay Lohan who, when Robert Altman died, referred to him in public as a kind of father figure for her, blew off Altman’s funeral to party with Johnny Knoxville. This was after her, what? Second stab at rehab?

But celebrities under the age of 26 didn’t have the monopoly on inane, addict-centric god complex behaviour, it became apparent. Sylvester Stallone, this week was under investigation in Australia when he pulled up in a private plane and immigration officials found illegal substances of some kind in his luggage. Because he’s a celebrity, he was allowed to leave the airport.

It was announced this week that, after some lack of clarity surrounding whether Prince Harry, the better adjusted Tori Spelling of the young royals, will serve in Iraq that he will in fact be leading a troop of twelve for six months. This news comes hot on the heels of the UK government announcing that it will be withdrawing troops from Iraq.

And finally, like the Anna Nicole Smith/Lindsay Lohan/Britney Spears of small Eastern European nations, Kazakhstan just can’t let go of the media solid angle that it isn’t – shock horror – JUST like the Borat film says it is. MONTHS after Sacha Baron Cohen’s smash hit film has left cinemas, the US envoy from Kazakhstan was found hammering that sad old attention seeking angle at an address he gave to some Yale students. Could it be that the US envoy and indeed Kazakhstan is suffering withdrawal symptoms from validating media attention? If it is, it had better get that ego in check. After all, look what happens to celebrity egos when people stop paying attention?

Emergency Celebrity Madness

As if the neat, boyish hair didn't give it away (and it didn't actually. I always just thought she was efficient and iconically intense and that her hair reflected it), Suze Orman is a lesbian. The Real Estate tax is what gets to her at the end of the day. Unequal civil rights are so annoying!

The teary, showboating judge presiding over the Anna Nicole case has ruled that she be buried in the Bahamas next to her son, Daniel and you know what? Hugh Hefner thinks it's a good idea.

Fuck the inane apology. Tim Hardaway is a lame ass bastard who is not only morally bankrupt and stupid, he's also heading for financial bankruptcy.

Stern, controlling parents who have spoken out against Daniel Radcliff being naked on stage in Equus, coupled with the chaos surrounding amateur photos that are circulating on the net of him prompt co-star Joanna Christie to speak out in defense of his actual talent and the point of the nudity.

This image, for instance courtesy of www.dlisted.com is so clearly fake. Firstly, what is his leg actually leaning on? It seems so forced and inconsistent. Plus, this is just a publicity shot with a whole section added. Where were these prior to the production? There's no way this is real:

Isn't there some hilariously welcoming joke about London that suggests that no matter where you are in the city you're always no further than 3 feet from a rat? It's something really charming like that that leaves a really clean, calm feeling with you the minute you step out of Heathrow.

Whether or not you're always 3 feet from a rat at all times while in New York City (and honestly, depending on how neurotic you are is that SO unlikely? Back off London!) Gotham does seem to have suddenly become home to an increasing number of rodents who appear extremely happy to be put on TV and in print media.

Regardless, while the first beaver was just spotted in the Bronx River after a two hundred year haitus for beavers in New York City which is a nice surprise for us all, a dozen Rats are, probably this very minute, busy enjoying the Taco Bell they've apparently taken over on 4th Street and 6th Avenue - and that's a nice HORRIFYING surprise for us all. So, it's all rodent surprises today.

When you think about it, this is probably something that could only happen in the US so, in many ways, the UK hasn't lost out when it comes to how much it forces you to confront rodent-culture, it's just that the UK doesn't have the cultural predisposition towards mindless celebrity that the US does so, perhaps rat culture on either side of the pond can't really be compared.

New York rats are the kind of rats who will eat your face and scream with delight if you try and stop them in an effort to shock you into compliance - so a dozen of them inside a fast food restaurant in the West Village is really a horrifyingly zoo esque coup experience.

Yahoo graciously not only posted about how you could stand at the window and marvel at the health threat, they also provided several links to local news coverage, included in which was footage of the Daily News and New York Post busily snapping shots of the publicity hungry rodents as they scurried around. So, you have footage within footage within footage. Plus, you also have coverage of footage being collected.

Are these rats simply the first animals to stage a conscious publicity stunt in light of gauging the way humans act in order to get publicity? Yes, there is no doubt at all that they are. These are also more than likely the descendants of the original Rats of Nihm who, as we all may remember, we well adept at understanding electrity and were socially organised. Should we therefore conclude that these Taco Bell rats are part of a small yet media savvy Spartan rat army?

Yes. Right now. Fear them.

Celebrity Madness

Is it possible for the Anna Nicole Smith saga to get any more amazingly random and insane? Apparently, the answer is yes - EVEN after the fake prince married to (a 35 years his senior) Zsa Zsa Gabor announced potential paternity and then slinked off into the night - Virgie Arthur's lawyer, "Texas" O'Quinn collapses in the middle of the courtroom. It is then revealed that he owns a car collection worth over a hundred million dollars that includes the Bat Mobile. The collapse itself is more or less harmless, he's diabetic but you can't help getting caught up in the drama of it all.

Larry Birkhead (who incidentally looks like a cross between Christopher Walken and Nick Carter circa 1995) takes the stand and makes the outrageously unexpected claim that Howard K Stern is a gold digging drug addict enabler.Before she died, Anna Nicole apparently wanted to be friends with Britney.

Britney races out of rehab after checking herself in again. Her mother drives her back, for the third time. K-Fed uses this opportunity to push forward with the child custody hearings.

After making the publicity positive statement that Robert Altman was like a stand in father for her, Lindsay Lohan blows off Altman's funeral so she can go partying with Johnny Knoxville.

Pete Wentz is not screwing Ashlee Simpson because he doesn't want to limit himself to just one "creative" or "trainwreck"- type. She is an interesting choice because she could be either or nothing at all but is anyone interested enough to find out for sure?

If there was any doubt that people are simply not interested in the basic news anymore, Yahoo has obliterated it without question through the launch of their new journalism product that involves a journalist who sings the headlines.

Wow, because no one is bound to have the shock realisation that the world as we know it is ending if journalists start singing online about the custody battled surrounding little Dannilyn and the fact that celebrity bodies are not being buried because people are bickering about money. Oh, who am I kidding. Great. Bring on the dancing bears too. The really tired ones but keep them going at all costs.

If you're thinking that Poland has nothing to offer besides bald hot gay porn stars, Auschwitz, potato dishes and 70 types of vodka, think again because the same school of thought that brought you the plans to turn Osama's hideout into a multi million dollar resort - despite the fact that people are still being killed regularly in that area (oh, stop being a pessimist) - comes a new tourist opportunity that is set to delight and enchant almost as much as it has relentlessly horrified.


Tours are currently being offered that give "tourists a chance to follow in the footsteps of CIA agents and terror suspects near an alleged US detention centre in Poland's lakeland -- which the authorities deny exists".


The authorities "deny it exists" roughly translates to "the blood on the walls still hasn't dried and we've yet to call in a cleaner" or, better yet, "we're still operating in here...get out..."

Come! Cycle and canoe near the very places that terror suspects were beaten within an inch of their lives by the US authorities! Eat lunch at our wonderful grill! Lucky visitors might even find an interrogation going on as they tour the facility. Spy on human rights abuses! Photograph your kids standing next to some live wire car battery torture devices!

FUN!

Could you ask for any more of a vouch for authenticity? And, at the end of the day, authenticity is the main thing we're after. We want a genuine experience.