The New York Times wrote a story about Biggest Loser. What did they find out?

• The winner of season one "dropped some of the weight by fasting and dehydrating himself to the point that he was urinating blood." Actually many of the people dropped mostly water weight, and gained much of it back after the show ended and they began hydrating properly.
• Whose fault is it that these dangerously fat people are dangerously dehydrating themselves in pursuit of a cash prize? The fault of the fat people themselves, according to the professional fitness trainer Jillian "Evil" Michaels. "Contestants can get a little too crazy and they can get too thin," she said.
• Don't go blaming the show for that; they never said they were qualified to know about health and weight loss and whatever! The show's waivers state that no guarantees have been made that the medical professionals are qualified to "diagnose medical conditions that may affect my fitness to participate in the series."
• Also the show tried to intimidate former contestants into not speaking to the New York Times.

Overweight Americans: Would you like to slim down, but don't have access to evil fitness trainer Jillian Michaels? Here is the secret formula! Eat a few hundred calories less than you burn every day; exercise for no more than an hour five days a week, with a sensible mix of interval cardio workouts and basic weight training; lose a couple pounds a week; continue until satisfied. Just read this! Better yet, forget about losing weight altogether. Put that weight to work for you. You can gain up to 30 pounds of pure power with THIS:

A New York Times Style section freelancer sent out this query today to Help A Reporter Out, the email service that connects flacks to reporters in need of sources. RESPONSES ABOUT THE COOLNESS OF HIGH SCHOOL CHORAL GROUPS ONLY.

Summary: Sing along with "Glee"
Media Outlet: New York Times
Region: United States
Deadline: 01:11pm EASTERN - 17 November
Query:

Story is for Styles section of the NYT. The topic: how is the hit show
"Glee" affecting kids' participation in school choral groups or choruses
Are they joning in droves? Are they, in fact, startang their own such
groups. Is the show suddently making it, yes, COOL, to be part of a school
chorale Would like to hear from high school students, high school teachers
and music educators. NO OFF TOPIC RESPONSES PLEASE

The "Advertising is full of idiots" school. It's a new show called :30 Seconds and it looks funny but alas, it is going to be on in Australia, which is farther than TV can travel. Here is a bit coming to you from the magic of the internet, via Adrants.

In this way we see that advertising is a dynamic and controversial field.

Find more videos like this on AdGabber

The show is said to be seeking Asian females, 25-29, to play a character who mirrors Ferrell's penchant for using sex and faked medical conditions to elicit sympathy and cash from gullible guys. [Note: we took out the specifics from the description because our tipster is afraid that revealing details might cost them their job]

Ferrell is, of course, perfect for the "ripped from the headlines" show; her youth and sex appeal should draw much better ratings than the episode about the fornicating middle-aged lawyer based on Eliot Spitzer. The only question is whether Ferrell's precious criminal quirks can be translated for network television; as our tipster writes, there's "no word yet on whether or not she will be giving Jack McCoy a hand job with her mouth."

Obviously, you're about to embark into some mildly NSFW territory, though there's no actual "action" in these teaser clips, and the most vulgar thing about these are the language in them. The TMSleaze (website NSFW) tributes are, quite frankly, very well played, maybe with the exception of Tono Romo's jersey reading HOMO, but hey, that's porn for you. Maybe TMSleaze isn't Pulitzer-worthy, but this could at least be considered for a Peabody, or something. It's one of the more intelligent, current satires out there, and yes, it's a porn and mostly alludes to sex. But we should all feel upstaged: they took their position as a specific commodity on a moral battleground, and leveraged it into post-modernism. The porn industry calling TMZ sleazy is, whatever you think of the porn industry, an interesting statement. I await their parody of Gawker Media with baited breath. Do enjoy, and thank you Gawker Video Deity Richard Blakeley for the tip.

Meet Messica Simpleton and Boney Homo. I think the TMSleaze reporters call them the Texas Poboys. There's also an allusion to Terrell Owens, who's not given a name. There's also fried chicken involved.

In our second video, there's Lamey Swinehouse. She's drunk and bouncing a ball on the floor and screaming about fish and chips. The paparazzi decide to leave her to her own device, deciding that "this is just sad."

In clip three, you'll meet Spender and Hiney, from "that show...that bullshit show," and as everyone knows "they've got a sex tape, or they're going to put out a sex tape," or something. Photogs ask Spender and Hiney if they can take shots of them, and Spender asks them if they're going to "be on the cover" (get it, they're not in print?). The photog says "sure," and they allow the TMSleaze paps to snap away. After letting them know that two other "characters" have made a sex tape - LC and Bony - Spender and Hiney decide that they need to make a sex tape, too, there and on the spot. Note TMSleaze's accurate depiction of Spencer Pratt's creepy flesh-colored beard.

"Somewhere in America," shouts Ron Jeremy, "there's a really exciting story. But I doubt if anyone in this room's gonna find it!" This Joseph Campbell-esque insight leads to Slimin' - whose bad faux-British accent is reminiscent of Simon Cowell's - and a studio executive arguing. "Shut up you prattling little ninny, or I will retain your ass as a black man and and shine my Tony Lamas in your rectum." Cut to some woman writhing about a couch, licking Slimin's jeans. This is, presumably, Paula Abdul. Her handler walks in the room, and begins arguing about their differences in pay. Honestly, who is writing these? Maybe we do need to ring up Sig Gissler right fucking now.

Finally, meet Feminem and Linda Blowhand, who is with child. She's under the assumption that Feminem is the father of her child. Feminem is rapping in the studio, and uses the word "illin" in one of his raps. He's with an African American co-worker - possibly his producer, possibly someone resembling Dr. Dre - who lets Feminem know that "illin" is outdated nomenclature. "You keep spittin' that weak, people gonna know you whitebred," he warns him. He gets assaulted by Linda Blowhand, who asks him why he hasn't called. "Are you high? Are you tweakin' right now?" Feminem asks her. "What do you think I am? You think I'm your little diamond oven whore?" she screams back. She then reminds him that the "lady" - presumably a reference to Samantha Ronson - "isn't cuttin' it in the orgasm department." Feminem then inquires if it'd be okay for him to "come in you since you're already pregnant," which upsets her. "Hell no, I don't want fuckin' twins!" she assaults him.

We've written about nerdcore anthems before, including this rap about the SXSW internet conference, the one about the Hadron Collider and the one from the O(nline)G threatening to shank a Wired writer. With few exceptions, the genre has been dominated by geeks, which is why it's nice to see Kate Miller-Heidke get righteous on a creepy, Facebooking ex.

The Twitterati are, naturally, eating this up (though it dates to May).

Now, the following list is definitely some of the best, but it's by no means definitive, or comprehensive: surely, there're far more examples out there that we encourage you to throw in the comments. We've put screengrabs of each example in this gallery, and videos will be on individual threads in the comments for us to break down and discuss together! Maybe President Obama, Gates, and his arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley, can make cute references to each of these examples when they have a beer together later this week. Or maybe they can actually discuss some of the realities of racial profiling in America, which pop culture can sometimes get right, and sometimes: absolutely mangle.

The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air: In the episode "Mistaken Identity," Will and Carlton - on their way up to Palm Springs - get pulled over in a family friend's Mercedes Benz while going 2MPH looking for a freeway entrance. Because they're black, they're assumed by a cop to have stolen the car. Will tries to stonewall the cop while Carlton tries to reason with him, and of course, they end up in jail. Some singing and dancing later, Aunt Viv and Uncle Phil bail them out. The episode ends with Will castigating Carlton for not knowing better.
White Guilt Factor: 5. Funny whiteguy Andy Borowitz was the show's creator, but it had a predominately African American cast.
Black Anger Factor: 7, but it's subdued: After Carlton asks Uncle Phil if he would've pulled them over, Uncle Phil reminds him: "I wondered the same thing the first time I was pulled over." Not your typical Fresh Prince ending: Carlton sits alone in silence to ruminate with his newfound disquiet as the credits fade to black.
Accuracy: 6. Black guys in nice cars are red flags for suburban cops, but really, who would mistake Carlton for a criminal? [Answer: Who would mistake Henry Gates for a home invader?].

99 Problems by Jay-Z: The song - from his I'm Retiring-Before-I-UnRetire Black Album - was produced by Def Jam founder Rick Rubin, and one of the prominent verses is about being pulled over by police for a Jim Crow-esque speeding offense. Observe: "I...pull over to the side of the road/I heard "Son do you know why I'm stoppin' you for?"/Cause I'm young and I'm black and my hat's real low?/Do I look like a mind reader sir? I don't know../Am I under arrest or should I guess some mo'?/"Well you was doin fifty-five in a fifty-fo' "/"License and registration and step out of the car"/"Are you carryin' a weapon on you I know a lot of you are." The Mark Romanek-directed video - which showed Hov and Rubin being searched by cops - was a source of much controversy on MTV, where they ran it with a warning. It won three VMAs that year. Wikipedia-sourced trivia: Jay-Z performed the song for the White House Staff Ball, and tweaked the lyrics: "I've got 99 Problems, but a Bush ain't one."
White Guilt Factor: 3. Rick Rubin might be white, but he's about as white as anybody who looks like this can possibly be.
Black Anger Factor: 8. How many times do you think this kind of shit happened to Jay-Z in his 20s? He still keeps a pretty cool head about it.
Accuracy: 9. Rappers in nice cars getting pulled over and searched for weapons? Never.

Crash: Paul Haggis directed and co-wrote the 2004 drama about racism in modern-day L.A. with another white dude, Bobby Moresco. There're a variety of situations in the movie showing all of us exactly how racist we are, which many complained were incredibly heavy-handed and overreaching. One in specific: a prominent African American director and his wife get pulled (Terrance Howard and Thandie Newton) get pulled over by two white cops (Matt Dillion and Ryan Phillipe). Matt Dillion's character ends up molesting Thandie Newton's character and they almost shoot Terrance Howard's character dead. Via an ensemble cast and a strong campaign, the drama beat the odds and won the Best Picture Oscar in 2004, beating out Brokeback Mountain in what's widely considered to (A) prove that Hollywood would rather talk about racism than sexual orientation because there's no such thing as a gay male megastar (B) prove the Oscar voting committee to subscribe to this idea, and (C) total "bullshit."
White Guilt Factor: 9. The film was written, directed, and produced by white guys (the sole exception being Don Cheadle's producing credit). Again, the racism depicted in Crash is seen by many as way overreaching.
Black Anger Factor: 7. Has a pretty split cast, and the portrayal of said racism-in-action scenarios is, while sometimes outlandish, not impossible.
Accuracy: 8. At least some of the shit in Crash has happened somewhere, at some point. Not all of it - people don't have magical epiphanies at what utter racist dicks they've been at then end of an episode of racism when karma's reached all the way around - but definitely some of it.

"The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. The 1982 rap song is often considered one of the greatest, and while there's no specific reference to racial profiling in the song, the video caused some controversy when it explicitly played it out: Flash and Posse are walking down a street when two white cops pull up to them, stop, get out, and throw them in the car. Bummer.
White Guilt Factor: Eh. 6 for the people at MTV showing it.
Black Anger Factor: 6.5, if only because they could've really had the cops rough the kids up, or have the kids do something like volunteering when the cops picked them up.
Accuracy: 5. Well, the roundup at the end of the video takes, like, fifteen seconds. I think it'd take two cops a little longer to do that. Also, I'm not sure if anything as explicit as that happened in 1981 - probably, would be my guess - but it gets docked on speed alone.

The West Wing: In the first season of Aaron Sorkin's dialogue-porn show about the inner-workings of White House staffers, a Democratic administration is trying to get an activist Latino judge - "Robert Mendoza," played by Edward James Olmos, who you might remember from Stand & Deliver - confirmed to the supreme court. Judge Mendoza goes antiquing in the northeast, and driving back down to Washington D.C., he gets pulled over for "erratic driving," asked to take a breathalizer test, and when they encounter hostility, taken to jail in front of his wife and child. The White House communications director and his deputy (played by Richard Schiff and Rob Lowe) have to go retrieve Mendoza - who has yet to tell the cops that he's a Supreme Court nominee - from police custody. Mendoza wants to make a statement of it by taking this to trial, and the White House won't let him. Mendoza ends up leaving peacefully, but not before warning Toby: "They pulled me over because I look like my name is Roberto Mendoza, and I'm coming to rob your house...and all (my son's) gonna remember from this is his Dad being handcuffed, and America's got another pissed off guy with dark skin."
White Guilt Factor: 8. It's Aaron Sorkin. You need to know anything else? Docked two White Guilt points for being consistently grandstand-y.
Black Hispanic Anger Factor: 8. Give it to Sorkin: he knew how to write this one, and Olmos delivered the lines.
Accuracy: 7. This probably hasn't happened to someone of a Supreme Court nominee's stature, while they're in the middle of being confirmed. Also, the cops escorted Mendoza back to his hotel and apologized to his kids. Psh.

Chamillionare's "Ridin'" The worst-named rapper maybe ever - or the most incredibly-named, depending on which side you fall on, here - had a slammin' hit single the summer of 2006 that more or less tore up charts. It's explicitly about racial profiling: the act of "riding dirty" would be "driving a car with something illicit in it" and those "trying to catch him (riding dirty)" would be police. Sample lyric: "Thinkin they'll catch me on the wrong well keep tryin'/Cause they denyin is racial profiling/Houston, TX/ you can check my tags/Pull me over try to check my slab/Glove compartment gotta get my cash/Cause the crooked cops try to come up fast."
White Guilt Factor: 0. Maybe 1? Honesty, I thought the song was about a sexual act for the longest time before I realized it was about racial profiling. Goes to show how much I was listening. I just thought the chorus was great.
Black Anger Factor: 6. Does Chamillionare sound that pissed? Krazie Bone - who raps the second verse of the song - also admits to having ridden "dirty" previously: "Doin a hundred while I puff on the blunt/And rollin another one up, we livin like we ain't givin a fuck/I got a revolver in my right hand, 40 oz on my lap freezing my balls.." Well, come to think of it, yes, having a 40 Oz. in your lap while driving would be difficult, if only for the discomfort it might cause to one's genitalia. Never thought of that before. Hm.
Accuracy: 10. Well, sometimes, you ride dirty, you get busted. Other times, you're not riding dirty, you don't get busted. Other times, you swerve, you get pulled over, and you get searched, but, come on, you were swerving. Other times, you don't ride dirty, but you get pulled over, because you look a certain way, and you get hassled. And that's racial profiling!

For those who grew up in the 1980s, it's hard to overstate the singer's fame or the adoration underlying it. As one friend of ours put it in an instant message, "I thought the three most important people in the world were Ronald Reagan, Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie."

Those who weren't children at the time had a more nuanced view. But Jackson still loomed large. His first televised "moonwalk" dance move was met with euphoria by fans (watch here); his music videos made MTV vastly more interesting and helped build the network into a cultural force. Most tellingly, his album Thriller was the best-selling album of all time, somewhere north of 47 million copies, at one point flying off the shelves at one million records per week.

Jackson's megafame was kindled and sustained on a simpler media landscape. Music was distributed by a small number of companies in just a few formats. It reached the broader public, when it did, through the radio, or the one cable music channel, or during precious few moments — the Grammy awards, late night variety shows — on one of the three television broadcast.

Good luck making a megastar today, with hundreds of cable channels, scads of online music stores, radio stations and podcasts, and an infinite number of blogs and Twitter streams — all credible music-distribution and fame-building mediums. If those weren't barriers enough, the nation's musical tastes have broadened, just as the money it's willing to pay for music seems to have diminished.

None of this is to say there won't be stars who loom as largely, but only briefly, as Michael Jackson did, or who can effectively own a particularly niche of fans for a decade or two. But duplicating both the breadth and endurance of Jackson's stardom seems impossible.

Fameballs, the world is yours.

Because America is both a melting pot and a fairly young country, our shared culture is pop culture; we are influenced, informed, and ultimately reflected by television, movies, music, books, etc. And Bea Arthur's work on both stage and screen was defined by much more than her deep voice and deadpan delivery. It played an important part in our social change.

1.) Maude
The Tony and Emmy-winning actress worked in show business for most of her adult life, but it wasn't until she was 50 that she really made it big — in what she refers to as her "middle-aged Cinderella story" — starring in Maude (a spin-off of All in the Family) that ran from 1972 - 1978. In the title role of Maude Findlay, Arthur played an outspoken liberal feminist and civil rights activist, and the show was far ahead of its time, addressing topics of menopause, alcoholism, plastic surgery, and most notably, abortion.

During the first season, in a two-part episode titled "Maude's Dilemma," 47-year-old Maude discovers that she's pregnant. She and her husband and her adult daughter (Adrienne Barbeau) weigh her options, and ultimately, Maude terminates the pregnancy — a first for network TV. Although abortion was legalized in New York, where Maude was set, the episodes were broadcast in November 1972, two months before Roe v. Wade was decided. Two CBS affiliates refused to broadcast the program. Here's a clip:

Although Arthur enjoyed the role she played, she didn't enjoy another—that of a champion of the women's movement—thrust upon her, saying in a 2001 interview, "They just assumed I was the Joan of Arc of the women's movement. And I wasn't at all. It put a lot of unnecessary pressure on me."

Later in life, however, Arthur adopted some of the language of feminism when discussing the breakup of her second marriage, which she blamed on her dedication to her career. "I don't think I ever truly believed in marriage anyway. I guess marriage means that you're a woman and not a . . . person."

She elaborates on that — and the social importance of Maude — here, in this interview for The Archive of American Television.

2.) Sex and the Single Senior
Playing Dorothy Zbornak in the hit sitcom Golden Girls (which ran from 1985 - 1992), Arthur, and her costars Rue McClanahan, Estelle Getty, and Betty White, achieved on prime time TV what seemed to be the impossible: Showcasing post-menopausal women as trendy, funny, and sexual. Way before Sex and the City was lauded for its portrayal of strong female friendships and the discussion of shopping-bag swinger lifestyles over brunch in NYC, Dorothy, Sophia, Blanche, and Rose talked about their very active sex lives over plates of cheesecake in Miami. In this clip, the girls go out to buy condoms to prepare for a romantic cruise they're about to embark on with their boyfriends:

All four actresses on the show won Emmys for their roles, making it the first time since All in the Family that a sitcom had an entirely award-winning cast. (You can read an oral history of Golden Girls here.)

Of her role on the show, Arthur said, "It's very nice to have women realize that women our age can be attractive and well groomed and wear fabulous clothes and earrings, and have a sex life." Interestingly, when GG first premiered, Dorothy was about the age of Kim Cattrall in the SATC movie.

3.) Breaking the Mold
Having reached the crest of her career in middle age, and being 5'9, with a baritone voice, Arthur was not exactly the ingenue. With her trademark, cutting one-liners, Arthur was way too salty for the sugar-and-spice female stereotype. Instead of fighting the aging process cosmetically, she used it to get a laugh and earn a buck, as seen in this Golden Girls clip.

She carried the same attitude later on in her career, as well, as seen in the TV Land show Back to the Grind in 2007. (Clip below.)

4.) Gay Icon
In addition to her work as an animal rights activist, Arthur involved herself in AIDS awareness, speaking at many events. (She once said, "Of course I have gay friends — doesn't everybody?" and when lesbian rumors surfaced, she responded, "I think it is because of the voice, but who cares?") Episodes of Golden Girls and Maude both addressed the subject of homosexuality, but this '70s performance, featuring Arthur singing about drugs with her friend Rock Hudson, stands out the most.

5.) Ribald and Refined
While a lot of the humor on Golden Girls was assuredly bawdy, Arthur pushed the envelope for a joke in real life, too. We leave you with her dramatic reading from Pamela Anderson's novel Star Struck, regarding anal sex.

Cheers To 'Maude' Bea Arthur [NPR]
Here's Looking At You, Bea Arthur [USA Today]
Beatrice Arthur: A Towering Comedic Talent From Another Era [LA Times]
'Golden Girls': A 20th Anniversary Oral History [EW]

Earlier: Bea Arthur: Golden Bitch
Bea Arthur Does Carrie Bradshaw In Old Lady Version Of Sex And The City

The Beatrice itself was born many, many years ago. It was once a speakeasy, back in those ratty days of prohibition. But its current incarnation—the cokey, smokey, fuck den—sprang to life in 2006, when Paul Sevigny, the brother of actress Chloë, masterminded, along with his partners, a bar/restaurant that would return some classic bar elements to New York. Italian-food specials and jacket-and-tie nights. Old New York, Carrie Bradshaw might neighingly call it.

But, you know, instead it mostly catered to those who could slink past a velvet rope, those who, giddy with abandon because New York was rich and everyone was young all the way back in 2006, wanted to sit in its dark, low-ceiling'd recesses and chain smoke, sneaking away every so often for a quickie or a bump in the bathroom. And there was dancing. Oh was there dancing. So you could say, in some sideways measure, an aura of Old New York did surround the Bea. It was a bit dangerous, a bit wild, and it was definitely mean, in that fashionable kind of way.

And then the celebrities came. Oh boy did they come. Sometimes literally!—actor Shia LaBeouf was heard once loudly begging for sex at the club, as if it was some loud, boorish frat party for the coolest frat kids in the world.

These celebrities set the standards for smoking and held court like it was no big deal. "Here we all are, under this ceiling, just relaxing," they seemed to say. While Hud Morgan, a notorious Bea dancer, thundered a drunken tarantella across the room. Well, he was dancing, but he was also fighting.

The former Men's Voguer 'famously' exchanged fisticuffs with his media colleague Spencer Morgan at the club last year, all over a girl. And so the glitz and glamor of the club, coupled with the constant crowing by some New York-centric blogosphere blogs, began bringing negative attention. Not really just from the crackdown authorities, who meekly tried to curb the drugs and smoking, but from losers and poseurs and people who cast the seething milieu in too-bright, unfavorable light. When all-too-willing media punching bag Julia Allison is seen weeping at your club, its must-go-to days may be numbered.

The whole thing started to wind down about a year ago. People still flocked, people still danced, people threw caution to the wind and did rails in the loo. But some luster was lost. The whole thing just became too top heavy, as any hotspot is wont to do. Remember Butter? Exactly.

A club whose thesis was all about that hard-but-warm New York edge became just another stared-at phenomenon. Sure it was (and still is) sorta tough to get into, but the harder it became, the more it started to look like trying. And as we all know, trying is definitely not cool.

So then we come to that temporary end. On one hand, maybe it'll be the shot the club needs. You know, if a "Free Beatrice" party ends up coalescing in some other dark corner this week, if the place suddenly seems gutter-glittery again.

Or, more likely, it'll just continue its soft decline. You know, there's a recession on and all and New York is changing. Some small few of us might still need those dull thumps and furtive bumps, but for most the whole thing will probably soon just seem silly and indulgent and wrong, joining the embarrassing annals of the city's pop history, like leg warmers or beanies, like Ms. Allison or the short reign of Peaches Geldof. And most bitterly, like all of our money. Our long lost money.

As a former Gawker editor just said to us over IM: "the ceilings were so low it gave me a sad."

Indeed.

[via NeatoRama]

Joel is the the third rail of American pop culture. Though Rosenbaum doesn't seem aware of it, his isn't even Slate's first takedown of the musician. Jody Rosen floated many of the same arguments — Joel is almost unforgivably cheesy, derivative, egotistical and insecure, and has squandered his talents —with more nuance and context in 2005's "The squandered genius of the Piano Man."

Chuck Klosterman's 2002 profile in the Times Magazine explored precisely how uncool Joel was and quoted the Village Voice's Robert Christgau at length on the mediocrity of his music and "grandiosity" of his temperament.

A kiwi music critic was just this past summer slammed by Joel for interviewing him and then savaging his music.

Music writers will rant about their hatred for Joel at the drop of a hat, it seems. For Rosenbaum, the catalysts were a book about art and evolutionary psychology, along with the death of purportedly schlocky painter Andrew Wyeth.

His addition to the anti-Joel canon? The assertion that the piano-playing singer is loathsome because his work is shot through with "unearned contempt:"

Both a self-righteous contempt for others and the self-approbation and self-congratulation that is contempt's backside, so to speak. Most frequently a contempt for the supposed phoniness or inauthenticity of other people as opposed to the rock-solid authenticity of our B.J.

Oh God "unearned contempt." As though the emotions in music are ever "earned." Yes, let's analyze whether snotty young poseur (slash brilliant musician) Bob Dylan earned his hugely self-righteous anger at some fellow twentysomething East Village scenester in "Like a Rolling Stone," or whether Ani DiFranco had a right to say "Fuck You" to Goat Boy  in "Untouchable Face." Sounds fun.

Rosenbaum also writes that "She's Always a Woman" is misogynist. It's also a total copy of Dylan's "Just Like A Woman," Rosenbaum adds, but Dylan's song isn't misogynist because it came out first, and God knows no one was writing about how women are contradictory and confusing before he did.

Anyway the point here isn't that Joel is brilliant — we never actively choose to listen to him, but he's fun enough during a spin class — but that critics seem to take a perverse pride in constantly slamming the guy, and it doesn't seem to be getting any better, even though Google now theoretically allows the ranters to see just how much old ground they are covering. We suppose the race now will be to the most creative and outlandish criticisms, and the most definitive. Knock yourselves out guys. We'll take your word for it that your contempt is earned.

However, the topic proves too hard to resist:

Today, on TMZ, my darling daughter Lindsay was asked for a comment in response to me saying, "Samantha is on drugs!" Lindsay’s only response was, “look at him!”

WOW! Linds, how forthright! Let me ask you; was it me who was actually pictured in the train station with a bag full of prescription drugs? Do you see me out partying with Lindsay, my other children or having raging wars with her?

OK, Dad! The rest is a litany of fameballing, self-promotion, and Biblical mumbo-jumbo, best exemplified by this paragraph:

AGAIN, this website is a forum to shed light on things in a positive and truthful way. It is about bringing the world the truth about any situations or stories reported in the media that are worthy of discussing. It is about righting the wrongs and determining facts from fiction.

...Whether you realize it or not, this website is about getting people involved in a positive way, while leading them to the Truth, which in essence, is God. For those of you who choose to denounce or blasphemy the Word or Spirit of God, be very careful, because he sees, knows and judges your heart. (1 Samuel 16:7).

And in his first post, he laid down some ground rules: "First of all, try your best to refrain from cursing, lying or baring false witness. I know this is hard for some of you, but try."

He's right. It is hard for some of us.

[Michael Lohan Online via Just Jared]

I Want to Be Evil

C'est Si Bon (Don't forget—she spoke four languages.)

Where is My Man (supergay club re-mix)

Still a Badass

Here's the cover photo, in which the Alaskan governor totes a gun, with the American flag in the background.

A customer review, which doubles as a look inside the brain-house of the red states:

If you are a fan of Sarah Palin, then you will LOVE this calendar. I ordered two of them (one for my mother, and one for me). They arrived today. There is really a nice variety of photos that show many aspects of her life. She is a remarkable woman and an inspiration to many.

[Amazon]

Costelloe, a former firefighter, was discovered in his Sunset Park, Brooklyn, bedroom. He apparently killed himself about a week ago. He was 47.

The actor—who played a gay short-order cook on Sopranos, was in the middle of performing in an off-off Broadway play called Gang of Seven, at La Mama in the East Village.

[New York Post]

Well, there are a few common causes: too much of certain types of fish from polluted waters, like tuna and swordfish (a sushi binge, perhaps?), old-fashioned dental fillings, and—according to the NYU website—"fluorescent light bulbs, batteries, mercury switches in thermostats and even sneakers that light up."

Apparently, mercury has contaminated all levels of the food chain, including ducks and turkeys and chickens. Why, last January, the New York Times found high mercury levels in Manhattan-area tuna sushi. Run!

The side effects? They vary depending on the type of exposure, but range from kidney/neurological damage, tiredness, tremors, and problems with vision, speech, and hearing. Also: the total and complete inability to act, especially on Broadway.

Piven may well be going through "chelation therapy" right now, a process that rids the body of mercury. Don't worry, though: mercury poisoning is usually reversible.

After working in the high-class kitchens of New York's Penisula Hotel and the St. Regis Hotel's Lespinasse, he left to open — and hit his culinary peak with Union Pacific, which closed down four years ago as he morphed into a celebrity chef. He had been beat up a lot while growing up in Queens, but now the ritual beatings come from the "knife-sharpening snark squadrons of Gawker.com and a segment of the gastronomic elite."

Are we getting blamed for driving someone to drink/shrink again? The NYT noted in today's profile that one of his answers "carried a distinct echo of therapy," to which Mr. DeSpirito replied, "There’s been lots of therapy."

But seriously, everyone important in the food biz is wondering where he went, and why he just threw it all away to go on the TV.

“We were talking the other day, another food-obsessed person and I, and we were just saying how sad it was that he has disappeared,” said Gael Greene, the grande dame of New York food scribes, and one of the first to celebrate Mr. DiSpirito’s talent 13 years ago when he was the chef at Dava. “I do believe that ‘Dancing With the Stars’ is kind of the last stop... I don’t understand — has he totally lost that passion to cook?"

Embarrassingly, he mentions Balthazar/Pastis founder Keith McNally and McNally won't even give comment. Then it's back to blaming the "elite" bloggers who pick on him who are just out of touch with the rest of America: "The vast majority of what I hear from the people who appreciate what I do — which is I think more of the general public, more of America, versus the people who write and read Gawker."

Rocco, prepare to get your ass kicked after school today.

But with the sure-to-be-howlingly-awful reality show about to air, it was time for some official whorin' to various media outlets, like Time Out New York. What will their puff-piece say they've planned for New Year's Eve—also known as nightlife's amateur night?

Well, the token not-gay but totally-virgin Mormon, Chet, mumbles something about the Rockettes and adds, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." Word. J.D. the gay dolphin trainer continues to deny his Anderson Cooper love affair, adding without irony, "When you work at SeaWorld you meet a lot of celebrities... Being an animal trainer, I’m a public figure, just like he is." (What?)

As for the girls, including the not-genetically-born-as-a-female, LiveJournaling-and-media-hating Katelynn, she spins us with something about "I figured if I could destigmatize the word transgender, if I could normalize it, that’s my goal. It’s an education opportunity." Sure, honey.

Devyn asks, "Do we have stupid stamped on our foreheads?" Yes, but only figuratively. And Baya copped to the bar owners of Red Hook being all "fuck no" when it came to filming there. Good for them.

The scariest part is, some of them loved NYC so much they decided to stay behind permanently.

[Time Out New York]

[Photo: Ben Goldstein for TONY]