They're joining ashrams! Take this funemployed dude's unbelievably sweet deal, for example:

Now he spends his days on the Himalayan Institute's 400-acre wooded campus, practicing hatha yoga and meditation, studying spiritual texts, biking, walking and preparing meals in the institute's kitchen. In exchange for his cooking duties and an annual fee of $3,000, he gets a private room, three vegetarian meals a day and unlimited access to the institute's classes, seminars and other events.

And you know you can totally smuggle weed in there, and smoke it. Just by saying you want to "find yourself," or whatever, you can get a hookup that will productively waste an entire year.

Yehnemsah Oneha, work-study coordinator at Ananda Ashram, says that while cost-cutting and ice-breaking are nice benefits, the true purpose of these work exchanges, sometimes known as karma yoga, is to foster selflessness and good will. "It helps circulate the energy," she said. "You're doing it for someone else's comfort and welfare."

Ha, whatever you say, dude. You think they're fuckin' in there? I bet the people are totally fuckin'. This is the future of funemployment.
[NYT. Pic via]

In order to get into character [for Death in Love], Mr. Lucas committed to being crazy for 25 days. Like the character, he avoided all things beneficial or healthy.
"I tried to do everything to be beaten and rundown, a sense of feeling that pain. I purposefully did not do yoga or go to the dog park or hang out in bright, beautiful places."

Yoga or the dog park. It's called sacrifice, kids. After those dark days, Josh had to immediately re-calm himself. With yoga.

He also switched from Bikram yoga, which is intense hot yoga, to Kundalini yoga. Sometimes, he says, "it's as esoteric as sitting there with your hands in a strange posture and just quietly breathing.

Doing yoga is a thing Josh Lucas likes to do. Yoga. Just be thankful that Josh Lucas found yoga—before he went over the edge:

"It's funny, I was doing yoga the other day, and it must have been a fire truck that pulled up and started blasting its horn because the cars wouldn't move out of its way, and I actually burst out laughing, 'cause I was like, ‘This is incredible.' I was like, ‘Thank God I'm doing yoga right now, because otherwise I might not be laughing, I might be screaming.'"

If you see Josh Lucas doing anything other than yoga, call the police at once.
[NYO. Pic: Getty]

It happened in Seattle last October, allegedly. The happy couple was there in the yoga class BUT THEN:

The woman told police that while she was in the yoga position, the instructor came over to her and held her legs up. The report says the instructor was clicking something and saying "listen to your master, you must do whatever your master wants you to do." The man told police the instructor then knelt down and put his hands on the woman's stomach.

The report says students saw the instructor reach inside the woman's pants and grope her, before she passed out and urinated on herself. The man told police he believed the instructor was trying to hypnotize his fiancee.

That is not what all those people who signed up for "orgasmic meditation" were looking for. Needless to say everyone should stay away from yoga from now on and pursue more wholesome physiological activities. [Slog]

The guy owns a solar power something-or-other called—wait for it—"Namaste." Which meant that half the press conference involved the assembled officials, from Biden to Obama to the governor of Colorado, amusingly mispronouncing a fruity yoga word.

Then the secret hippie who who's stealing all the stimulus money to buy hemp called our Vice President "Joe Bidden." Namaste!

(Thanks to video guru Nicole Keller for putting this package together, and saving the economy. Namaste! Mahalo!)

Boomp3.com

Occasional actress Sienna Miller took her recent yoga lesson from the studio into the mean streets of Hollywood on Monday, where she performed a series of street contortion exhibitions with a comely partner. Miller explained, "As an actress, most people focus in on my face and my breasts, but I have spent my summer learning how to use my whole body in my performances. I hope it will demonstrate to people that I am the total package." After clicking play on a yellow Sony Sports boombox, the sweet sounds of Enya provided the soundtrack for a surprisingly erotic routine from the two blondes and drew many curious onlookers to the front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Across the street, a man dressed as Spiderman said, "I hope this show isn't a permanent thing because they're going to steal a lot of money from us. A guy in a costume from the 99 Cent store can't compete with two girls turning into a pretzel."

[Photo Credit: X17]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Synopsis
Tina Gaudoin guides us through the ins and outs of the most glamorous and bitchy of industries - the politics, products and the personalites. Having moved to New York following TMIL (The Man I Love), Tina takes the brave step of accepting a job back in London to get her career of the ground. Tina is catapulted into a job at Tatler where she's in above her head from day one, is struggling to make her long-distance relationship work and is soon to discover that her mother has terminal cancer. Through Tina's story we meet the celebrated movers and shakers in the fashion industry and follow her back and forth across the Atlantic between London and New York as she lurches up the magazine career ladder. With plenty of hilarious stories about top fashion designers, models and photographers at every step of her journey, there's a wealth of behind-the-scenes tales and anecdotes, but it's the combination of these with Tina's own story of ambition, love and loss that makes this the must read of the season.

Recall that WSJ editor Robert Thomson just said Gaudoin is "the world's most talented, the world's best magazine editor of British origin called Tina." How's that for bitchy, Tina Brown?

[via Mixed Media. Pic via MB]

Tina Gaudoin was brought over to the WSJ from the UK early this year to edit the paper's upcoming "lifestyle magazine." She's also the owner of Triyoga, a chain of yoga studios in the UK. And she used to tout that fact over and over again in her column! Which tends to go over less well in the US than in the UK. Still, it was so hard for the WSJ to find a good yoga-as-business quote that they ended up using this one, from Claire Missingham (pictured):

Finance "is the antithesis of what yoga is about in terms of inner peace," says Claire Missingham, a yoga teacher in London. But Ms. Missingham, whose pupils have included bankers and hedge-fund managers, says it can be highly beneficial for them. Yoga traditionalists say practicing yoga should be about more than just gaining physical benefits: It's a way of approaching life, including work. "Yoga teaches you to embrace fear and cultivate patience," says Ms. Missingham.

That's the Claire Missingham who happens to work at Gaudoin's Triyoga Soho! Way to keep it all in the family, WSJ.

"We love to teach, move, share, and learn. We would be happy to speak about sharing our skills wherever we stay. Not only can we cook, clean, love animals, but we also do personal training, health coaching, meditation and more. There’s really a lot we can offer to you.

"Beth has been involved with health and fitness for most of her life on many levels. She is a Holistic Health Counselor focusing on each individual need for nutrition, life balance, emotional well being, conscious choices, environmental well being as well as (digestive issues, allergies, overall wellness; eating for optimum energy, stress reduction and weight management). Beth is also a certified Yoga Instructor and focuses on aligning one’s body and posture, connecting one’s mind to body through breath, and creating balance in strength and flexibility.

"Alex’s interest is in raising awareness, especially through raised awareness of movement and exercise and meditation. He has experience from a variety of physical and mental disciplines including strength and conditioning, yoga, breath and freediving, snowboarding, self defense and martial arts (he’s taught hundreds of men and women practical hand-to-hand skills), and Latin dance. He founded The Epic Workout as a way to transform our notion of exercise, based on the hero’s journey. He coaches beyond strength and conditioning, kettlebells, movement, combat/self defense, teaches meditation, breath-holding (he’s held his breath for 4:33 and dove to 100ft on a single breath) and more."

Please note: They're looking for something, "Walking distance from SOHO, though we would be happy to look farther out." [Alex's Home Page]

Some answers might be found at the site for Kalani Hot Nude Yoga Retreat, where Aaron Star (pictured, my lord) is a "facilitator."

Aaron, when working with students in his Classes, Retreats, DVD's or Workshops, has shown many students how to fine tune their senses to experience that sublime erotic flow within them and its subtle energetic current while cultivating a deeper awareness of their own Inner Sanctuary. He introduces people to the principles of Alignment while teaching people how to touch and promote harmony in yourself and others. Dedicated to healthy natural cooking and clean living, Aaron also makes his own brand of all "Natural Jams and Jellies" which he sells to friends and students, while running International Retreats and Teacher Training Events around the world, attracting a wide and diversified group of men.

Other men are even bolder. Stephanie King, 40, a jewelry designer who practices yoga five times a week in Los Angeles, said she has had cringe-worthy encounters during her 20 years of practice. In one instance, a fellow regular Ms. King had met in passing approached her after a power yoga class and asked if she had enjoyed her practice. She had. Then, apropos of nothing, he asked if she wanted to be his lover.

Ms. King calmly told the man she would think about it. After a particularly intense practice, it can take a moment to regroup and get your social bearings. But once at her car, she called him and said, "I just want to let you know that I'm going to pass on being your lover."

Because, here's the thing. Brownstone Brooklyn is pretentious and prohibitively expensive and full of self-righteous smug NPR-listening ultraliberals who are willing to get into a flamewar over a gender pronoun. But deep down, is there any other place you can imagine being an adult in this city? I kind of can't think of any. Those restaurants near there are yummy. Prospect Park is so nice. Brownstones are beautiful and I would like to live in one someday. I love dogs and babies. Babies are so cute! I'd like to have one. Not now! But someday. I like doing yoga and eating organic produce! I don't really care about cool bars. Cool bars are sort of lame.

So after you, or should I say "I," come to all these conclusions, the only reason left to hate Park Slope is that you're jealous of the people who can afford to live there because you assume that you'll never have the cash for a down payment on a Safran Foer-Krauss house. Ok, well. True enough! But why not just decide to yourself that, if living in a brownstone in Brooklyn is really what you want, you'll find a way to make it happen. That way, you can stop feeling hatred towards those who live there and schadenfreude towards the people who live there who embarrass themselves online and in print so regularly. [Ed. Note: Particularly if you take their brownstones from them!]

And with all the energy you won't be expending on hatred, you'll be able to focus your energies on, like, making wise investments or excelling in your chosen field or marrying rich or buying scratch-off tickets. Because, thing is? Living in Park Slope seems super fun and maybe even worth it.

The Park Slope Parent Trap [NYT]

I admit it, I'm insane. But after I saw his movie "Fall" in 1997, I was a little obsessed with him. I thought his craziness was kind of charming. And when I read his blog, none of it really surprised me. It all seemed sort of....earnest. I liked that there was actually a guy in New York City looking for a wife. I keep getting guys who want to cheat on their girlfriends with me.

Hey Sandi, no I wasn't just being nice. I would have been up for chatting or getting a coffee but I'm a recovering alcoholic for many years and the whole drinking thing is a dealbreaker for me. I'm glad you're taking steps to deal with it but if you've been "detoxing" on and off and are still a "light" drinker that sound sketchy to me, like you're still in denial about the role booze plays in your life. I may be wrong. Only you can know for sure, but I would suggest not drinking at all and checking out some AA meetings and see what you think. Namaste, e

Earlier:Eric Schaeffer Thinks You're Asking For It

The reality is that most teachers fall in love with their students, but sex is such a small part of it . . . every relationship is unique and can't be judged . . . every once in a while, just like in therapy, there might be real chemistry between two people. It's a decent guideline, but you shouldn't be crucified for not following it.

Earlier: Colleen Saidman and Rodney Yee: Na-nastay.