Manhattan Offender

It's like there is this army of undead child rapists roaming the land

If you look at the headlines of Google News, you would think there were zombies out there screwing the children, roaming the land, eschewing bullets and knives and voodoo curses.  But it's just a Supreme Court ruling married with some strange headline word-choicing.

Link: Child rapists can't be executed

Inflation

Never mind that cigarettes are more than ten dollars per pack in some midtown delis.  (I've quit smoking buying them weeks ago anyway.)  On a mental break, a run downstairs found me facing a new insane price:  ONE DOLLAR for a bag of M&M's.

Link: Bloomberg.com: Worldwide.

Larry Birkhead inspires a change in career outlooks as expressed by haiku

Instead of working
Impregnate an Anna type.
Mackenzie Phillips?

Coney Island protesters rock city hall (with hotness)

Just stumbled upon a protest against the mall-ification of Coney Island.  Literally.  Who knew protesters were so hot?

Dear New Jerslyweds,

Oh, you two!  So proud you must be.  You're in a state that actually has civil unions.  Totally unlike that New York City laughing stock, domestic partnership.  Granted the whole idea of New Jersey combined with Civil Union does sound kind of funny.  Totally not your fault and kudos to you for the whole "Garden State" experience.  But you know it will be an SNL skit, or maybe one of those digital shorts by that sorta-maybe cute Andy Samberg, unless of course, it already has been.  (I wouldn't know as I go out on Saturday nights, but you could TiVo it for me?) 

Word is that you registered at Slings 'n Things.  (Much better than your pals Helena and Mitzie's choice of TrueValue.  And let me just say that it's great that gays and lesbians are such good friends out there on the mainland.)  It was tough to pick something out, but I settled on the sterling silver cockring service for eight.

It's great that you are keeping both the Jersey City condo with its city views and the Asbury Park place to be on the water.  (Oops, sorry, was that supposed to be "down the shore"?  Which always makes me think of Dinah Shore, but whatever.)  I've been reading for years how those places are set to be the
'next big thing'.  Maybe now it will finally happen.  And those matching SUV's are priceless.

But to be really honest, I'm so much less excited by your union than I am by the prospects of your divorce.  Here in 'backwater' New York we just pay a fine fee and send a registered letter and poof, end of partnership.  In New Jersey, you'll have lawyers and a judge and all the fine trappings of proper Lifetime Logo movie of the week. 

Can you get a pre-nup?  Here's hoping not.  Because I totally want to be in the courtroom to hear lines like these:

• "But I brought the Phyllis Diller photo collection into the marriage, so I should be able to keep it now."
• "Sure, I fisted him, but I don't see how that constitutes cheating."
• "You can have Sae Dook, but baby Zaira stays with me. Asian babies are so last year anyway."

Granted it will be hard to choose one of you to sit behind in the proceeding, seeing as we've all slept together.

Anyway.  Con-gay-tulations and, um, rainbow blessings!  Let me know when you're in the city.  Or maybe I'll come visit you the next time I go to IKEA or Six Flags on gay day or somesuch.  Or maybe just let me know when you're in the city.

Kisses and shrugs,
MO

I [heart] Peter Berdovsky

 Until the day that the Joker comes walking out of the pages of Detective Comics, please don't be afraid of Lite Brites.

The next terrorist attack will not come in a brightly colored package.  It will not be festooned with a moon-man, flipping the bird. 

9/11: Never forget

Boom, boom, huh?

One block from my home last night, manholes were exploding, fire engines were wailing, Con Ed was working.  Oblivious to all of this and having finished my third beer of the night, it seemed like a good time to pick up the laundry.  Expecting a quick jaunt to "sweetheart", my laundry lady, instead there was a departure to an eerily quiet landscape with a crowd of 50 onlookers.

Half checking out the scene, half looking for people that I knew, and half looking for people that I might want to know I wandered over.  The big action had already passed and the denouement was rather dull.  Seeing no one from whom I would want to learn what had happened, I left not really knowing what the fuss was about, but secure in the fact that it wasn't going to affect me.

Onward to the laundry, my neighbor/friend Joshie (pronounced with a hard 'o' - it's foreign or something) appears.  Dragging him into the laundry with me, handbag-style, I get all of the details of the explosions, the curtailed subway trains, the fires and the blackouts.

"So much happens outside when you're inside, just drinking some Buds and luxuriating in your air conditioning,"  I tell him, garnering a warning from him that non-essential appliances should be curtailed.

"But air conditioning is kind of necessary, right?" I ask.

He answers, "Well, yeah, totally."

David Blaine brings out our potential

What is it about David Blaine that just brings out the inner hater?  Is it the Bambi-in-her-strung-out-years eyes?  Is it the mysteriousity and self-importance of any magician?  Or maybe it's the mere simplicity of what he does and his ability to create spectacle from the simplistic?  Could it be that we mere field workers are jealous that one of our own has been chosen to work up in the big house?

Regardless, the images of him of late bring me back to a simpler time.  Watching the sappy sweet John Travolta in the sappy sweet "Boy in the Plastic Bubble" evoked a demon at an early age.  It is with vidid recall that poor John's bubble-trouble brought not tears to my eyes, but a curiousity of what would happen if one attached a hose to the bubble and filled it with water.  (Bubblevolta had germ issues, so of course it would be distilled water).

So to answer the earlier questions, no, David Blaine doesn't make us bad people.  He just reminds us of our potential.

Breakfast burrito

• "Kill a gay for Allah".
• Rabbi pins bird flu on gay marriage.
• Too many links available on anti-gay Christians.
• "The Real Housewives of Orange County" debuts. 
• Bush not worried about apocalypse.