BREAKING NEWS: V.A. SCANDAL EDITION

As Americans took time to remember the sacrifices made by our armed forces throughout the years, controversy continued to swirl around the scandal involving the lack of care provided by the Veterans Administration. Not even the deaths of dozens of vets of the Iraq and Afghan wars seemed to move the major political parties to work together to bring this tragedy to an end.

Speaking to reporters before flying home for a bourbon-and-weenie roast in his hometown of Reading, Ohio, Rep. John Boehner told reporters, "Look, this is a perfect example of what happens when the government tries to get into the healthcare business. Sure, our brave men and women who have served in the military should receive the best in medical care. But why should the American taxpayer have to foot the bill? Our vets toured the world, received three square meals a day, room and board, and an education all for free during their military career. And got paid for it. Now they want free healthcare for life? And for their family, too? You've gotta be kidding me."

Meanwhile, Senate leader Harry Reid took a different tact. While preparing for a fundraising barbecue with casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, Reid said, "The reason why our brave warriors are in this fix is because of wars that were started by the previous administration. If they hadn't enlisted, they wouldn't have gotten themselves into this mess, and would be enjoying life instead of getting hooked to illegal drugs, becoming homeless, and committing suicide. Not a very good way to live, right? So my view is to keep things going just as they are. That way, at some point nobody's going to want join the military. And there's your answer. In fact, on this Memorial Day, we urge every American to greet a member of the armed forces with, 'Thank you for your service -- sucker!'"

                                                  ******************
 
 

MOVIE OF THE DAY: "TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL" (1935)

The idea of a tunnel running from England to the USA seems something of a fool's commute. The idea has actually been discussed from time to time, but Gaumont British Pictures got there in 1935 with the art-deco sci-fi epic Transatlantic Tunnel. If the Second Avenue Subway contains as much melodrama and intrigue as this movie -- marital problems,  blindness, double-crossing, murder, a disease called "tunnel sickness," underwater volcanoes -- those poor sandhogs are in for a hell of a time.

How many people were decapitated opening
the trunk?

It's a credit to the British filmmakers' honesty that the character behind the tunnel, Richard McAllen, is an American. Apparently, Brits weren't forward-thinking (or foolhardy) enough to come up with such an insane idea. As with all sci-fi movies, Transatlantic Tunnel takes place in the future -- that is, the 1940s and beyond. This allows the filmmakers to show off all kind of jim-dandy inventions, including television, wall-installed Skypes called televisors, trains and cars shaped like torpedoes, and private planes that resemble badly-made scones. Doesn't life today seem dull by comparison?

"How many times do I have to tell you? I'm on the
phone, not hiding behind the wall!"

None of these material things, of course, prevents human drama from taking its toll. Gossip rags hint that McAllen is having an affair with British debutante Varlia Lloyd. His wife Ruth, having gone blind working in the tunnel as a nurse, walks out on him, taking their son with her. McAllen's friendship with his associate, Robbie, is stretched almost to the breaking point. A couple of the moneymen financing the project plan to dump their shares, and, in the resulting panic, buy up the rest to control the whole thing. (One of the financiers is murdered when he backs out of the deal.) McAllen's son Geoffrey, now a young man, is killed in a tunnel explosion, joining hundreds of other fatalities that have already incurred. All this to prevent climate change from airplanes zooming over the Atlantic? No thanks, bub, I'll take my chances with the melting icebergs.

You'd think by then, they'd have invented
an iPhone instead of having to use
pencil and paper.

You may be wondering by now if the tunnel is even worth this heartache. The world leaders, deciding if they're willing to back the project, aren't so sure. When one declares the tunnel will provide only "useless employment," another says, "That's the kind they prefer." (Hey, how did Harry Reid get in here?)  But the overriding reason for the tunnel's construction, as repeated over and over, is to bring about world peace. But nobody ever explains how! They should have paid attention to the French representative, an arms manufacturer, who admits, "When your tunnel is built, all of the other nations will come to me for guns to blow it up." Merci, mon ami. (His line echoes a similar sentiment during an equally-cynical scene in The Man Who Reclaimed his Head.)

The wonderful world of alanite steel.

You may be wondering, too, just how a transatlantic tunnel can possibly be built. Well, I guess you weren't counting on radium drills and alanite steel. That's the cool thing about science-fiction -- if something is impossible, just make up stuff to defy it. Another side-effect of living in the future, by Transatlantic Tunnel's sights, is that apparently nobody ages over time except McAllen's son -- and he's killed on his first day on the job. That'll teach you non-aging little whippersnapper!

Richard Dix and Leslie Banks discover just
how hot it can get drilling through a
volcano.

Richard Dix, nearing the end of his leading-man days, was probably hired to play Richard McAllen because he looks and sounded to Brits like the typical American -- part genius, part caveman, not quite handsome but someone who can fill out a tux.  British actor Leslie Banks -- perhaps best known for the original UK version of The Man who Knew Too Much -- plays McAllen's friend Robbie with his usual flair, even as he spends most of the time with his

Even this UK promotional card
for the movie kept Leslie Banks
in right profile.

right profile to the camera, the left side having been paralyzed during service in World War I. (I bet you thought I was going to make a crack about him being a two-faced actor. Never.) George Arliss and Walter Huston -- "classy" actors from the UK and US -- make guest appearances as the British Prime Minister and American President respectively. Arliss fans will be happy to know that he continues his time-honored technique of dramatically pointing his finger in the air while giving speeches. Why doesn't anybody do this anymore?

My wife would love this staring down at her
in the living room every day.

A fascinating film, Transatlantic Tunnel wouldn't appeal today to the average movie fan, if only because its soft, faded image and occasionally muffled audio cry out for a restoration that is unlikely to come. Yet some of its "farfetched" ideas have already come true. McAllen, we learn early on, has already built the English Channel tunnel, although his other tunnel, linking the Bahamas to Miami, remains unrealized, to the grateful thanks of the anti-immigration crowd.

 Transatlantic Tunnel is actually a remake of the German movie Der Tunnel, and one from France entitled -- you'll never guess -- Le Tunnel. In England, it seems to have premiered as -- hold on to your hats -- The Tunnel before taking on its final title in America. The release in Spain, as El Tunel Transatlantico, also provided its most bizarre poster, one I would use my kid's college savings to purchase. I'd say it's worth its weight in alanite steel. 

                                                 *****************

Richard Dix didn't always play such noble characters, as he proved quite well in The Ghost Ship.

Can't get enough of profiteering world leaders dragging their nations into war?  Read about The Man Who Reclaimed His Head.

MOSCOW, 10028

Why didn't they think of carrying a helium
Hitler balloon?

My neighborhood, Yorkville, is located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Wikipedia designates it as running from 79th to 96th Streets, between Third Avenue and the East River (which really isn't a river, but the East Tidal Strait doesn't sound as romantic). 

Yorkville was primarily German for a century or so. During the first half of the 20th-century, it was known for restaurants, beer halls, and the headquarters of the pro-Nazi German American Bund. Enjoying a good parade like anyone else, the Bund marched down East 86th Street on October 30, 1939, roughly a month after war broke out in Europe. (If you enlarge the accompanying photo enough, you can see onlookers heiling from their open windows. Howdy, neighbor!) 

Ain't that a kick in the liver?

By the time I moved uptown in 1983, the swastikas were long gone, but enough businesses, like diners and pastry shops, helped evoke a time far removed. Since then, the German influence has declined even further, left only to some churches and one restaurant, the Heidelberg, which has been open continuously since 1936, and is home to a boot-shaped stein designed to hold a half gallon of beer. (No wonder Germany lost two world wars; the troops must have been dragging themselves to the front lines.)

A couple blocks west of our apartment is a church which, during the summer, runs German movies from the '30s and '40s, for those, presumably, who miss the good old days when Josef Goebbels was the Harvey Weinstein of the Fatherland.

But these are the remnants of a Yorkville that live more in people's memories than reality. Another group of people are moving in, and not just the hipsters I wrote about a while back. Over the last decade, we've become the home for Eastern Europeans. To my paranoid ears, however, they sound like Russians taking over the area -- part of Putin's plan to control America, one overpriced neighborhood at a time.

And moved to a nice neighborhood!

Everywhere I walk around here, I hear the low, muffled tones of a foreign language that sounds like every 1950s anti-Soviet propaganda movie I've ever seen. Cashiers, nannies, couples strolling with their children -- it's like living in a real-life episode of the FX series The Americans, where the family next door is really a cadre of Russian spies -- only they're not even trying to acclimate to their surroundings. It's almost like they want us to know that pretty soon my ATM is going to start spouting rubles, and that every pizza joint is going to be turned into a borscht palace.

"Hello, handsome. Want
a taste of my blini?"

Our corner grocery store is staffed by Russians, mostly women, who listen to American rap music. (Somehow, every time I go in there, they're playing "Love the Way You Lie" by Eminem and Rihanna. Appropriate, no?) Many of the women are there for a few months, then suddenly replaced by another group, as if their Fearless Leader is shuffling them around from store to store in order for them to pick up as much information as possible.

And we're not talking about those babushkas you see shuffling around with a sack of potatoes (and, come to think of it, look like a sack of potatoes). No, these women are young, pretty, with clear skin and wearing the latest fashions -- perfect for seducing the local sandhogs for top-secret information on the construction of the Second Avenue Subway. 

"And gimme one
of those Pick 10
games."

The Ukrainians aren't having such a hot time these days, but at least they can tell that the guys running around in tanks and polishing their Kalashnikovs aren't to be trusted. The people I run into on my daily travels look like anyone else on the Upper East Side, blending in with the ease of John Boehner at a sunbed dealers convention. I expect to wake up one sizzling summer morning to see ol' Vladimir himself, strolling shirtless to the семь-одиннадцать (formerly known as 7-11) for a copy of the New York Pravda. Guess I better reserve my corner table at the Russian Tea Room pretty soon, comrade. 

                                                ************ 

The hipsters are coming, the hipsters are coming (to the Upper East Side)! Click here to find out why.

BREAKING NEWS: BAHAMAS EDITION

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney answered questions regarding the NSA recording every cell phone call made in the Bahamas, as reported by investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald.

"Look, there's a very simple explanation for this," Carney told Brad Lanes of the Washington Post. "Michelle and the girls were planning a vacation, and were thinking about going to the Atlantis Paradise Resort. You've seen the commercials, right? Water slides, the aquarium with the mermaid, swimming with dolphins. Looks really nice on TV, but how much of that is the real deal? We could have read the online reviews, but who knows how many of those were written by the hotel staff, right? So we thought, well, why not get it straight from the horse's mouth?"

When asked to clarify what he meant by "horse's mouth," Carney replied, "The people who work there. We figured they'd have the lowdown, and would talk freely among themselves."

"But," asked Lanes, "why did you feel it necessary to tap everybody's cell phones?"

"Becauuusssee," Carney sighed wearily, "we have no way of knowing which Bahamians worked there, so everyone was suspect. And while we were listening for reviews, we got some intel on somebody selling a few decks of ganja. There was no turning back from there." 

When asked if the White House could have simply asked the Atlantis for a list of its employees, Carney chortled, "Shows how much you know. We have no right to ask for that information. Now, I suppose we could have hacked into the Atlantis computer system, but that would have been illegal."

"And hacking into their cell phones isn't?" Lanes asked.

"Look, Brad, I'm not a lawyer," said Carney, becoming irritated. "If I were, I wouldn't be talking to you guys. And gals," he added hastily. "Don't get me mixed up with that Sulzberger guy in New York."

Before calling a halt to the questioning, Mindy Martin of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wanted to know why the White House found about the recent Veterans Administration scandal through the press. " That reminds me," Carney said, "I gotta hand it to you; the press is doing a fantastic job digging up these problems. I don't know what we'd do without you. Keep up the good work. I wish we were half as good as you guys. And gals."

                                              ************************

MOVIE OF THE DAY: "GREEN LIGHT" (1937)

One of the more irritating bromides of our time is "Everything happens for a reason." This is spoken by people who would otherwise find it impossible to accept the unfair, awful, horrendous events that happen to them or the world in general; a deliberate denial of reality in order to prevent a swan dive off the nearest bridge. It's also the basis of Green Light, Errol Flynn's third starring American movie, and the first that didn't involve buckles being swashed.

Flynn plays Dr. Newell Paige -- only in movies (and the forgotten books they're based upon) do sawbones have names like Newell Paige -- who willingly takes the fall for Dr. Endicott, an older surgeon, when a patient dies during an operation. So you know this is definitely a work of fiction, right? 

"I love you too, baby. Let's just
keep your mother out of it."

The unfortunate patient's daughter, Phyllis Dexter, falls in love with Paige until he she finds out that he's supposedly the guy who killed her mother. Some offspring might thank such a guy, but apparently she grew up in a normal family. Deciding that it's time to find a more noble calling, Paige joins a former colleague in Montana in trying to find a cure for spotted fever, where he puts his life at risk by allowing himself to be bitten by a poisonous tic in order to test a new serum. As if just moving to Montana isn't sacrifice enough.

While Flynn pays close attention, director Borzage
demonstrates how to ask a dying patient for her
group number.

All this would be pure soap opera -- is pure soap opera -- but director Frank Borzage, a master at enveloping such stories with a mystical glow, keeps the suds percolating at a low simmer. He apparently ran through several pounds of gauze for the camera lens, for nearly every shot appears to be taking place in a romantic dream. Flynn's first appearance in particular must have set women's hearts swooning, seeing that he is unearthly handsome and ungodly charismatic. (My
wife was immune to his charms in Green Light, sensing the predator underneath.  I'm better at hiding that kind of thing.)

He's got a 104-fever -- let the guy rest, for
Chrissakes!

Borzage's touch never falters, even as Dr. Paige comes down with spotted fever. While he lies in bed for a week, his fever rising and respiratory condition worsening, Paige's face glistens with near-holy perspiration. His hair remains in place, complete with a boyish curl on his forehead. Not a hint of stubble grows on his face.  Damn, why don't I look this good when I've a 104-degree fever? In no time, Phyllis and seemingly half Paige's former hospital staff are at his bedside, leaving one to wonder who's running the show back home. 

It won't surprise you to learn that everything works out in the end. Phyllis learns through Endicott himself that Paige had nothing to do with her mother's death. When Paige recovers, he and Phyllis get the hell out of Dodge, and, instead hopping into the nearest sack, go to church. You gotta be kidding me.

Dean Harcourt consoles Phyllis over her
mother and that hideous hat.

In keeping with Green Light's spirituality, Sir Cedric Hardwicke plays Dean Harcourt, the story's God stand-in, a theologian whose weekly radio broadcasts provided great comfort for Phyllis' mother. He also winds up being the go-to guy for all the main characters, his gentle philosophical advice boiling down to, "Don't ask, don't tell. Now go home and think about it." He's also what we used to call back in the day a cripple, and, like all cripples in old movies, is more psychologically-whole than anyone else. Even if he is, like I said, a cripple.

And she looks better in profile than either
of them.

By my wife's contention, the best performance was given by Green Light's other God stand-in, Sylvia, Dr. Paige's Irish Setter. Showing more emotion than Paige's love interest, Phyllis (played by Anita Louise), Sylvia takes direction better, and possesses nicer hair to boot. She's also the only one in the movie who gives Flynn a run for his money in the looks department. By the end of the movie, you'll believe a dog can look soulful on cue.

I collect movie posters from the U.S., but I'd make
an exception for this bizarre French one-sheet.

Being something of a sucker for both Errol Flynn and old movies with a spiritual bent, I admit to enjoying Green Light more than most audiences today probably would. As with Keeper of the Bees, made two years earlier, there's a certain delicacy afoot that doesn't fly in today's cynical times. 

It's also a chance to see the 27 year-old Flynn in one of his rare, low-key, modern-dress roles, proving that there was more to him just pirates, swordsmen and cowboys. He may be fully aware of his seductive qualities, but that makes guys like me enjoy him all the more. Flynn is everything we'd like to think we are, only we know we never will be. When he's almost dying in Green Light, he not only looks like a saint, he consoles everyone around him with a debonair accent. I can't even catch a cold without collapsing on the couch and moaning like an asthmatic ghost. I don't think my wife would mind if I had a little of Flynn's charm.

                                                 ***********************
To read about the equally-unusual Keeper of the Bees, go here.

Green Light's original preview. It's an "x-ray of unquestioning love." Today, it would be an MRI:

THE VIRTUAL GOOD LIFE

Free range chickens are the new Kobe hot dogs. In fact, many people refuse to eat their coq au vin if it didn't enjoy a little leg room first. But... if a free range chicken falls in a virtual barnyard, does anybody taste the difference? That's an existential question we all might have to grapple with one day, as the New York Post reports:

An assistant professor at Iowa State University is using an Oculus Rift headset to design a free-range, virtual-reality world for factory-farmed chickens, tricking them into thinking they are no longer stuck in tiny cages.

Austin Stewart calls “The Matrix”-like poultry project Second Livestock, riffing off the once-popular online game Second Life, according to Modern Farmer.

Stewart, who has been working on the project since 2012, admits the idea sounds far-out and that he’s unsure whether it can even be tested on chickens without harming them, the trade publication reported. But he thinks the idea will at least spur a discussion in agriculture circles about factory farming practices.

Man, that looks like fun.

Oculus Rift, for the uninitiated, is, according to Wikipedia, "a virtual reality head-mounted display" for those who find real reality a little too much to take (which, considering the world's alcohol and drug intake, probably includes just about everybody). Although, frankly, no self-respecting chicken would want to look like the  zombies wearing today's Oculus Rift headsets, which resemble underwater face masks from a 19th-century Jules Verne novel. 

Roosters were much cooler
50 years ago.

On the other hand, I think the chickens would go for it if they could wear goggles that made them look like Banty Rooster, who made only one movie appearance in the 1963 Loony Tunes Banty Raid before presumably winding up on Jack Warner's dinner plate shortly thereafter. 

And they'd provide dinner!

And yet, maybe those Oculus Rift-wearing geeks are onto something. I mean, why should chickens have all the fun? There are plenty of New Yorkers living in cramped environs who would love strapping on these headsets and pretend they were living in a 3BR, 1 1/2 bath w/fp, Upper West Side condo overlooking Central Park. Personally, I could go for living in a virtual 1931 Hollywood bungalow with avocado trees in the back yard, a Duesenberg Torpedo Phaeton in the garage, and my wife preparing drinks for our good friends John Barrymore and Dolores Costello after they've gone iguana hunting. I'd pay extra if it could be in black & white.

Foghorn Leghorn on the verge
of chicken hawk abuse.

The free-range cultists folks should look at the situation from the chicken's point of view. A fowl who's cooped up all day might welcome meeting its fate at a SoHo bistro, while one who's living the life of Foghorn Leghorn (minus arguing with fellow barnyard denizens) would find it difficult to accept the idea of a slaughterhouse at the end of the trail. 

But as for wondering if outfitting chickens with headsets is possible "without harming them" -- I think the act of stretching their necks so a sharpened blade can behead them puts that particular concern to bed pretty quickly.

                                                    ******************

BREAKING NEWS: JILL ABRAMSON EDITION

Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the New York Times, reacted strongly to reports that he had dismissed executive editor Jill Abramson when she demanded pay equity with her predecessor, Bill Keller.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," Sulzberger told reporters over drinks at Charley O's in Times Square. "There were several issues with Jill. For instance, during a routine drug test with our employees, we discovered that she had a different chromosome structure from most of the editorial board. That in itself should have set off alarms, but we decided to let it slide. I mean, we have several employees who share her identical chromosome structure -- we're an equal opportunity employer, remember -- but none in such an important position."

Ordering a second round of buffalo chicken wings (mild with extra blue cheese "to cool the palate," he chuckled), Sulzberger continued, "Over time, however, other disputes made themselves known. For instance, as with many of our employees who share her chromosomes, we noticed that Jill's bathroom breaks tended to be longer than the rest of ours. There was some concern that this would make it difficult for her to react to fast-breaking stories. I don't know what the problem was. The rest of us are in and out of there in no time."

Asked about Abramson's alleged "polarizing and mercurial" style with others at the Times, Sulzberger nodded. "That was another thing," he admitted, wiping barbecue sauce from his chin. "We expect that kind of thing from men -- hell, Keller could mop the floor with you and wring you out before you knew what hit you -- but with Jill... Again, it's a chromosome thing. We thought she could control it -- be a little more passive in dealing with the staff, and especially me -- but you can't fight science, try as you might." Sulzberger looked in the distance a moment before saying, "We wanted Jill to be more nurturing than she was capable of." When asked if that could be considered a sexist remark, Sulzberger strongly disagreed. "Don't lump me in with those science-deniers."

A moment later, Sulzberger appeared to cheer up. "We're thrilled to have Dean righting the ship," he said, referring Abramson's replacement, Dean Baquet. "Not only does he look like Colin Powell, he's got the kind of skills to make the New York Times the powerhouse symbol of journalism for the 21st-century. His chromosome structure meshes with the majority of the staff. He's expected to be aggressive, so no one's going to get upset when he blows his stack for no good reason. And best of all, he doesn't dither in the bathroom. I predict that Dean's going to be executive editor for a long, long time." 

As Sulzberger paid the bill, a reporter asked about reports, repeated on several media outlets, that Abramson was "pushy." "I would never use that word," he replied, shaking his head violently. "I would say Jill was... shrill. No, strike that. Brusque. Yes, that's what she was. Brusque. That's a better word."

                                                  ******************

WHAT'S IN YOUR HANDCUFFS?

There are certain things you can count on when living in New York: sticky summers, potholes in the winter, and Alec Baldwin acting deranged all year 'round. CNN reports on the Prince of Players' latest outburst: 

Actor Alec Baldwin was arrested Tuesday and issued two summonses -- one for disorderly conduct -- after riding a bicycle the wrong way on a New York street, police said.

 The "30 Rock" star allegedly became angry and started yelling at police after they asked him for identification to give him a summons, police said. The other summons was for riding a bike against the flow of traffic. Baldwin is to appear in court July 24.

"Police stated that he got belligerent and started arguing with them and using profanity," Deputy Chief Kim Y. Royster said. The actor reportedly became angry at the officers, yelling "Give me the summons already," a law enforcement official said. [...] Once in custody, Baldwin was taken to a nearby precinct, where he reportedly asked the desk supervisor: "How old are these officers, that they don't know who I am?" according to a law enforcement official.

 

Alec Baldwin: actor,
credit card shill, perp. (Even a
passing truck approves his
arrest.)

You read right, bub -- the man who simply loathes being a celebrity pulled the "Don't you know who I am" card. Yeah, you're the guy who encouraged people to stack up a pile of debt under the guise of getting 1% back by asking, "What's in your wallet?" (For the record, my answer is "two fives and three singles.")

But Baldwin wasn't finished. In the 21st-century version of storming the castle, he strapped on his iPhone and took to Twitter: "New York City is a mismanaged carnival of stupidity that is desperate for revenue and anxious to criminalize behavior once thought benign." Well, Alec, you might want to blame Mayor Bill de Blasio, the man you slobbered over on your blink-or-you'll-miss-it talk show last year. After all, you wanted him ringmaster of this "mismanaged carnival." Oh, and riding a bike against traffic in New York is illegal.

In the 33 years I've lived in New York, I've seen dozens of celebrities walking around the city. Artists (Andy Warhol, Peter Max), dancers (Gregory Hines, Mikhail Baryshnikov), musicians (Paul McCartney, Madonna), TV stars (David Caruso, Richard Beltzer), A-listers (Robert de Niro, Dustin Hoffman), legends (Greta Garbo, Jackie Onassis), the infamous (Johnny Rotten, Woody Allen), B-listers (Kelly Ripa, the guy from House. Not Hugh Laurie; the other guy), and everyone else in between. For a while, I couldn't walk out of my former workplace without running into Regis Philbin. Lord knows I tried, though.

Nicole Kidman learns the power of
the press the hard way.

What these disparate groups of people have in common is that none of them did anything to attract negative attention to themselves. Whether New Yorkers are cool or only pretend to be, they tend to leave celebrities alone. Even paparazzi by and large keep a fairly respectable distance from their targets, save for the knucklehead who knocked over Nicole Kidman with his bicycle. And he was probably one of Tom Cruise's assistants trying to teach her a lesson.

If only.

So what is it about Alec Baldwin, the human flypaper of negativity, that attracts endless emotional, physical, and psychological drama? It doesn't take a Josef Breuer to come with a diagnosis. Baldwin thrives on confrontation in order to stoke his anger, justifying his belief that he's right and everyone else outside of Tina Fey and Lorne Michaels is wrong about, well, just about everything. And the minute things don't go his way, he loudly announces, like anyone cares, he's taking a hike for good.

This is the guy who's threatened to leave America (because of Republicans) more times than a guy with unlimited travel miles on his Capital One card. He said he'd quit his MSNBC show, only to stick around until he was fired. Just recently, he wrote a self-pitying screed for New York magazine promising to quit show business and move to a gated community in Beverly Hills in order to escape the hated press. He even swore to delete his Twitter account. Has this guy ever seen a promise he wouldn't break?

Like the philodendron or the snake plant, Alec Baldwin thrives on treatment that would kill most other living things. Only instead of blooming without sunlight or regular watering, he positively thrives on confrontations with things he hates: New York, showbiz, the press, photographers, columnists, social media, co-stars, mankind in general -- even his daughter, whom he affably called "a rude, thoughtless, little pig." Baldwin's life is defined by not by his work, really, but chaos.

So what fuels Baldwin's anger? I vote for self-loathing. He's a "tough guy" in a profession where one wears make-up and dresses up in costumes -- you know, like a little girl at a tea party. To his thinking, I'd wager, acting isn't a "manly" profession. What else can explain this proud, outspoken liberal hurling homophobic slurs at people who get on his wrong side? Or, hey, maybe he just hates gays. I mean, if Donald Sterling tossed around words like "faggot" and "little queen" the way Baldwin's been known to, what would you think?

When it comes to celebrities like Alec Baldwin, Shakespeare is proven wrong. The fault lies not in ourselves, but in the stars. If he finally keeps his promise to disappear from view, he will have earned the greatest response an audience can provide:

                                

   ******************

A REAL PAIN

Science has finally made the breakthrough the world has been waiting for. A cure for cancer or the common cold? Allowing paralyzed people to walk again? A vaccination for AIDS?

No, better than those, and then some. A device has been developed that makes men experience the pain of childbirth.  And not only that, it's been used on a television show in Denmark. You heard right: deliberately inflicting pain on men is now considered entertainment. Somehow, I bet the Code Pink crowd that loudly protested the "enhanced interrogation techniques" performed on suspected terrorists will cheer, applaud, and huzzah this brand of torture. Well, that's what you get for helping your wife get pregnant like she wanted to. Brother, you can't win.

Just to make things fair, I think there's a type of pain exclusive to men that women should experience, just so they know what it's like. This kind of conversation should sound familiar:

WIFE: What restaurant do you want to go, Cilantro or Cavatoppo?
HUSBAND: Oh, I don't care, it's up to you.
WIFE: No, really, which one?
HUSBAND: Honestly, it doesn't matter.
WIFE: Really, you decide.
HUSBAND: Alright. I'd like to go Cavatoppo.
WIFE: (pause) I'd rather go to Cilantro.
HUSBAND: So why did you ask me?
WIFE: I wanted your opinion.

This isn't exclusive to restaurants, by the way. Breakfast cereals, where the houseplant should go, what street you're going to bike on -- anything that requires a definite if ultimately negligible decision, ours is supposedly the deciding choice. Then, from out of nowhere, a missing ballot is discovered, completely negating our vote. 

Ladies, what is it with your bogus charitable feeling toward us? Do you feel selfish making such a simple decision? Let me give you a tip. Men are incredibly simple. Like 0 + 0 = 0 simple. Our demands are few, perhaps embarrassingly so. Cold beer, high-speed internet, cable TV -- we've hit the jackpot! When we say, "I don't care," we really, really, mean it. We. Don't. Care. You're not doing us any favors by making us feel we have a say in matters that don't involve a question any more complicated than "Pepperoni or mushrooms?" 

You might experience childbirth once, twice, maybe three times in your life. We go through the agony of this bait & switch for the entirety of the marriage. So if you're going to do it, at least provide us with an epidural first. That is, if that's what you wanted to do in the first place.

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FOREVER AND A DAY

The Drudge Report is the place to go when you want to confirm that life isn't worth living anymore. Just glance at a few recent headlines:

•  Man demands right to wed computer!
• Dem lawmaker demands foodstamps for guns
• Students post ad for hit man to avoid taking finals 
• 58 Million Working-Age People Not Working
• Why psychopaths are 'more successful in life
• Rise of machines that read minds
• Man kept mother's dead body in a freezer for 3 years
• SURVEY: 68% of Americans would put themselves at risk to retrieve stolen phone 

Now ask yourself: Shouldn't I have volunteered for that one-way flight to Mars  that Dutch guy is planning? Sure, it doesn't leave until 2023, but that's only nine more years to live in this worldwide insane asylum. The only problem is that you won't be alone in the spaceship. But it couldn't be any worse than what you have to put up with now. 

And yet, here comes British biologist Aubrey de Grey, who believes it's possible for humans to live anywhere from 1,000 years to forever with the kind of servicing you would provide for your car. (Any of you hankering for a lube job?) No special diet for de Grey; it's all science-based. Just pony up some serious bucks to his lab, Strategically Engineered Negligible Senescence Research Foundation, and one day you'll need a birthday cake the size of a Mayflower moving van to hold the candles.

Mr. de Grey is 51 but claims to look a good 15 years younger. But as far as I'm concerned, a guy who resembles either Charles Manson or Rasputin depending on his mood is not someone I'm interested in listening to. First impressions are pretty important, after all. I'd believe that the earth was made of chocolate-flavored Junket if Bill Nye the Science Guy said so. Then I'd eat it and like it, just to prove him right. Mr. de Grey? I wouldn't believe him if he told me Bill de Blasio was mayor of New York. (I don't believe it anyway, so I guess that isn't fair.)

Wikipedia has an interesting page featuring a list of people who supposedly lived past the age of 130, which probably wouldn't impress de Grey. Even Methuselah died at 969, several years short of the millennium goal. That's what you get for living in Biblical times, before the kinds of scientific breakthroughs de Grey is researching. But the question isn't How can we live that long, but Should we? A brief look through the post-Biblical era on that Wikipedia list reveals the answer.  

Pierre Defournel, for example, became a father in three different centuries, having his final child at the age of 121. My God! It was exhausting enough raising my daughter when I was in my 40s. Who the hell wants to go through that in your 120s? And what kind of woman of childbearing age wants to... well, you know where this is going. On the other hand, I no longer feel so bad for being older than any of my daughter's friends' fathers. And unlike me, Defournel cruelly died (at age 129) long before his youngest graduated high  school. Although, technically, I could still croak before the ceremony next month.

Then there's Peter Czartan of Hungary, who is said to have lived 184 years. (There's a guy who could singlehandedly break the Social Security bank.) I did a little research to find a tidbit regarding the last time he was seen alive: His eyes were exceedingly red, but he still enjoyed a little sight; the hair of his head and beard were greenish white like mouldy bread; and some of his teeth were still remaining. Let me tell you, if I get to the point when my hair looks like fungus, it's headfirst into the East River for me.

A Hungarian couple John and Sarah (no last names) were married 148 years -- and I bet you a hundred bucks she still wasn't laughing at his jokes. I have no idea what you would give a couple celebrating their 148th anniversary -- the Gemology site thoughtlessly goes only to 80 years -- but I'm thinking by that time plutonium might be in order. 

Probably the best one is Henry Jenkins from Scotland, who, at age 164, was required to give testimony in court about a crime that happened 140 years earlier. Talk about the wheels of justice grinding slowly! I couldn't even tell you what I did 20 minutes ago. Perry Mason would have made mincemeat of this poor guy. Come now, Mr. Jenkins, do you expect this court to believe that you don't remember what happened on the date of May 27, 1525? That was less than a century-and-a-half ago! 

Does an exceedingly long life seem so appealing anymore? Having kids, sporting green hair, forgetting another anniversary, testifying in court, all when you're older than the tree in the town square? Perhaps Aubrey de Grey might find something fun to do for several centuries -- he inherited $16-million from his mother after all. But as I look over my IRA, which is held hostage to the whims of Wall Street, it seems that I might not have the kind of scratch to last me into my 70s, let alone 5,000s. More to the point, I think my wife and daughter have had enough of my jokes to last a normal lifetime.

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In an earlier post, I wrote about how baby-boomers already seem to be living forever. You can read about it here.

BREAKING NEWS: OFFICE DEPOT EDITION

(Click on the highlights for the details.)

Washington reacted to the news that shares of Office Depot rose by 20% after announcing the closing of at least 400 of its stores over the next two years. The move came on the heels of Office Depot acquiring rival OfficeMax, which will close 19 of its Canadian stores.

"This is good news for the small investor," Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters. "The more stores Office Depot closes, the better the profit for everybody involved. Even those workers who lost their jobs will see an uptick in their portfolio -- that is, if they held shares in Office Depot. That's why it's important for workers to invest in the companies where they work. You never know when you're going to be kicked to the curb, so it's good to have a cushion to land on." When asked about OfficeMax's Canadian stores, Boehner shrugged. "They're socialists, let the government take care of 'em. What I care about is American businesses like Office Depot, and their growth potential. The more stores they close, the more they can open. It's not rocket science, you know."

Senate leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), on the other hand, thought this was a good time for Congress to seriously discuss his latest revenue-growth plan. "It's become clear that more and more people are using computers and those laptop-things instead of pencils and paper, forcing these stores out of business. So I feel it's time for the NSA to wire every household in order to tax keystrokes. Bloggers and people who send emails and kids doing homework have gotten away with murder for years. Now it's time for them to pay up." When reporters noted that businesses like Apple and Microsoft haven't paid their fair share in corporate taxes thanks to Congressional-approved loopholes, Reid said, "They create jobs. Bloggers don't. End of story."

President Barack Obama was asked how the Office Depot closings skews with the administration's latest positive unemployment report -- which the Center for Economic and Policy Research states is entirely due to over 800,000 discouraged workers giving up looking for jobs. "Look, these numbers -- they're just a distraction." When asked what they were a distraction to, Mr. Obama replied, "To the fact that unemployment rose by only 73,000 households last quarter. Could be worse, right? I mean, did you look at last month's numbers from the Bureau of Labor? Eighty per-cent of America's households have at least one unemployed family member. That means only 20% -- just one-fifth -- of our country is unemployed. Just about sixty-three million people out of a country with a population of over 300-million. Doesn't seem so bad now, right? Now, Fox News can spin those numbers all they want, but those are the facts, pure and simple. Remember what I told you before, we hit singles and doubles, to hell with homeruns? Same thing with unemployment. Whoever heard of 100% of the workforce actually working?"

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