BULLSHIRT

If you're anything like me, you're likely uninterested in someone's laundry skills. But stick with me, because there's a larger point I'm going to make.

When retrieving clothes from the dryer, I try to remember to bring hangers for the shirts -- the operative word being "try". When that fails, I drape the shirts on one arm while carrying the laundry bag in the opposing hand. 

Upon returning to the apartment, I gently lay the shirts on the bed. Sometimes, there might be a t-shirt underneath. Kind of like this:

If only I had taken a second look at my otherwise routine household chores, I could have created the latest fashion craze: T-Shirt Shirt:

Take a good look at the model's expression. He couldn't be more insulted than if he was the recipient of one of Roseanne Barr's "apologies". Pray for the gentleman that he got paid more than the price of the T-Shirt Shirt itself-- which is $1,290.

Let me spell that out. One thousand-two hundred-ninety dollars for two shirts sewn together. And not just any two shirts, but shirts that look like the Kirkland brand sold at Costco. Which together would blow the bank at roughly 50 bucks.

There are some clothes that can't be fully appreciated unless seen from all sides. Maybe -- just maybe -- the T-Shirt Shirt is one of them. You tell me:

Welp -- from the rear, it looks like a guy in a t-shirt. From the side, it could pass for a bib worn by an extraordinarily sloppy eater. And since he appears to be wearing the same designer's $850 boot-cut jeans, said eater should wear another pair of pants over them.

A year ago, I wrote a piece about similar stupid "fashions" including a pair of $425 jeans that look like they were smeared with elephant dung, and clear plastic pants going for a crisp C-note. But while those sartorial absurdities were from the decidedly second-tier Nordstrom's and Topshop respectively, the T-Shirt Shirt is manufactured (with a straight face) by Balenciaga, described by Wikipedia as "a luxury fashion house founded in Spain by Cristobal Balenciaga," who had a "reputation as a couturier of uncompromising standards and was referred to as 'the master of us all' by Christian Dior".  

Y'know, when I see "master" in a sentence, it's usually followed by "slave". And you can bet that there will be plenty of people with money to burn --  or destroy, blow up, castrate, you name it -- in order to slavishly wear items like the T-Shirt Shirt in order to be the hautest in haute couture. 

If only he was the
designer.

But to be fair, Cristobal Balenciaga himself isn't to be blamed for this tripe. He closed the original company 50 years ago; it was revived by Jacques Bogart (no relation to Humphrey) in 1986. Perhaps Cristobal knew what was coming, and wanted to be out of the picture for a few decades.

When I saw the miniseries The Assassination of Gianni Versace earlier this year, I could recognize he was responsible for genuine fashion, even if it wasn't up my alley. He thought about what he was designing. But what Balenciaga and others are doing seem to be the result of a game of darts run amok. 

The first dartboard features images of various clothing items. The second features words like "mud" and "plastic", with the occasional "surprise" you read only when opening an envelope (that's where the "second shirt" comes in). The third has a dozen or so outrageous prices, none lower than $750.

Have designers, then, simply run out of ideas -- or are they laughing their haute couture heads off as they decide how stupid the public can get? All I'm asking is that one of them wears the T-Shirt Shirt in public. Hey, they can even get the employee discount for the pleasure.

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WEINSTEIN STAIN

Whatsamatter, Hav, you lose something? Oh yeah,
your career!

As Harvey Weinstein was led on his perp waddle last week, I could almost see the spirits of his forebears -- Darryl F. Zanuck, Louis B. Mayer, Harry Cohn, and Jack Warner -- shaking their heads in disappointment. Schmuck, why'd you have to give us such a bad name?

I can't remember the last time people took such great satisfaction in seeing a guy getting the cuffs slapped on him. Had I known it was going to happen that morning, I'd have gone down there myself just to yell, "Hey Harvey, you fat bastard, you're going to be someone's bitch soon!"

The Godfatso.

Yet even better than the news video was Jane Rosenberg's courtroom sketch, which managed to capture the very essence of Weinstein better than any digital camera. No longer was this the powerful movie mogul responsible for 81 Academy Awards over 26 years. Instead, he was a homely, bloated, badly-dressed Mafia don-wannabe wondering why his mouthpiece allowed things to get this far.

Said mouthpiece, Benjamin Brafman, clearly knew what he was up against. But even those leagle fleagles you see in old Warner Brothers movies try to polish things up by dropping phrases like "habeas corpus". The best Brafman could pull out of his bag of tricks was, "Mr. Weinstein did not invent the casting couch in Hollywood."

And I thought the "Twinkie defense" was a work of genius! What Brafman did in those 10 simple words was update a child's whiney defense after throwing a rock through a neighbor's window: Darryl did it first! Think of the different ways Brafman's strategy could have been used in the past:

"Your honor, my client, Lee Harvey Oswald, did not invent political assassinations in Washington."

"Your honor, my client, Osama bin-Laden, did not invent terrorism in the U.S."

"Your honor, my client, Kevin Spacey, did not invent child molestation in New York." (Wait, maybe he did try that one.)

Still better was the rush of admissions of cluelessness from people in the movie industry. Celebrities who could never wait to share their personal pieces of wisdom were suddenly doing their best Butterfly McQueen impression: I don't know nothin' 'bout Harvey rapin' starlets.

Other than missiles.

Question to anyone who ever worked in an office situation: Was there any "secret" you weren't privy to at one time or another over the course of your career? Maybe at GE progress was their most important product. But as for every other company, it has been and always will be gossip, which is the truth that the boss doesn't want you to know.

Show business is one big office, with gossip spoken louder and faster than any Quentin Tarantino dialogue. Celebrities' proud willful ignorance in l'affaire Harvey is more likely a case of implausible deniability:

"Hey, did you hear what Harvey Wein--"

"GODDAMMIT, DON'T TELL ME!"

A regular Don Juan.

It's what I always have to explain to chaste movie fans who are stunned that their heroes are actually monstrously human: These people are paid to act, remember? 

And that explains everything regarding Harvey Weinstein. He knew their jobs, paychecks, Oscars, and Golden Globes depended on their silence -- even if they never worked for him. 

Yes, it's a dirty business, filled with people ready to compromise whatever soul they have left in order to keep getting paid $30-million to wear make-up, costumes, and speak someone else's words.  And I know what my response would have been if I were in their place: 

GODDAMMIT, DON'T TELL ME!

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ROYAL GELATIN

The man who would never be king with the woman who
would never be queen.

For the last several months, American news programs tried unceasingly to get you to care that a divorced American actress you never heard of, who was the co-star of a TV series you never watched, that was on a cable network you couldn't find, was getting married to a member of the world's richest welfare family. It's a fairytale romance!

Professional journalism at its finest.

It didn't matter what network you watched. Come the day of the wedding, the news anchors and reporters followed the same script. Opening the broadcast with faux-British accents; wearing goofy hats even though none of them were invited to the ceremony; and interviewing royal-obsessed American tourists who apparently missed history class the day that the Revolution was taught.

If you flipped between networks, you might have noticed that all the anchors were women. This was because the news producers knew all too well that straight males not only didn't care about this event, they would openly mock the whole spectacle before the show was over. Because -- and I can't stress this highly enough -- a British wedding should qualify as news only in the UK (unless it involves one of the Beatles, and that was half a century ago).

Perhaps because the world is changing faster than many people would like, the word

OK, I admit that would have sealed the deal for me, too.

"tradition" was used a lot, and always reverently. Would any American woman put up with tradition that included the boyfriend's grandmother having to approve the bride-to-be, her wedding gown, and even her fiancé's beard? Apparently, if it meant arriving at the church in a 1950 Rolls Royce Phantom IV. 

Meanwhile, over in the UK, the word newspaper columnists used in excess to describe Meghan Markle was "exotic". Let's take a look at her background via Wikipedia:

Rachel Meghan Markle was born on August 4, 1981, in Los Angeles, California, at West Park Hospital in Canoga Park. Her mother, Doria Ragland, a social worker and yoga instructor, lives in View Park–Windsor Hills, California. Her father, Thomas Markle Sr., who lives in Rosarito, Mexico, is a retired television lighting director, whose profession resulted in his young daughter often visiting the set of Married...with Children. Her father is an Episcopalian, and her mother is also a Protestant. Meghan's parents divorced when she was six years old.

Before she married Harry, this was Meghan's
lap of luxury.

I don't know about you, but "Canoga Park", "television director", and "social worker" don't evoke visions of exoticism to me. Maybe it's the yoga thing, right? Or that neither of her parents belong to the Church of England. That must be it.

No? Is it because she was a C-list actress whose credits include The Boys and Girls Guide to Getting Down, and a one-shot appearance on the 90210 reboot as "Anonymous Girl Caught Giving Head to Guy in His Car"?  Really, what could those scone-munching Brits find so exotic about Meghan Markle? 

"I say, aren't they supposed to have
bones through their noses?"

The answer could be found at the wedding itself, when the royal family suddenly found itself in direct contact with more black people since the days of colonization. Harry and William appeared to be down with the whole thing, of course. But every Brit at that ceremony over the age 50 all the wore the look of "Dear God, the savages are taking over!"
 

The American news coverage, meanwhile, took a different tact, making sure to trot out African-Americans to give the black angle on the wedding. You won't see them on morning news again until the next time the black angle is required, preferably for an equally fluffy story.

Don't be such a Debbie downer -- Harry and Meghan are
getting married!

Yes, the coverage came off as expected, marred only by the ill-timed Texas school shooting the day before. NBC gave it a one-minute mention at 9:55 a.m., presumably in the name of "keeping things in perspective", before throwing it back to reporters gushing over the gift bags handed to the wedding guests. Ahh, that's better. 

And why not go all out for Harry and Meghan? There probably won't be another royal wedding for a long time, while the next "latest school shooting" is just around the corner. Let's keep things in perspective here, people. 

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NO MORE TEACHER'S DIRTY LOOKS

Last Thursday, my wife & I attended our sixth family graduation -- but we have only one child.

Sounds like one of those "logic" riddles, like A father and son are rushed to a hospital after a car crash. The boy is about to be treated first, when the surgeon says, "Oh my God, this is my son!" How can this be?

If you have school-age offspring, especially in New York, that's probably harder to figure out than our situation. Because these days, when any achievement is cause for celebration lest children spiral into the Zoloft diet, graduation ceremonies are held at the end of pre-school, kindergarten, grade school, middle-school, high school, and -- finally! -- college. 

A candid shot backstage at graduation.

Unlike the previous five, however, last week's event wasn't mandatory. Our daughter even wanted to skip the event in favor of a nice lunch with us. We let her know that her sacrifice was unnecessary. Or, closer to our actual reply, Look, kid, we shelled out a shitload of dough for your education -- you're walking across that goddamn stage whether you like it or not. Her tenacity, however, was admirable.

We arrived 15 minutes before showtime, but it appeared that 90% of the audience had camped out the night before, giving them the best seats, and us a literally birds-eye view. We wouldn't even know if that was really our kid crossing the stage, or if she paid someone to take her place. 

Since our last name is in the first half of the alphabet, I figured my wife and I -- or at least I -- could clear out early on for a mimosa, and catch our daughter as she exited the ceremonies. But since that kind of rational thinking is probably condemned as "alphabetical privilege" now, there was, instead, no rhyme or reason as to how the graduates were called to stage.

My choice of commencement speakers.

By the time they got to the half-way point -- 350 grads by then, with no sign of daughter -- I was regretting that we didn't take her up on her original offer. To make things worse, they didn't even have a celebrity give the commencement address. Other schools this season had Michael Keaton, Tim Cook, Oprah Winfrey, Queen Latifah, Josh Groban, and, of course, Hillary Clinton, who will probably complain to the Yale grads how she was denied her rightful place in the White House for the zillionth time: "My only piece of advice going forward is to blame everybody else for your own obvious failures."

Ninety per-cent through the ceremony, I was still daydreaming about the mimosa when my wife elbowed me and whispered, "There she is!" Unlike me, she had been attentive enough to hear the first syllable of our daughter's name called out; I woke up in time to hear her last name mispronounced. And we could only hope that figure walking across the stage really was the same girl we raised for all these years.

Pay no attention to that monstrous hand resting
atop our daughter's shoulder.

People asked me if I was going to be emotional when this time arrived. And my answer was always, "No. This is what's supposed to happen. If it didn't, then I'd cry." 

Not that I didn't feel something inside. Some things -- love, pride, happiness, relief. She made it. We made it. College paid off, no loans to worry about. What's to cry about? I didn't even get choked up at hearing "Pomp & Circumstance", probably because it was so difficult to hear over the din from the audience. Graduation ceremonies these days, at least at our school, are more rally than solemn.

My wife, too, held up quite admirably. It was only after lunch, when we waited at the local bus stop so we could return to our Airbnb, did her emotional side appear. As we said our goodbyes, her tears, which had been held in check throughout the day, at last arrived. And, if my memory isn't playing tricks on me, she had the same reaction at the pre-school graduation 18 years ago. You think she'd have gotten used to this by now.

At least back then, she had the comfort of knowing that our daughter would return home with us afterwards. This time, we were going in opposite directions. Next week, she embarks on a cross-country drive with a friend, before working and travelling up the West coast before coming back East in November -- the longest we will have gone without seeing her. 

Hey, that's life. Her life. And with a little luck, it'll only get better from there.

And if you're still wondering about that "logic" riddle about the auto accident... unlike his son, the surgeon was wearing his seatbelt, and thus survived the accident without a scratch, making him able to report to work per usual. It doesn't take a college education to figure that out, right?

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BREAKING NEWS: 5/9/2018

Michael Avenatti claims that President Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen received $500,000 from a Russian oligarch, which was then deposited into an account used to pay Stormy Daniels.

When asked if this helped to shape Trump's positions regarding Russia, Cohen replied, "Nyet."

In response to claims from four women regarding physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says he was merely engaged in consensual role-playing.

Schneiderman explained that the role he was playing was that of a sociopathic, hypocritical New York Attorney General who was getting a pass on his behavior from fellow Democrats for years.


In an essay written for the New York Times Review of Books, Reah Bravo, a former unpaid intern for Charlie Rose, says that the disgraced news anchor forced her to unclog a toilet "brimming with feces" before groping her.

In a statement to the Times, Rose said that it was the least he could do for her.

Thanks to a water main break caused by a sinkhole yesterday, bathrooms at Philadelphia International Airport were covered in blood, urine and feces.

As the clean-up got underway, Airport officials received a call from Charlie Rose, who told them, "I know someone who could help."

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has rejected Rudy Giuliani's proposal that Pres. Trump answer any questions in writing. 

Mueller added that he would be willing to revisit the possibility once Trump learns how to write.

The Mormon Church announced that it will be severing ties with the Boy Scouts, a week after the organization officially changed its name to Scouts BSA and started admitting girls. 

A spokesman for the Church explained, "As with other religious institutions, our leaders want nothing to do with anything other than young boys."

The three American prisoners released by North Korea will be greeted by President Trump when their plane touches down on Thursday at 2:00 AM.

Informed of Trump's visit, one of the former captives said, "That's OK, we're used to getting tortured in the middle of the night."

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STRICTLY ON BACKGROUND, PT. 20: "MADAM SECRETARY"

A month ago, my role as Hospital Visitor on Madam Secretary wound up on the cutting room floor (or whatever you call digital dustbins these days). I wasn't terribly disappointed; not only was there very little to it, I was so far away from the camera that I would've been just a blur anyway.

So it was with great pleasure that I was called back some weeks later to play a Member of the Press, the legendary role I originated last fall on the same series. For me, then, typecasting is a good thing. 

Your correspondent at the ready.

You may (or, more likely, may not) remember that in my first outing as part of the Secretary of State's press pack, I was accompanying her to Russia. Now, we were going no further than the State Department. And, as usual through the magic of television, it was just a quick subway trip from my Upper East Side apartment. The New York transit system is the best!

We had a noon call time for holding at St. Andrew's Church at City Hall Plaza, a place I was quite familiar with from previous work on Bull and Law & Order: SVU, thanks to its close proximity to the court houses. We waited four-and-a-half-hours before being called to set.

This gave me time to prepare by tapping into my sense memory and -- oh, hell, who am I kidding? I read the New York Post, did its crossword puzzle, played Scrabble on my Kindle Fire, ate lunch, and browsed the internet and checked emails on my phone. You want glamour? It's $3.99 a month at your local newsstand.

The fountain outside the Javits Federal Building
greets visitors by giving them the finger.

Thanks to my Google Timeline feature, I can tell you for a fact that we left St. Andrews at exactly 4:32 PM. Six minutes later, we arrived on set -- which this day was the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, standing in for the State Department. 

(The Jacob K. Javits Federal Building should not be confused with the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. It is merely a continuation of New York's desperate need to name every edifice after dead Democrats. Javits gets two presumably because he was extra Democratic.)

It's always interesting to film inside federal buildings. Unlike other visitors, we have a little more free reign entering and walking through their hallways, since our presence is expected. I mean, why else is there a camera crew there?

However, IDs were still obligatory at the front door. And, as I recall, the actors playing cops and guards weren't given their (phony) guns until they were placed onset. Fun fact:  when walking to set, actors playing cops are legally required to dress in such a way to differentiate themselves from the real thing; otherwise, they could be arrested for impersonating law enforcement officials. Differentiating themselves can include wearing an overcoat over their uniform, putting masking tape over badges, and -- my favorite -- wearing their hats backwards when walking to set. Since most guys wear their baseball caps backwards, New Yorkers who see them just take it for granted.

The scene was short and simple: as one reporter unsuccessfully tries to get past security at the State Department, his colleagues breeze past him. It all looks very natural onscreen, but each of us was placed in a specific spot for specific reasons that only the A.D. can specifically explain. With each rehearsal, some of us were moved around -- some up front, others to the side, still more entering from outside -- until the perfect look was created.

I was one of a group of three guys eventually placed outside, and told to enter through the revolving doors when given our cue. (Yes, some extras have their own cue.) We did at least seven takes, with several minutes downtime in between each. What with my placement and what the director would eventually decide looked best, it was a crapshoot whether I would be seen or not. When it finally aired, I fast-forwarded expecting to be disappointed. 

I wasn't.

Roughly 15 seconds into the scene, I appeared, swiping my press pass through the security entrance, before walking offscreen to wait with the other extras until we heard "cut". 

My wife thought highly of my performance, believing I walked with "determination." It was true -- I was determined not to make an idiot of myself. 

But there was one more shot that I'd forgotten about, a reverse angle of the two principal actors walking to the elevator.

"Hey, that's me again!" I exclaimed to my wife, pointing to the right side of the screen. I know the back of my head like I know the back of my hand.

We finished at 6:15 PM, having worked roughly 1'15" over the course of the entire afternoon. The scene itself lasts about 40 seconds. It takes a lot of work to look natural.

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In case you want to see me in action:

NOTHING BUT CATASTROPHE

Earlier this week, two peacocks at a zoo in China died when what was described as "unruly visitors" thought it would be cute to pick them up and pluck out their feathers. 

The peacock in happier days.

Those creatures didn't know how good they had it, because the NBC peacock has had its feathers plucked for about six months, with no sign of stopping. First, Matt Lauer was fired over a copious number of sexual harassment complaints that network executives allegedly knew about but did nothing to stop. Because there's no one else in the world who knows how to read a script at 7:00 in the morning.

"Pshaw! I'm too cute to be a
homophobe!"

Now, in the past week, three more scandals have bubbled to the surface. MSNBC's Joy Reid was shocked to discover that she used to be a raging homophobe when her embarrassing tweets and blog posts from a few years back surfaced. I say "shocked" because she initially claimed that her sites had been hacked. When that proved a non-starter, she doubled-down, pleading "I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things."

Note that she didn't say "I genuinely did not write those hateful things." That's way different. I don't have the greatest memory, but if you showed me 100 things I allegedly wrote on my original blog (2004-2008), I would be able to tell you for sure which were genuine. Joy Reid either has zero unique writing style, or is in the early stages of dementia. Oh wait -- she could be a goddamn liar.

Does Switzen look the type of
guy who... ahh, forget it.

Behind the camera, Daniel Switzen, the former director of CNBC's The Suze Orman Show, admitted to hiding a camera in a Kleenex box in order to spy on his teenage nanny while she was in the bathroom. (Don't ask what he used the Kleenex for afterwards.) Switzen will serve up to four years in the slammer before registering as a sex offender. Perhaps he should've been a director on Law & Order: SVU -- he clearly needed advice other than financial. 

A CNBC spokesman declined to speak about the Switzen case, probably because his hair has been on fire since news broke that Tom Brokaw has been accused by three former subordinates of sexual harassment. 

At 78, Tom Brokaw still has what the ladies like -- or what he thinks
they should like, whether they like it or not.

Tom Brokaw! You might as well accuse Walter Cronkite or David Brinkley of such behavior. Brokaw -- reporter-turned-Today host (there must be something in the water on that set)-turned-prime time news anchor-turned "Special Correspondent" (meaning he's old, but too distinguished to fire) -- denies all charges, as well he should... if he's innocent.

The first charge was brought by former NBC reporter Linda Vester, who says Brokaw's advances ranged from unwanted tickling (does anybody want to be tickled?) to, essentially, not understanding what "no" means. Considering the advances allegedly happened only twice over 20 years ago, Brokaw sounds not so much like a criminal, but your typical guy... who's 30 years older than the object of his affection, and is also married.

You can see how thrilled Jane Pauley is by his touch.

Vester's diary regarding these encounters show a guy who's been out of the game too long, and had to thumb through a paperback romance novel for advice. You can click the link in the previous paragraph and scroll down for details; I'm too embarrassed to even copy and paste. It's even smarmier when you hear his voice in your head. You kind of expect him to add "Mr. Gorbachev" at the end of each sentence.

Vester's charge seemed incredibly out of the blue. There had rumors floating around about Lauer, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and Louis CK for years. But Tom  Brokaw? All we knew was that he loved his work, his family, fishing in the Midwest, and dining out on that "Greatest Generation" stuff. 

It wasn't until two more women came forward a few days ago that it occurred to me that Brokaw was different. These incidents happened before the age of internet gossip sites, where people could safely spill the beans on celebrities. Who knows what we would have heard about Chet Huntley (and frankly, I don't want to even think about it).

The second woman to bring charges against Brokaw said -- well, you really do have to read it yourself:

The Post also spoke with an unnamed woman who says that when she was 24 and working as a production assistant in the 1990s, Brokaw made advances toward her. “He put my hands under his jacket and against his chest and pulled me in so close and asked me, ‘How is your job search going?’” she told the Post. She said he invited her to his office, but she did not go.

Let me know when you're done gagging. Then try not to fall off your chair when you discover there's a piece online called "Tom Brokaw On How To Talk to Anyone". Sure -- if you're a drunk frat boy, that is.

Sounds like Brokaw actually didn't get lucky all that much.

I really hope her account is true, because Brokaw makes my moves look like Warren Beatty's. And I have a feeling it is true because no self-respecting woman would dream up such a scenario unless it was for a drugstore novel and she had already been paid in advance.

Then there's the third woman, who says Brokaw once leaned in for an unwanted kiss in 1968...  which, if you haven't a calculator handy, was 50 years ago.

Good Lord! There are probably women who don't even remember that I really did kiss them in about half that time ago. What kind of a traumatic experience was it for her that she can remember how Tom Brokaw once unsuccessfully tried to sneak a kiss the same year of the Chicago riots, the RFK and MLK assassinations, and Richard Nixon getting elected? Tom must be one scary mofo. 

Herbert Hoover would be ashamed to
see how sullied the NBC  News microphone
has become.

Understandably, the folks at NBC News are circling the high-def wagons. Dozens of women at the network signed a letter that didn't directly address the charges, but said he was a fine and supportive colleague. Signatories include Mika Brzezinski, who was A-OK when Joe Scarborough put the moves on her when they were both married. 

Some low-level NBC staffers claim they were forced to sign the letter, a charge the network denies. They also denied that they knew about Matt Lauer's sexual misconduct, so you can scratch that off the "OK, whatever" list. Network execs also sent a memo around to reporters and anchors alike, reminding them how to report the Brokaw story, which boiled down to "100 women signed a letter that his friend wrote." 

If these are the only charges brought against Brokaw, he's probably in the clear. Especially when one of them allegedly occurred half a century ago, which is probably outside the statute of limitations regarding one unwanted kiss. But how sad is it that, if all these women are telling the truth, NBC's reply will be, "Well at least he didn't rape anybody."

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