If YouTube is, as one colleague aptly called it, “the peepshow of the inane,” how then should we characterize the brushfire phenomenon known as the celebrity sex tape? Ever since Pam ‘n’ Tommy’s Edison-like act and the lucrative distribution of 1 Night In Paris — the 2003 Paris Hilton-and-random guy romp that unfortunately qualifies as the genre’s unwitting Metropolis — these inane peepshows have begun popping up at an alarming rate (at least two or three prominent releases per year) and from some downright alarming sources. (Um, Amy Fisher? Really?)

Apparently, even “celebrity” is no longer much of a prerequisite. The growing list of recent wannabe porn stars includes: failed actress Jenna Lewis, a former Survivor: Borneo cast member who couldn’t survive nine episodes; celebutante Kim Kardashian, no more a celebrity than your average actually-getting-paid porn star; and now Fisher, whose sole claim to fame is the attempted murder of her statutory rapist’s spouse in 1992 and whose 2007 video also marks the death of sex appeal as an integral element in famous coitus celluloidus.

In a recent AP interview, Fisher admitted that it will be “difficult” to eventually explain to her two kids — ages 3 and 6 — exactly why she’s famous. But when it’s finally time for that troublesome come-to-Jesus, Fisher can resort to the one crutch used by every modern parent when they have no other recourse: She can put on a movie.   

On Christmas, we allow our goat to come inside the house. To Chauncey (Gardener, that is, named for Peter Sellers’ butler character in Being There, and because Chauncey is literally our gardener), Christmas means colored paper moving through the complex factory of his rumen guts. After we’ve torn open presents, he trots in on his little black high-heels and eats the wrapping, shreds it across the hardwood floors until the living-room bespeaks a much more abundant celebration than actually occurred.

We don’t live on a farm, but rather, in the Bywater, back by the Naval Base. Especially near train tracks, it is legal to have a goat in the city (you’ve probably seen sweet Evangeline in her diamond collar on Kerelec St, herding her Marigny dog pack). Not that we bothered to check the laws before purchasing Chauncey from a West Bank goat farm; no one in Bywater would ever bother us over such a thing. Maybe that’ll change after they build that cruise ship terminal back here… Read the rest of this entry »

Oh, for the days when the phrase “collegiate” evoked images of school scarves, eating clubs and Scott Fitzgerald waving a pennant at the Yale-Harvard game, rather than keggers and spring break at Daytona. Seemingly time-frozen in those bygone days of youthful WASP gentility are the Whiffenpoofs; Yale’s nearly hundred-year-old all-male glee club, who have been singing songs of genial whimsy in white tie and tails since 1909. Over the past ninety-eight years, the repertoire of the fourteen seniors who make up the group each year has expanded from time-tested favorites like the Yale fight song and “Daddy Was A Yale Man” to include contemporary classics like Leiber and Stoller’s “On Broadway” and “Midnight Train To Georgia.” The Whiffenpoofs perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday evening, at Trinity Episcopal Church (1329 Jackson Avenue.)

by Sam Winston

The aging warrior known as Buckwheat Zydeco, the full name of my dog adapted in part from the band of the same name, is on his last leg. He’s got a metal plate in his right leg from when he was hit by a car as a youngster. Further down the same leg, he’s missing a toenail that bleeds incessantly. It is now theorized to be a tumor that evicted the toenail from its natural resting place. He has another large tumor on his chest, believed to be benign, that split open recently causing yet another bloody mess on his blue bedspread.

Additionally, like all big old Labradors, his displaced hips make his back end simply deadweight. His eyes are cloudy, his hearing is shot, and his memory seems to be limited to the short term. Truth be told, that was always one of my favorite parts about my friend Buck. He never holds grudges.

On our most recent daily walk in the park, he had a seizure. Read the rest of this entry »