Damage Control Damage

More shorties in this final week of August:

- Tom Arnold divorces from third wife. Whenever a husband divorces a wife who's far too good for him and has a track record like Tom Arnold, it all points in one direction. Here's a hint. The Medallin Cartel.

- Katherine Harris calls separation of church and state "a lie" and says that failing to vote for Christians is essentially "legislating sin." Then she apologizes for her comments by saying she was only talking specifically to a Christian group and didn't mean to offend non-Christians. Then she pointed to her strong support of Israel and raising money for victims of the Holocaust.

There's just so much good stuff here. Let me translate for Katherine, if I may:

"I really don't know why ya'll are so offended. I was only talking like the Christian zealot I really am to a Christian group and that basically means that while I am a Christian zealot, I was technically pandering, not being a bigot and totally disrespectful of the Constitution, our Founding Fathers and our democratic processes. I am trying to score points by acknowledging the Holocaust, which is more than Mel Gibson's father did and therefore, I not only deserve to have this controversy go away, but I also deserve to be lauded for my sympathetic support of the Jews."

Is that what we've come to? Giving medals for people who have acknowledged the Holocaust? Here's your cookie, Katherine Harris, if I may...you can put them in a drawer with your hanging chads.

Apocalypse Watch

- The rapper formerly known as Common on a Gap bus ad.

- The rapper formerly known as Common on a Coke TV ad circa 2003

- The local sushi place selling Natural Viagra for $20 on their lunch menu.
It's not a euphemism. They feel strongly that there is a demand for Natural Viagra between the hours of 11am - 3pm on a weekday. Not only that, there is so much demand that the cost of Natural Viagra is quite high. I was feeling a little frisky myself during the chicken teriyaki ramen.

- The now-ubiquitous Jeremy Piven on a Gap ad. What's next watching him sniffing and twitching his way through a Best Actor Oscar speech while rowdy members of the academy chant "Ari! Ari! Ari!"

LIFE LESSONS: Better to have cheated and won than never to have won at all

I love sports and I think that developments in sports can be reflect a certain pattern in the zeitgeist. Floyd Landis, for instance, who won the Tour de France in a stunning comeback, then tested positive for synthetic hormone. This great column on ESPN.com by Marc Kriedler expresses shock and awe at Landis' continuing denials and excuses.

Kriedler column on Floyd Landis

Is there anything that defines our current and recent culture better than how inconsequential the big, obvious lie has become to the liar? Does Landis really believe in his innocence? Did he try to win naturally and then whip out the pharmacy in the jam and prepare for the fight? Or is it somewhere in between, where the ends justified the means? That celebration in Paris and standing on that podium at the Champs Elysee was worth any public humiliation afterward. Is that okay with Landis? After all, he did sacrifice 15 years of his life for this dream to see it jeopardized by a failing hip and a poor stage 16. If he didn't dope, he'd lose. If he did dope, there was no guarantee he'd win anyway. Can you really blame the Floyd?

Sad thing is you could replace Landis in this column with any number of public figures.

- Bush spins the existence of WMD's in Iraq and gets re-elected. Five years and tens of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians and American soldiers later, Bush is still in office and America is still in Iraq.

- Barry Bonds loves the cream and the clear, pastes the flaxseed oil label on the bottle, breaks a homerun record and he's still walking left field for my team.

- Justin Gatlin blaming roids on the masseuse, then considering a reduced penalty in exchange for testimony.

- James Frey and that plagiarizing 17 year old Indian girl - who cares if they never publish again? Not them, they're pocketing the royalties for life.

- Mark McGwire clams up about his steroid use. I'm sure he remembers carrying his kid around and celebrating his homerun record in retrospect. Did it almost seem real? Or was it real to him and was that all that mattered?

And now Landis. Maybe Clinton started this with his wiggling around the definition of 'is."

America has never been better. At telling big lies and walking away from the consequences.

Kulture Ketchup and The Grammarizing of Hezbollah

I've started to use Hezbollah in various new grammatical ways. Because I want to and I can which makes me a goddamn true blue-blooded piece of walking Americana.

Ways to use Hezbollah:

- Mel Gibson went Hezbollah on those cops in Malibu and commenting with great geopolitical insight on the Israeli/Hezbollah conflict and prior related conflicts.

- My boss was so Hezbollah the other day, all up in my face, spit raining like rockets on my glasses.

- President Bush Hezbollahed the stem-cell research bill the other day. The Senate served up a Hezbollah on raising the minimum wage.

- Israel can Hezbollah anything they want and we'll like it.

I'm really chagrined that CNN and others haven't caught on to such timely slang.

Das Buch

My first month in the Lesley MFA program had me rediscovering a thirst for books.

E.L. Doctorow's first novel Welcome to Hard Times and William Lycheck's The Wasp Eater are two novels that couldn't be more different in topic. But its strengths are the same. Both books are carved in friggin stone. The sentences and words feel preordained.

Books I revisited only to shrug upon finishing:
Beloved by Toni Morrison - doesn't really hold, but it contains some of the most indelible images I've ever read.
The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead - I got that Colson was, like, really smart after about five pages. Despite it all, I never really saw the whole elevator inspector/racial allegory clearly.

Das Musik

What I've downloaded recently:
Turbonegro's latest
Wolfmother - Led Zeppelin and 8 minute songs are back. My guess is they're not coming back for more than 1 Wolfmother album

Kredit where Kredit is doo

You have to give it to the ubiquitous Timbaland. He's making the non-sexy sexy everywhere with J. Timberlake and Nelly Furtado. It's pretty funny watching "I'm Like A Bird" just to shake it like she means it, like her hit song was actually "I'm Like A Piece of Ass." She's about as convincing as Jewel, trying to make like she's not an uber-prude. But the radio can't stop her. Enjoy the royalties Nelly. I hope you'll baby-sit Timbaland's kids as payback.