Las Vegas is the the most inorganic of all American cities. Surrounded by a dry, dusty, prehistoric landscape, this town was conjured from nothingness by the Mob not very long ago.

Vegas hosts such sleazy, high-rolling political campaign contributors as Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn. Nevada is the home state to the cadaverous Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is a Mormon like Mitt Romney, although the press doesn’t seem to enjoy reminding you about it.

Although Nevada offers a measly half-dozen electoral votes, as of Monday it was also one of the dwindling “battleground states,” so I decided to spend Election Night 2012 in this city of a trillion germs that lurk beneath a billion neon lights.

I arrive late Monday night, have a sumptuously oily and garlicky dinner at Battista’s Hole in the Wall (the cozy little Italian restaurant featured in the film Casino), then check into a casino hotel to catch up on some sleep. Before heading to my room I buy some local papers in the hotel lobby. The Las Vegas Sun is endorsing Obama, while the Review-Journal is pulling for Romney. The Review-Journal features a Larry Elder article called “What do I tell my black child if Obama Loses?” Well, duh! The obvious answer is, “Obama lost.” No need to make it racial, dude.

I awake early on Election Day and take in some of the local and cable news about the election. Fox News says it’s a tossup—the closest presidential race in 80 years.

One of Fox’s seemingly thousands of blonde lipstick pundits excitedly chirps that “Democracy is happening now,” as if choosing between two puppets had anything to do with democracy. As far as I can tell, this election is a choice between a man who promised change four years ago versus one who’s promising change now. Basically, voters are being asked to decide which candidate is less completely full of shit than the other.

I watch a clip of Obama campaigning in the eternally ugly state of Ohio, promising (threatening?) to finish what he started. I wind up deciding that Bruce Springsteen really needs to quit trying to stop channeling the ghost of Woody Guthrie, enjoy his millions, and quit pretending he has any vestigial memory of what it’s like to be working-class in America these days.

A fossilized former NY Senator Al D’Amato is predicting a Romney victory. The oddly mustachioed David Axelrod says Obama has it zipped up. There are early reports of voting machines switching Romney votes to Obama votes and vice-versa. There are also murmurs of a Black Panther stalking a precinct in Philadelphia again. Jesse Jackson offered some opinions about the Philly situation, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying because Jesse Jackson talks funny.

Around 3PM a maid comes in to clean my hotel room. I think of asking her about the election, but I don’t speak Spanish.

As the sun sets, I drive toward Sunrise Mountain in North Las Vegas to get some takeout soul food for dinner and ask the locals about their opinions on the election. But since the restaurant had a picture of Obama in its window and a stack of free newspapers with an article called “The Power of the Black Vote,” I buy my crawfish, red beans, and brown rice before making a meek and silent exit.

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Around 7:23PM Eastern Standard Time, the musical artist and entrepreneur currently known as Diddy called the election for Obama on Twitter, making it official as mandated in the United States Constitution by ending his Tweet with the word “biaaatch.”

So we’ll have the same president and roughly the same Congress that have served us so well for the past few years.

Having endured more than I can usually stand of cable news, I decide to stroll down into the casino. Vegas is, like always, a feast of overstimulation. It feels like being poked in the eyes and ears with 1,000 needles at once.

To my shock I realize that Vegas isn’t so friendly to budget-minded tourists anymore. A man used to be able to get a sirloin steak for pennies, but now a 20-ounce bottle of Diet Pepsi is over $3 and a 20-ounce cup of coffee set me nearly a five-spot. What happened? Rumor has it that casinos are now trying to bleed money out of their customers every way possible after the local economy fell into the toilet a few years back.

Oh, right—Nevada’s economy. The entrepreneurs who rolled the dice on Nevada seem to have lost badly. The state’s 11.8% official unemployment rate is the nation’s highest, but to be fair, hookers, drug dealers, and mobsters are not counted as “employed.” Nevada’s housing market and bankruptcy rates are also among the nation’s worst. Despite all this, the state went straight into Obama’s back pocket.

There are few things on Earth I find scarier than the blank faces of Vegas gamblers. But undeterred by the corpulent and expressionless zombie slot-machine players, I decide to spend a grand total of $5 on gambling…all of it on slot machines. I fed $5 into the hungry slots, pulled the lever, and received $23.20 back. I decided to stop while I was ahead. Unlike the government, I can’t keep printing money and spending it.

As in gambling, there was at least a bit of mystery this election season about who was going to win, although if you have any basic understanding of math, you’d realize that everyone except the casino owners lose in the end.

Image of Las Vegas courtesy of Shutterstock

Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg

BREAKING NEWS (well, sort of—it happened over a month ago)—The world’s largest sailing yacht has caught fire. Barry Diller’s Eos, named after the Greek goddess of the dawn, is a clipper-bowed Bermuda-rigged schooner. Built by the German Lürssen yard in 2006, Eos is 305 feet long. The old salts at the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills say it cost more than $200 million to build.

Eos has been an unlucky ship from the start. Already she had twice been moored at various yards for repairs, having hit a storm five years ago that damaged some of her tech equipment. Diller is not very lucky in maritime matters. About ten years ago he was rescued by Johan Eliasch, chairman and CEO of Head, the global sporting group, when his previous boat caught fire somewhere off Sardinia. Imagine Diller’s poor wife Diane von Fürstenberg having to swim for it, soggy wrap dresses in hand!

This time they were luckier: Barry and Diane were in the Oslo Museum. Suddenly Diane thought Barry was emulating the man in Munch’s Scream, and then she realized he was talking to his captain. Apparently the wiring behind a panel in her shoe closet had short-circuited and created a fire. Quelle ennui! Summer on the Eos was not to be. A finger-pointing war ensued. Not surprisingly, no one stepped forward to claim responsibility for the fire. The Dillers are supposedly still awaiting their payout from the insurance company. Silly Dillers!

But Barry is said to be worth at least a billion, so he’s chartered another yacht for himself and his pals for the summer.

But the loss of Eos is hardly Diller’s worst problem. Not only does he burn yachts, he burns money in disastrous publishing ventures. His real headache is the Newsweek/Daily Beast outlay which has everyone whispering. Media expert David Carr says that when he interviewed Diller, he underscored the fact that the Beast’s losses are unsustainable. No kidding! But how could such a clever guy be so dumb?

Daily Beast editor Tina Brown has pulled the same play before, first with Vanity Fair, then The New Yorker and most recently, Talk. Brown has a track record of getting megalomaniacs such as Harvey Weinstein to bankroll her fruitless ventures. One power-hungry guy after another falls prey to her promises. Her tenure at The New Yorker is still talked about for having down-marketed a once serious magazine.

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But to many, Brown has never been more than a glorified star-fucker. She got her start when she was 25 at Tatler, writing about the upper classes. At Vanity Fair she increased circulation and ad revenue but by accounts operated at a loss.

So where does this woman’s genius lie? It is doubtfully intellectual. She is rumored to have asked John Heilpern while editing Vanity Fair to jazz up a piece by Issac Bashevis Singer, winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Literature. Heilpern reportedly declined, saying, “I don’t jazz up Nobel Prize winners’ work.” Allegedly Tina then said, “Who’s Issac Bashevis Singer?”

So what is it about Lady Evans, who has even received a CBE for her services to overseas journalism? Like most women in publishing, her expertise doesn’t necessarily extend beyond popular culture, celebrity, and Hollywood. She is rumored to have slept her way to Tatler by shacking up with Auberon Waugh, son of Evelyn, also known as Mr. Unfuckable! Brown made a success of Tatler by taking the low road with a rag that had previously catered exclusively to aristocrats.

After that S. I. Newhouse brought her in to revive Vanity Fair. People were impressed by Newhouse’s business acumen, for by using Tina he lit a fire under a staid and stale intellectual publication. But then it went too far and became little more than a somewhat more dignified People magazine. She is even said to have made deals with press agents, starting a trend which once was a huge no-no for bona fide journalists.

Now Tina Brown has managed to con a con man, getting Barry Diller to bankroll her using his stockholder’s money. He’s clearly having a bad year. As P. T. Barnum allegedly said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Beware, Barry! Boats and broads can break a bloke. Even one like you.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

Snoop Dogg

I’ve often felt that the War on Terror was the best thing that happened to globetrotting drug addicts since the days before bags were inspected at all. After 9/11, the traveling pothead didn’t necessarily need to worry about how to score weed while on vacation. Since every TSA agent from here to Kingdom Come was too busy looking for razor blades and explosive underpants, it felt safer to travel with a couple of discreetly stashed doobies in your case.

That is, until last month when Norwegian sniffer dogs snooped out eight grams of ganja in rapper Snoop Dogg’s luggage. Here I was, thinking Snoop was token godfather of potheads ever since Bob Marley bought the farm. (Snoop now maintains he is Marley reincarnated.) But even though he got off with barely a spanking, does Dogg’s bust make him the Grand Poobah of 420?

For bona fide stoners, Snoop’s bust shines an unwanted and disparaging light on otherwise law-abiding people who need the weed enough to risk traveling with it. Is this just a minor blip for Snoop that will soon be forgotten? He’s been busted for drug possession multiple times before, and it only seems to have helped his career.

What was the Dawg thinking? Can’t he hire a mule? Eight grams is way too much to be smuggling across borders. Only fools and rappers be traveling with more than a little chunk of hash or a couple of pre-rolled pussy joints. Were you a little too high when you packed your luggage, Snoop? I bet you had that stinky skunk that reeks so much even an elderly house pet with sinus trouble could suss it out through a vacuum-packed Ziploc. Snoop be pushing hiz luck. Even though he has never made excuses about getting high, why flaunt it unless you are trying to make a point?

I love Snoop for his transparency and admire his passion for pot. According to Cameron Diaz, Snoop may have dealt her some weed back in high school when he was still Calvin Broadus. He has been advocating Mary Jane’s ample charms since forever. Even though it may be hard to take him seriously on account of his funny name and his funky outfits, Dogg is an advocate. I can’t stand most “advocates,” but for Snoop I make an exception. He speaks on behalf of a lot of people for whom weed is actually medicinal. And I don’t only mean cancer patients. For those who suffer from anxiety, weed can be immensely helpful. Sure, the hydroponic skunk people smoke these days can make you crazy, retarded, or completely mental, but I’m talking about your garden-variety grass. I can tell you from personal experience, it mellows a person out and helps mental midgets deal with emotional turmoil. It depends what you smoke and for how long. Chronic use of the chronic can send you the way of Bob Marley, who died of cancer.

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With drugs, one should never skimp on quality, weed being the exception. High demand has led to a rainbow of available strains. Different weed has different effects. While high-grade sinsemilla puts you in a practical coma making it almost impossible to speak, seed-laden homegrown can make you feel funny without impairing verbal function. I prefer the schwag or hashish, which is hard to get in America. The other stuff is just too damn strong. Plus you get high on one puff, which defeats the purpose if you actually enjoy smoking. 

With other recreational drugs, people deserve quality. But if you are not a dedicated user or Keith Richards, it’s damn hard to get good stuff, which is odd given how common drug use has become. Cocaine is often cut with things such as baby laxatives and animal de-wormer or has way too much speed in it, making it near impossible to sleep unless you gobble a tranquilizer. Same goes for Ecstasy, GHB, ketamine, heroin, and the rest. If you’re not careful you can end up tossing and turning all night with a blocked nose, trapped in a K-hole, completely retarded, or dead. Nevertheless, people will take just about anything if they want it badly enough. They’ll pay for whatever crap some two-bit dealer gives them. As a result, most of the stuff out there is pretty low quality. What gives?

With recreational drugs, people ought to have the same options they have with everything else they consume. When it comes to food, clothing, and luxury goods, people can choose between handcrafted artisan items and mass-produced Chinese garbage.

Drugs should be legal because too many people do them for them not to be legal. But legalizing recreational drugs poses a huge paradigm shift for which we may be unprepared. I don’t see how large numbers of people will ever fully accept the idea that large numbers of other people will always seek to taint their purity or dissociate themselves from reality. The idea that governments would sanction and regulate heretofore illegal substances as they do food, tobacco, alcohol, firearms, and pharmaceuticals seems like more of an ideological challenge than a logistical one. Drugs will probably never be completely legal, which is not necessarily bad. We need the government involved in the drug business about as much as we need to sniff a bunch of bath salts. Decriminalizing the drug trade seems like a more reasonable compromise.

Possibly thanks to Snoop Dogg and other famous drug users such as Willie Nelson, the tipping point seems to have already happened. In England, travelers caught with small amounts of cannabis receive little more than a warning. In Norway, they don’t invite you back for two years. I’m sure Snoop won’t miss the place much. The Norway incident will probably rest in the annals of obscurity with other similar busts. But watch out, Snoop—you don’t want to end up like Whitney Houston. They do say weed is the gateway drug.

My philosophy is that if you’re going to do drugs, do good drugs. And if you’re going to do drugs more than once in a blue moon, don’t have children and don’t do so much you can’t keep a job. Drugs are fun if you know how to handle them; problem is, most people have no clue.

The War on Drugs is as lost as Operation Iraqi Freedom. So why not surrender? Until they wave the white flag, here’s a tip: Don’t get caught.

My gay cousin once told me that the beauty of modern living is that there are so many different ways to have a family. I was inclined to agree with him, although my unorthodox upbringing gave me a desire to either have a conventional family or none at all. For people like me, the traditional family trumps the modern family hands down. But that’s my choice, and I don’t seek to impose my preferences on others.

When the subject of gay marriage became a hot-button issue a few years back I remember thinking that if enough people want something they should be allowed to have it without anyone or anything—especially the government—standing in the way.

But at this point I would be happy if I never heard another word about gay marriage again. Against my naive hope that people might be able to live and let live, gay marriage has divided the country, if not the world. I am sick to death of having gay marriage stuffed down my throat by supporters as well as detractors. Why am I being punished for minding my own business?

Unfortunately it doesn’t look like I will find relief anytime soon. Freak flags and anti-freak flags are flying higher than ever before. Damn you all!

Last week in the Netherlands a plump and balding man in his mid-forties married two—yes, two—pudgy, ginger-haired women. The bisexual thirty-something pudgy gingers married each other as well—it was a mariage à trois, so to speak. Technically it was a civil union, but both brides wore white. The trio are treating their unusual partnership like any other. And why not? However ridiculous it might seem to you or me, it obviously means a lot to them.

In Scotland, two lesbians recently held a mock wedding outside of the Parliament. Whether they will also lobby for the right to a mariage à trois in a religious ceremony remains to be seen. Congressman Barney Frank just tied the knot with his partner James Ready. Clearly the modern marriage has gone mainstream. Yet there are still busybodies and do-gooders who have the time and energy to care about how other people live their lives. 

Brad Pitt’s mother is not a fan of gay marriage. She recently chastised the president for his stance in her local newspaper, supporting Mitt Romney and his “Christian conviction concerning homosexuality.” She’s clearly misinformed about Romney’s stance on gays, and her comments obviously didn’t go over well in her son’s community. Now she’s the target of nasty attacks from the Hollywood media and has even received death threats. We all know how relentless those liberal bullies can be.

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An interesting tidbit on The Slant regards the subordination of our First Amendment rights to the gay agenda. Apparently some Christian therapists were recently booted from a counseling program for referring gay clients to non-Christian therapists. Attempts to persuade them to quit the lifestyle didn’t go over well.

Maybe the PC community should lighten up a bit. Some Christians are obviously having a hard time accepting the rainbow coalition, but many of them are trying. In a surprisingly narrow vote, the Presbyterian Church recently decided not to change the definition of marriage as a union between “a woman and a man” to one between “two people.” The slim margin that shot down the proposal, 338-308, implies rainbow warriors have won almost half the battle. Doesn’t that make things even? Isn’t it time to stop the crusading? Obviously not. Google recently launched a campaign in support of homosexuality because it is still criminalized in some countries.

Enough is enough. I am about to lose my mind! Why can’t we all agree that the freedom to choose our own identity is no one’s business but our own? Politicizing such very personal matters only proves that people in both camps are completely irrational. We live in a world where there is enough room for every group to pitch their own tent. Why must we all be the same or force others to adopt our definitions and identity?

People take what they can get where love is concerned, and it’s never perfect. Banning one lifestyle or accepting another is not going to change the fact that we are nearly seven billion imperfect people with seriously misguided priorities. Instead of arguing about how best to define other people’s choices we should spend more time worrying about unwanted and neglected children and the failing systems meant to manage them. What I find more disturbing than the militant gay agenda and religious righteousness is the fact that we are fertilizing kids in a dish when so many children are already hungry, homeless, and ignorant. 

If I was up for adoption and old enough to know the difference between a militantly gay family and a very religious family, I might choose the street. Both groups are two sides of the same extremist, idealistic, and bureaucracy-loving coin. Neither side has any practical value in the modern world. So if you’re anti-Christian or anti-LGBT, do us all a favor and lower your freak flag a notch. Show some respect. We don’t discuss politics or religion at the grown-ups’ table.

Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger

Now that I have been sucked into the vortex that is the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, I am beginning to understand that women want the dude to be in charge, and apparently that’s hotter than equality. When a female friend told me she thought that “men should read the book because frankly, most of you can’t dance or screw for shit,” I got to thinking. What is a poor girl to do when her boyfriend can’t give her an orgasm and never strays from the missionary position? This is a weird world where women need to read a book that articulates what they actually want. Then after reading the book, they are required to assume the man’s role and hold their bumbling male lover’s hand and walk them through each step.

Despite all the “grrrl power” nonsense touted by a few loud and loveless grrrls since the 1960s, you can’t change basic biological drives. What women want from men has always been a combination of domination and sensuality. They want to be Kim Basinger in 9^1/2 Weeks and they want you to be Mickey Rourke.

Poor chicks. When they aren’t bossing their men around, they want men to be in charge behind closed doors. Even nice girls think about sex all the time—probably more so because they have no satisfaction in real life. But where to begin?

I went to my local bookseller a few days ago to seek the answer. Embarrassed to be seen purchasing the erotic novel that has had every soccer mom from here to Vladivostok yearning to be softly squashed under a sexy man’s thumb since the book came out last year, I told the young man at the counter it was purely for research purposes. He smiled and told me he was amazed by how many men were buying the book. I walked out of the store concealing Fifty Shades of Grey in a brown paper bag as though I were boozing it up on a Monday morning.

When I got home that evening I started reading. Though I wasn’t impressed with the first few pages I found I had read 150 of them by the time I had to head out for dinner. The next day I boarded a flight for a short trip, book in hand. I was embarrassed to be seen with Fifty Shades, but I couldn’t put it down. I wrapped my body around the paperback so people on either side of me couldn’t see what I was reading.

While some scenes read like they were lifted right out of Pretty Woman, they are far more erotic. Anastasia Steele, the object of Christian Grey’s domination, is a subservient, reed-thin virgin who likes being tied up and smacked. What Grey has in common with the male studs from 9^1/2 Weeks and Pretty Woman is that they all move with grace and confidence. Anastasia Steele alludes to this often, and men should take note. Physicality is important.

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The storyline develops slowly across the trilogy and none of the real action happens until the second book, if you can get that far. Beyond the sophisticated backdrop, Fifty Shades is crappy chick lit, yet it still speaks volumes about the modern erotic void. Apparently there’s an enormous gap between women and their sublimated desires. The book also makes some interesting points on childhood, adolescence, sexual deviance, and power. The author implies that a perv can enjoy “vanilla” sex, but I have a feeling this is more about James’s fantasy life, because none of the pervs I know ever orders vanilla down at the ice-cream shop.

Another beef: The prose is unsophisticated. I was highly annoyed by all the British words and expressions that Americans rarely if ever use. Why did a British author set the book in Seattle and then fail to use the right dialect? When was the last time you heard an American say they were “keen” to do anything? Along with this sloppy oversight were a number of typos. Where were the publishers on this? James’s narrator uses certain words over and over again. The book is flush with the word “flush.” Anastasia is always flushing.

Eventually you get past these pesky details and wonder why this book has been so successful and why women everywhere are unable to put it down. The sad truth is that modern men are pathetic little jellyfish who have no idea what to do once you turn out the lights. Without a hot, bare-chested Zorro type to ride in on a wild steed and make them swoon, women will be stuck seeking vicarious sexual domination from movies and books. Nothing else explains the immense popularity of E. L. James’s erotic novels.

Paris Jackson

London’s big scandal this past week involves a rapper, a Rothschild, and a handsome son of the late businessman James Goldsmith. The British tabloids have been going bananas because record producer Kate Rothschild (from the billionaire banking family) has been cuckolding her husband Ben (from the billionaire Goldsmith dynasty) with one of her clients, a New Orleans rapper. As the couple’s nine-year marriage broke down, they took to Twitter to vent their frustrations, then quickly stopped after considering that they have three small children and aren’t rappers themselves. 

The couple is awfully young to be having such grown-up problems. She is 29 and he is 31, though age doesn’t seem to stop any of the Goldsmiths from divorcing before 35. Ben’s brother Zac and his sister Jemima both married right out of college, produced multiple children, then split from their spouses before taking up with other high-profile individuals. Jemima famously dated Hugh Grant, and Zac left his wife Sheherazade Bentley for Alice Rothschild, Kate’s sister.

While a union between rich dynastic families such as the Rothschilds and the Goldsmiths appears perfect on paper, marriage is altogether another reality, one which these kids are not necessarily equipped to handle considering their family histories. James Goldsmith had children with four different women. Kate’s father Amschel Rothschild committed suicide when Kate was only 14. Amid all the rumors surrounding these high-flyers, one can’t help but wonder what drew Kate Rothschild to a black rapper. Well, apparently Jay Electronica, AKA Timothy Thedford, isn’t your average gangsta rapper. Thedford went to a Catholic school in New Orleans and lived in an affluent and mostly white neighborhood. He must be quite something. Who knew a Jewish princess could find solace outside her circle? But then again, the English upper classes are not exactly comme il faut when it comes to feeding their vices.

Across the pond in the United States of Big Brother, the Vixen of Vice Lindsay Lohan is still behind the wheel and smashing into things, this time on the Pacific Coast Highway. The accident-prone actress can’t seem to stay out of the papers despite her best efforts to abide by the law. After she crashed her Porsche into a truck, the little ginger from Long Island supposedly lied to police and said her assistant had been driving. Was she under the influence? It doesn’t seem she was, but since the assistant told police Lohan was the one driving, Lindsay may need a drink to handle the hot water. Accidents happen. Why panic? She might not have needed to lie. But now she’s in another mess and is in danger of breaking probation and facing more time in jail. I will never understand why Lohan and so many stars and “celebutards” such as Amanda Bynes, Britney Spears, Nicole Richie, and Paris Hilton don’t have drivers. They are forever getting into accidents and being busted for driving under the influence. I guess they are as dumb as they look.

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Paris Jackson, despite being half Paris Hilton’s age, appears to be far smarter. Jackson, 14, was recently interviewed by Oprah Winfrey, who in a bid to boost her failing network’s ratings has been getting exclusive interviews with famous kids such as Whitney Houston’s daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown and the Kardashian clan. The Jackson interview revealed that despite all the madness surrounding the King of Pop throughout his life, Michael Jackson seems to have raised reasonably well-adjusted children. Although I didn’t see the entire interview, a brief clip of Oprah with half a dozen Jackson spawn casually gathered in Katherine Jackson’s garden painted a surprisingly pretty picture. The only obvious oddity is some of their names. Even Oprah had trouble with “Jermajesty.” What a Jermistake of a Jermoniker!

Paris is the most articulate and quite beautiful. Her brother Prince was nonplussed by Oprah, like any hormonal teenaged boy would be answering an adult’s intrusive questions. Blanket seemed uninterested in Oprah, too. The older kids, Michael’s nieces and nephews, were soft-spoken and all expressed interest in entertainment careers. They all say they want to sing or act, produce or direct. Paris is already starring in a film that comes out next year.

One might think these kids would be total freaks considering the sideshow that followed Michael Jackson, but I was struck by how nice and normal they all seem. Time will tell if they lead successful lives or if they become haunted by family demons and drug abuse. They will have a better chance outside of Hollywood or pursuing careers in traditional fields such as law or medicine, but that doesn’t look likely, especially now that Oprah Winfrey is exploiting them. Although they’ve cleared their father’s name with this interview, their grandfather still creeps the hell out of me. The eternally sleazy Joe Jackson was milling around during the taping with his pencil-thin mustache, looking like a cockroach.

Photo of Paris Jackson courtesy of Shutterstock

Always one to court controversy in lieu of talent, Madonna recently projected an enormous image of right-wing French politician Marine Le Pen with a swastika on her forehead à la Charles Manson during her concert in Tel Aviv. It didn’t seem to matter that Le Pen is not a Nazi.

During the same concert, Madonna called for everyone to “rise above our egos and our titles and the names of our countries and names of our religions, if we can rise above all that, and treat everyone around us, every human being with dignity and respect, we will have peace.”

Too bad she didn’t use those principles during her two failed marriages.

Brandishing guns onstage in a “concert for peace” makes as much sense as going to war for peace. Oy vey! Kabbalah gone done fried your brain, Madge. Stick to boys and toys—politics isn’t your thang.

Perhaps threatening to burn the stage on which Madonna performs is going too far, though not everyone would agree. Muslim extremists in Indonesia recently threatened violence until Lady Gaga canceled her show.

I doubt this incident will do much to persuade Gaga that not everyone in the world wants to accept sexual extremism. Gaga’s constituency doesn’t exactly “tolerate” religious or political extremism.

Poor Gaga can’t seem to catch a break. She subsequently managed to infuriate Thai authorities after Tweeting something about buying a counterfeit Rolex in Bangkok. Her record sales are down and Rihanna is blowing her out of the park with all kinds of incendiary yet apolitical booty-shaking. Watch and learn, Gaga! Sex without politics sells, too.

Maybe all this hubris will help Gaga see she should stop imitating Madonna, who doesn’t have half her talent, and start using some of that Juilliard-educated brain of hers to make some real effin’ music. Right now she’s no more than a sellout in drag, which is a shame.

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Now if Madonna would only age gracefully and get off the stage entirely, both of them might actually service the peace and acceptance they champion. Right now they only appear to be the tools of corrupt, power-hungry political puppeteers who use celebrities to gain attention. In the meantime, if everybody stayed in their own sandbox and the lunatics stayed in the asylum where they belong, maybe the world would actually be a more peaceful and accepting place.

Singers who misinform the public with crude political messages and half-baked attempts to save the world take all the fun out of music. If only people such as Madonna and Lady Gaga focused less on the message and more on the music, there might be something worth listening to on the FM dial.

Few musicians can get away with singing about controversial political ideas without losing fans and making fools of themselves, because most of them don’t have the brains to grasp even basic political concepts.

Imagine George W. Bush singing a karaoke version of “Eye of the Tiger.” That’s how musicians look when they attempt to get political.

All this intermingling of art and politics has me so irked and confused, I might start singing about it.

Art and politics have in many ways always been inextricably linked. But singers such as Madonna and Gaga cannot be compared with writers such as Alexander Pushkin, nor should they assume they are qualified to take similar liberties against the establishment.

Exploiting her own celebrity in the service of some half-baked political idea like Madonna does is irresponsible. Pop stars and movie stars should keep out of politics and concentrate on their day jobs. Leave the art to the artists, the politics to the politicians, and the thinking to those who can actually think.

Queen Elizabeth II

I love Queen Elizabeth. I love her pastel-colored outfits. I love her little black handbags. I love the regal look in her eye. I even love it when she has to wear her silly crown and sit on a throne in Westminster Abbey covered in ermine and diamonds. 

This week marks the 60th anniversary of her coronation. Only Queen Victoria ruled longer. England is ablaze with tributes to Elizabeth, and I have flown in especially for the celebration of her Diamond Jubilee. 

Ten years ago I watched the Golden Jubilee on television and sobbed through the whole thing. The beauty and magnificence moved me to tears.

This year I am most excited about finding my spot along the Thames to watch her flotilla pass by. A special riverboat has been constructed for the occasion. But this is one small part of what’s in store. Concerts, parades, flyovers, and countless other festivities will have all of England celebrating for the next seven days.

It’s too bad we don’t have such an event in America. If not for that whole representation-and-taxation business, we might. 

I wish I were a queen just so people would step aside when I am on my way somewhere. Walking down London’s busy streets is harrowing for a run-of-the-mill pedestrian. It is likely to be even worse now that everyone is in town to pay reverence to the constitutional monarch of sixteen sovereign states.

Her Majesty’s life in pictures for ye philistines:

If you’re looking for a husband, ladies, stay away from the Kennedys! Chances are better you will make it through life avoiding an untimely death or some horrific tragedy.

You wouldn’t want to end up like Mary Jo Kopechne, Carolyn Bessette, and Mary Richardson—nor like women such as Martha Moxley and Marilyn Monroe, who only had tangential relations with the Kennedys but died prematurely nevertheless. You’ve probably all heard of the Kennedy Curse, and they are cursed—by too much publicity. I also blame rotten genes.

While Mark Zuckerberg was marrying his college sweetheart Priscilla Chan in California over the weekend, Robert Kennedy, Jr. was back East burying his dead wife. Mary Richardson Kennedy hanged herself in a barn on their property in Bedford. She was discovered by her housekeeper, who I hope gets a spectacular bonus this Christmas.

Kennedy and Richardson had been separated for several years, and he is said to be dating actress Cheryl Hines. (Careful, Cheryl!) Apparently Richardson had been plagued by depression, alcoholism, and prescription-drug abuse. She was in debt, lonely, and clearly unstable.

Why couldn’t she have taken a handful of pills? Too expensive? I can’t imagine wanting to asphyxiate myself. Even a shot to the heart sounds more appealing than a noose. If I had to choose, I think I’d go Thelma & Louise style—at high speed over a cliff.

You could always try leaping over Niagara Falls, but if you aren’t careful, you might survive as one man did this past Monday. Apparently he is one of only three people who have survived, compared to roughly 2,780 completed suicides at Niagara Falls, the world’s third most popular place to off yourself after Japan’s Mount Fuji and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

In more suicide news, Tyler Clementi’s bully Dharun Ravi was recently sentenced to 30 days in jail for invasion of privacy, bias intimidation, and tampering with evidence after he filmed his Rutgers University roommate making out with another young man and posted a link to his webcam feed on Twitter. Clementi leapt off the George Washington Bridge and the world broke out in hysterics. Then a witch hunt ensued to bully every last bully into submission. My feeling is that Ravi is queer, too, and that Clementi was merely hyper-anxious and had misplaced his sense of reality. He also had poor imagination; jumping off the GWB is a lackluster choice given all the spectacular suicide options NYC has to offer. If you’re really a drama queen, you could always blow your brains out on live TV or jump into an active volcano.

According to the World Health Organization, nearly one million people a year commit suicide. This morbid little tidbit out of Ghana indicates suicide is a trend there—almost five people a day, usually by hanging. According to the chief psychiatrist at the Ghana Health Service, roughly 95% of suicides and attempted suicides are symptomatic of depression and mental disorders. Abuse and stigmatization also play a part.

Apparently the hair-loss drug Propecia can also cause a person to commit suicide. Maybe being bald isn’t so bad after all.

Is dying while attempting to reach Mt. Everest’s summit considered suicide, or is it just dumb? Four people kicked the bucket this week after trying to hustle through the “death zone” toward the summit during a spot of good weather. I would hardly consider it a noble death, though some might disagree with me.

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In the ancient world suicide was often considered the noble way out, and it wasn’t until about 450 AD that it was deemed a sin. Dido, Socrates, Hannibal, Cato the Younger, Antony and Cleopatra, Nero, and Seneca all took their own lives. Back then people usually chose poison or the sword—far more romantic than, say, leaping off a bridge that leads to New Jersey. These days, not many people drink hemlock while pontificating about the soul’s immortality like Socrates did.

Remember the French banker who took his own life after investing more than a billion dollars of other people’s money in Madoff’s Ponzi scheme? His death seems more honorable and meaningful than anything to do with Twitter or drugs. At least Monsieur de la Villehuchet took responsibility for his own negligence, and given that he and his wife had no children, I can’t argue with his decision. The same cannot be said of Mark Madoff, who left a wife and two children in the wake of his father’s demise. Apparently he wasn’t crazy before the scandal came to light. Did the scandal flick the switch, or was he just a coward?

Choosing suicide in the face of embarrassment, emotional turmoil, or suffering may seem cowardly unless you consider that not all people are as strong, resilient, or hopeful as others. One shouldn’t underestimate the power that other people’s behavior can have on a person. 

Children and young people who are victims of sexual abuse are part of a grey area in the Cochran Guide to Suicide. In these cases suicide might actually prevent ongoing suffering after the fact if you assume messed-up people usually create a lot of collateral damage in their relationships with others. Some people really are beyond repair.

People who are suffering from painful and debilitating physical illnesses or from an accident fit into this grey area as well, but tremendous physical pain must be a factor. Paraplegia and quadriplegia are exempt if the person has a reasonable quality of life. In terminal cases, the rare exceptions and bizarre tales of people coming out of comas are anomalies that end up costing a lot of money and preventing loved ones from moving on with their lives, so have your loved ones pull the plug.

Almost everyone has probably been depressed enough to think about taking their own life, though it has always seemed like the cowardly way out to me. Doing it Hunter S. Thompson-style could be the answer. At the very least, it’s pretty damned cool. But leaving it up to chance is far easier—and thus maybe more cowardly—than making the decision yourself.

King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain

The delightful readers of Taki’s Magazine have spoken! I hereby declare this week’s column to be a Hollywood-free zone. There will be no look into director Joel Schumacher and his alleged pedophilia or into the heretofore unheard-of teen bride Courtney Stodden. No, no, my darling party guests! This week we cross the Atlantic to take a much grander look at some European nobles on the 50th wedding anniversary of King Juan Carlos of Spain and his wife Queen Sofia.

It has long been rumored that the King and Queen are estranged and that Sofia loves the King but that he has never been in love with her. The King is of course a king, and as such he has drawn the admiring gaze of women the world over—everyone knows it’s good to be the King. Juan Carlos is said to have had more than 1,500 girlfriends, though only ever one wife. People say the marriage to Sofia of Greece and Denmark was arranged because the women Juan Carlos liked were never grand enough to be Queen. And so for 50 years Sofia has mothered their three children and stood stoically by his side in state affairs without pulling a Diana. The Queen is worthy of her title.

Lately, the people of Spain are not sure their King is worthy of his title. With one in four unemployed, the people made a big fuss when they learned Juan Carlos had been off on a shooting holiday in Botswana. The people might not have heard about his vacation had he not broken his hip while on safari and been flown back to Spain by private plane for surgery. They also might not have heard about his alleged mistress of the past four or so years, Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. Now some are calling for his ouster.

The King is said to be smitten with Wittgenstein, an ambitious woman approaching 50 who has done well for herself socially and financially. Wittgenstein is an average girl from southern Germany who became a princess by marrying the black sheep of a noble German family. Back in 2000 Juan Carlos’s mistress was only just becoming Corinna Wittgenstein. After several failed relationships with very rich men she married Casimir Sayn Wittgenstein, who is not rich and is more than 10 years her junior. They had a child and divorced five years later. She got a title and poor Casimir has been looking for a meal ticket ever since.

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Unfortunately the arrogant prince hasn’t had much luck and is a ridiculous figure in European social circles. Not least because he also happens to be the ex-boyfriend of Tinsley Mortimer—you remember her, don’t you? He appeared briefly on her reality show High Society and was made a fool by Tinsley’s mother Dale Mercer, who called him a Nazi. Now Tinsley is with another prince, only this one is Italian, perhaps a fascist, and has appeared on The Bachelor. A note to Tinsley: Borghese’s mother is American. His paternal grandmother, a Sicilian who married into the family, founded the famous cosmetics line. The blue blood runs thin through Lorenzo’s veins and one can certainly tell since he has willingly appeared on reality television. But perhaps like Corinna, Tinsley’s dream will come true, she will become a princess, and her entree into the beau monde will be secured. Never mind the details!

But back to the Bourbons, who have not had a great year. In addition to the hunting accident, Juan Carlos’s son-in-law has been accused of embezzling public funds and now there have been minor rumblings implicating the King. His approval rating is not at its peak. He has been forced to apologize for the Botswana fiasco and has suffered more humiliations in the press as a result of his African holiday. Furthermore, he and his wife did not celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. We can only speculate why—maybe because any celebration would be an unwelcome display of spending during austere times, and more importantly because everybody knows there is nothing to celebrate. The King and Queen have been leading separate lives.

Hopefully Queen Sofia’s spirits will be lifted by celebrating the forthcoming Diamond Jubilee of her cousin, the Queen of England. England is going to be a madhouse over the next few weeks with royal concerts, flotillas, and events all over the country. I can’t wait.

Long live the Queens!

Tinsley Mortimer

Judging from last week’s comments, there are not many Kardashian fans here on Taki’s Mag. Though the fuss was to be expected from our highbrow readership, every rag needs a gossip column. Sure, we could cover the upper crust of East Coast society and the European aristocracy, but you would grumble about them, too. The people worth writing about do everything behind closed doors, anyway, so there wouldn’t be much to say even if we wanted to write about more interesting people. But don’t be so bloody bourgeois! There is nothing more amusing than the lives of those who work tirelessly for attention. If nothing else, you should be grateful for the distraction from all things serious. You might also be reminded of how lucky you are not to be a nitwit like Tinsley Mortimer.

Who is Tinsley Mortimer? Like the tinsel you string on a Christmas tree, she is a gaudy ornament. She is also indefatigable in her pursuit of attention. Tinsley, though I like to call her Tinsel, wishes to be the star on top of the tree, but she will always be the tinsel. She landed in New York in the late 90s and made a name for herself appearing on red carpets and at shop openings. For a long time Tinsley wasn’t famous for anything except having married into a good old American family. Now she is separated (apparently he couldn’t handle the media attention), is designing handbags, and has been on a failed reality show. Clearly, Tinsley is tarnished. Her biggest claim to fame is that she played herself on an episode of Gossip Girl.

Tinsley has recently become a novelist. Tinsley’s thinly veiled fictional account of…Tinsley…is called Southern Charm, and no, she didn’t write it all by herself—a “friend” helped. For a bubble-gum tale aimed at teenage girls, it isn’t badly written, though it isn’t exactly groundbreaking, either. Like all poor little rich girls, the protagonist has an Eloise fantasy, but unlike Kay Thompson’s fictional character who speaks in the most eccentric way and lives at the Plaza Hotel with her nanny, the protagonist Minty speaks in clichés and says things such as, “When I walked into Saks, I felt like a kid in a candy store.”

While Mortimer may have some Southern charm and an eye for fashion, she is the butt of jokes in the inner circle of New York society because she courted publicity before she had anything to sell, much like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian. Pointless publicity is the big no-no if you want to be taken seriously by high society, by Hollywood, or even by your average Joe.

Let’s hope these girls and up-and-comers like Olivia Palermo are listening, though I doubt they read anything but People magazine. As I don’t either, let me tell you what the fabulous are doing these days.

Linda Evangelista has settled a child-support dispute with her billionaire baby daddy François-Henri Pinault, AKA Mr. Salma Hayek. The model and the mogul spent a week together five years ago when she contracted his silk-stocking sperm. Unfortunately the model who doesn’t “get out of bed for less than $10,000” hasn’t managed to languish in her boudoir like Stephanie Seymour or Natalia Vodianova, both models who managed to snag very rich husbands. Evangelista also dated Peter Morton for a while. Let us hope she finds happiness with $40,000 a month, or whatever she and Pinault finally agreed upon. Evangelista was asking for $46,000. His family is said to be worth $13 billion. He can probably afford it.

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For all of you who have been wondering how long that other model, Carla Bruni, will stay with her husband now that he’s no longer president of France, we were wondering the same thing. Even though they just had a child, why would she stay? Her grand ascent was short-lived, despite all the cute pillbox hats and Dior dresses she wore to state functions. Surely she will punish Sarkozy for the humiliation and take up with someone who doesn’t wear lifts. Or maybe not. Sarko wasn’t exactly poor before becoming a politician, but he is likely to make a lot more now that he’s no longer in office. Will the lure of powerful people and more money steady her gaze? Maybe it will so long as she is still carrying around all that baby fat on her face. If all else fails, she can take comfort by stuffing a few more éclairs down her once beautiful and currently disfigured features.

And speaking of fat faces and things shaped like éclairs, poor John Travolta is likely being extorted by some lunatic masseur who claims John grabbed his wang and tried to rub one out in front of him. Travolta says this is a complete fabrication and that he wasn’t even in town when the alleged incident occurred. If this isn’t a lesson in the perils of fame, my God, actors really do deserve the big bucks. I can’t think of anything worse than losing my anonymity and being at the mercy of hysterical fans, stalkers, paparazzi, freeloaders, pushers, and producers. We know it’s nonsense, John, so don’t worry. We still love you even though you are a Scientologist.

Maybe the only thing worse than dealing with stalkers, pushers, and paparazzi is the physical attention that comes with fame. Who knew Jack Nicholson had a 17-year-old daughter with a former waitress he met when she was 20? Now the daughter, Tessa Gourin, is smoking pot and getting busted. Nicholson has anywhere between four and six children, mostly with different women, but it is hard to know exactly how many since he has only acknowledged four publicly. In addition to Tessa, he could have a 40-year-old son called Caleb but nobody knows for sure. Since Nicholson grew up thinking his mother was his sister, we won’t hold him entirely responsible for being confused about turning out children.

Following the famous is mildly amusing and simultaneously demented, I imagine, just like the life. Unless you are a poseur who craves attention why would one want to be famous? All things considered, even the money and the glamour seem like meager compensation. I hope Tinsley will shed some light on this in her next book—don’t you?

Kall me krazy, but I love the Kardashians. 

This is Kardashian Week if there ever was one. The fab family just signed a $40-million deal with E! for three more years of their reality show Keeping Up With the Kardashians—making it the biggest deal in reality-TV history. 

Last Thursday Kim appeared on a live episode of 30 Rock. Soon after she declared her interest in doing comedy and having her own show.

Kim also expressed interest in politics and talked about running for mayor of Glendale, CA. She met with several local politicians to discuss her candidacy. Her mother Kris says she thinks Kim would be a great mayor. I think it would be a good way for her to use her influence in a more humanitarian way.

This past weekend Kim and her mother attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington. Barack Obama and host Jimmy Kimmel both referred to Kim and the Kardashians in their speeches multiple times. That makes them pretty darn famous, now, doesn’t it? Possibly even more than Brad and Angelina.

Kim’s sister Khloe and her sweetie pie of a husband Lamar Odom just announced they have canceled their spin-off show so Lamar can focus on his basketball career. It looks like Khloe and her sister Kourtney might be in talks to do their own spin-off like the one they did in Miami, though nothing has been finalized.

In the meantime Lamar and Kanye West, Kim’s new squeeze, were recently fitted for gold teeth. This is slightly ridiculous, but perhaps my understanding of fashion is out of date. Plus I’m not a dentist. The Kardashian Klan seem to have a tremendous sense of style so they probably know more about gold teeth. After all, a lot of their businesses revolve around clothing.

As far as I can tell the girls have a slightly gaudy, well-to-do SoCal Armenian thing going. I don’t really have a problem with that; it’s the Juicy Couture look I detest. Kris Jenner could dress a little more age-appropriately, but I’ll let it slide. All in all the ladies look healthy. Robert and Bruce would lose the earrings and the ghetto fabulous stuff if I had my say, but then they hang out with a lot of ballers so maybe they fit in a little better with them. The best dressed of all the Kardashian men is definitely Scott Disick. He’s from the East Coast so his sense of style is more preppie, which I happen to prefer.

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Scott recently backed out of hosting the Hamptons Golf Classic because his daughter with Kourtney K is due around the same time. He also just opened a new restaurant in New York called RYU. The food is Asian/Israeli—ever on the cutting edge! I love Disick’s sense of humor. He is particularly funny when he gets all cocky and drunk. I miss his wild drinking days when he would go to Vegas and embarrass the whole klan. He seems like a sensitive and humble person, though his humility is not always obvious. Only Disick can get away with using a cane.

One thing that confuses me is the girls’ choice in men. I would think they would go for guys with origins more similar to their own, but I guess now that they are so famous they need to be with people who understand the nature of the beast and who are happy in the spotlight.

I am so glad that whole Kris Humphries nonsense is over. He was so immature and annoying. I actually stopped watching the show because of him. My skin crawls when I catch a rerun and have to listen to him acting like an awkward teenager. All the haters who said she married him for publicity are wrong. She was just caught up in a bad relationship and was consumed like most girls by her wedding fantasy. Nobody would have married that goober-faced tool for money. Only an inexperienced young woman could make such an idiotic decision.

Now that Kim is with Kanye West, I am going to have to regroup. I used to find him really annoying but I can see by the photographs that he’s really into her. I think she likes him because he’s famous and into fashion and all that, but Kim is a little too into herself right now to really know how to love anyone. I give her another five years or so to fully mature. Kim is the middle child and they are always the most screwed-up.

It couldn’t have been easy for the girls to lose their dad so young. I wonder if that’s why they all have OCD and love to keep everything tidy and under control.

Kris Jenner is the real mystery. Is she a stage mom who never realized her own ambitions, or is she only trying to secure her family’s financial future? She has to be a decent lady or Bruce Jenner wouldn’t be with her. He seems like a solid person. She is clearly very ambitious and very capable.

People love to hate the Kardashians, but I don’t see why anyone has a problem with them. The Kardashians stick together and look out for each other. They work hard. They’re honest about their values. They have never claimed to be more than they are.

They are a tight family and they don’t hurt anyone. They have been involved in so many different businesses and harmless scandals, it’s hard to keep track of the main reason they’re famous. Personally, I’d like to see them all at Coachella next year toking on doobies and singing in an ethno-Armenian gypsy band called Kim and the Kardashians.

Rachel Maddow

Remember when people used to say, “Sue me!” if you complained about something they said or did? “Sue me!” was one of my favorite expressions and I used it in grade school a lot, though I don’t think I’ve uttered the words in 20 years. It’s worth saying twice because it is so deeply crass. No one with any sense of dignity would ever sue, but suing is all the rage nowadays.

Enter: two men who say they are victims of racial discrimination by producers of The Bachelor reality television show. Now a class-action lawsuit has been brought against ABC by the men who claim their case is about “hope and change” and that they want the show to reflect the country’s diversity. They should have pitched The Black Bachelor and made some money instead of wasting time with a ridiculous lawsuit. Did it ever occur to them that they might not have been discriminated against by the show’s producers and that outside of their fantasy lives, not all white girls have jungle fever? Furthermore, they might want to remember the old wives’ tale about marrying one’s own kind. I remember all the fools who think they know better than grandma. Dummkopfs!

No, it doesn’t end there. Four Muslims who were fired from IHOP are suing for racial discrimination as well. The Muslims claim they are still unemployed and have suffered greatly because of the damage to their reputations the job loss caused. They should be grateful they were fired. IHOP doesn’t even make good pancakes. If they’re worried about their reputations, maybe they shouldn’t advertise their religion and try to blend in with the locals. After all they are living in a Christian country and their religion calls for the murder of infidels. Just sayin’.

In more reality-TV news, Basketball Wives star Jennifer Williams is slapping Nia Crooks with a lawsuit for slapping her in the face. I’ve never heard of these women or watched the show but damn, those sure are some slaphappy wives! Better be careful, Jennifer—you’ve already lost your husband who is now happily slappin’ someone else’s ass. Do you really want to lose your job over this one? If you do, you might wind up slapping yourself.

Phil Spector, the murderer with the craziest hair in history, is suing the California city of Alhambra. Spector is in prison, but his wife lives in the house where he murdered actress Lana Clarkson in 2003. Apparently a city construction project is weakening a retaining wall and causing landslides on his property. Karma’s a bitch, Phil. You might want to suck this one up and pay for the damage yourself. Haven’t you cost the taxpayers enough already?

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Rich people love to sue, and even so-called cool guys such as old mega-millionaire Howard Stern sometimes come down with a nasty case of the Sue Flu. Stern tried to sue Sirius Radio recently for failure to pay $330 million in stock awards. Fortunately a judge threw out the case. Howard just lost a few notches with me. Come on, buddy, you’re turning into a greedy son of a bitch. How much does one man need?

At least $50 million, according to Bradlee Dean, who is suing Rachel Maddow for defamation. A radio preacher and heavy-metal rocker, Dean says Maddow champions “leftist, socialist, activist ‘gay rights,’ pro-choice, pro government and anti-religious” ideas. Dean says his words were taken out of context and he was made to sound as if he was calling for the extermination of homosexuals. Maddow and NBC Universal are furious and have filed an anti-SLAPP motion against Dean. Clearly some in the media love to edit sound bites, often deceptively, to make them seem more incendiary. Maddow should be ashamed of himself herself. Dean should, too. Why dignify the PC Police’s bullying tactics with any response at all?

When in doubt, apologize and delete, as Lesley Arfin had to do. Not! A writer on the new HBO show Girls, Arfin was being ironic when she complained there was no one like her in the movie Precious after someone noted that Girls had no major characters “of color” in the first episode. She had also once told a joke about “taking Obama to the White House,” a reference to taking a crap. Arfin took some heat from Gawker, those high and mighty—and nearly all-white!—keyboard warriors of anti-racism for her “racist” sense of humor. My God, please help! What is this world coming to? The problem isn’t that we live among so many racists but that almost anything funny that points out differences between people—and they can’t really be “diverse” without being different, can they?—is considered “racism.”

Let’s forget about “racism” and focus on this freak show. Yeah, the “man” who had a baby is separating from the mother of his kids. These people are freaks, and if you don’t like what I have to say about it, sue me! Life is clearly confusing enough; why add children into the mix? My heart goes out to these little tykes. No innocent person should have to explain such a horror.

RIP Levon Helm and Dick Clark. Hopefully you’ve found greater peace than many of us find in this wild world.

Frances Bean Cobain

Hollywood has a rule: If it’s true, it’s strange.

Kurt Cobain’s widow Courtney Love recently voiced parental concern for her hapless spawn Frances Bean via Twitter. Rumors had been circulating that former Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighters singer Dave Grohl had been romantically involved with Frances Bean. Love took to Twitter to reprimand her husband’s old bandmate. Love later issued a Twitter apology to her daughter, who says she has nothing more than a platonic relationship with Grohl, that she is in a monogamous relationship with someone else, and that her mother should be banned from Twitter. Courtney Love has always been deranged, which may be why her daughter doesn’t want anything to do with her. Courtney, publicly flaunting your meager maternal instincts isn’t going to win your daughter’s favor. A separate note to Frances: Stop injecting your lips with ass fat. You’re starting to look like your mother.

Speaking of fat lips, Angelina Jolie is finally engaged to Brad Pitt. The couple decided to make it official in a bid to please their six children, who are still young and eager to be like everyone else—even though some of them were adopted precisely because they weren’t like everybody else. Back when Jolie was married to Billy Bob Thornton, they renewed their vows by cutting their fingers and sipping each other’s blood. A reality show with this bunch would net the E! channel a lot more dough than the Kardashians. I’d like a piece of the backend on this one, assuming it hasn’t already been pitched and then nixed by Jolie and Pitt. I’m guessing it might not be highbrow enough for them, so how about a Tim Burton-directed remake of The Addams Family starring the multiculti OctoFam?

Morgan Freeman stars in an odd little tidbit recently reported by Page Six. See if you can follow this one; I had to read it twice. The gist of it is the Shawshank Redemption star with the winning voice spends a lot of time with his step-granddaughter, E’dina Hines, whose mother he adopted when he was married to E’dina’s grandmother, whom he divorced in 1979. A mini-scandal broke out because Freeman was often seen at events with Hines and people assumed they were dating. Turns out there is no blood relation and that they’re not involved romantically. Freeman family tree sounds almost as complicated as Henry VIII’s.

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Last weekend the Coachella music festival kicked off in Indio, California and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony took place in Ohio. The big fuss in Cleveland—where Donovan, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Beastie Boys, and Guns N’ Roses were also inducted—involved Axl Rose. The rubber-faced rocker was noticeably absent from the stage when three original band members played using another singer. Apparently no one missed Rose and his egomaniacal antics. Too bad he owns the rights to the band’s name and was one of the best front men ever. Axl, you’re off your axle: Take a pill, let bygones be bygones, and get the band back together. Alternatively, Slash and the boys could take cues from the folks in Indio and project a hologram of young Axl onto the stage like they did of Tupac Shakur last weekend. The projection was so lifelike, the crowd in Coachella went nuts. Supposedly the less-than-sober among the audience were confused, since Tupac has been dead for 15 years.

Neither a hologram nor a mirage, an unknown New Yorker named Quamine Taylor was recently caught staying inside rapper/entrepreneur Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs’s Long Island home. Taylor was allegedly taking up residence in Diddy’s house when Puffy-Poo was away, making use of his food, booze, and beachwear. Taylor is still in jail, unable to post $2,000 bail. Come on, Sean! This guy sounds pretty entrepreneurial just like you: Cut the guy loose and give him a job holding your umbrella.

Out West, some San Francisco residents are upset about a mobile strip joint that has been circling the Sunset District. What will Larry Flynt think of next—Hustler Air? Down in the Southland, that most peculiar of actors, Vincent Gallo, is suing the City of Los Angeles in an attempt to stop needless spending. Apparently a government program to improve downtown LA’s Art Deco district has done little but line a private company’s pockets at the taxpayers’ expense. Gallo is one of the weirdest people I have ever met, but this is something I can wrap my head around without getting a migraine. I wish more stars would spend their free time cleaning up their own backyards and going after wasteful government spending rather than hosting expensive fundraisers to elect Democrats or save obscure foreign nations.

Donald Trump

Welcome to Taki’s Mag, all you do-gooders who’ve discovered us this past week! It’s a big world, and there are people to save and hands to hold everywhere! Let us help all of you help everyone else! It’ll be like one big H-bomb of humans helping other humans. And then, after you’ve done good, comes the most important part—bragging about it to impress people.

If you do-gooding hordes need a new cause to champion, maybe you can help to save the Wayuu Indians from…themselves. These folks from the Colombian desert are one of only a few American tribes who have managed to resist European dominance. Now that a 10-year-old Colombian Wayuu girl gave birth to a baby girl, will she need saving from her own culture? Unfortunately, some misdirected do-gooder will have trouble intervening since the tribe has its own jurisdiction. But don’t fret; you can still go down there and do good by buying some of their beautiful bags and selling them for three times the price at Fred Segal.

If Colombia is too far for you, don’t despair, dear do-gooders: Britney Spears could always use another conservator, or maybe two is enough now that her father and her fiancé are helping Britney manage her finances after what now seems like a lifelong meltdown. Melissa Etheridge‘s ex Tammy Lynn Michaels still can’t manage on her own with $23,000 a month, so your services might be needed there. You’ll have to be able to keep her in the style to which she has become accustomed, so poor bleeding hearts need not apply.

If that’s not your bag or your bank, Lil Wayne and his pals might need a hand with the paparazzi down in Florida. On second thought, I think Lil Wayne can handle it himself even though he’s, well, little. This guy is the bee’s knees. I’m not much into rap these days, but there aren’t many bona-fide rock stars out there, and Wayne has the charisma and the chutzpah.

If you’re more of a Park Avenue do-gooder, Mike Wallace might need a hand. On second thought, that won’t work. Rest in peace, Mike. You’ll be missed. The infinitely wise ancient Greeks said we must not speak ill of the dead, so we shan’t.

Whitney Houston’s autopsy report was released late last week, and—surprise, surprise!—she wasn’t clean and sober before she died. Yup, the Whitster was still sniffing the snuff. No surprise there really, but the cocktail was surprisingly impressive. In addition to the cocaine, Houston had weed, Xanax, Flexeril, and Benadryl in her system. Oh, and a little champagne to wash it all down. It was recently revealed that her only daughter, Bobbi Kristina, wants to play her mother in a biopic on the singer’s life. Let us hope Miss Brown isn’t a method actress.

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This week in Chicago the adorable American Idol alum Jennifer Hudson is set to attend the murder trial of a man accused of killing three of her family members. I might even hold Jennifer’s hand myself since this story breaks my heart so much. What this poor girl has been through goes to show that life isn’t only unfair to the poor and talentless.

If that isn’t the sort of do-gooding you’re into, how about helping Bob Weinstein handle his supposedly alcoholic wife? Apparently the couple are separating and she is seeking a restraining order against him, alleging abuse. We wouldn’t be surprised if the dude is violent given all the rumors that circulate about his brother Harvey’s horrible temper and widely abusive attitude. Maybe you could do a good deed and get the scoop for us. You’ll get lots of brownie points, I promise.

Two of the most annoying people in Hollywood are rumored to be dating. Do some good and turn Kim Kardashian and Kanye West into wax figures like Madame Tussaud’s has done with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in London. Doesn’t this girl date anyone without a “K” in their name?

Lazy? Hell, you could just do some good and buy Madonna’s new album MDNA off the Internet. Apparently it is the biggest and quickest fall in opening history.

Are you more of the hands-on type? The TSA could use some assistance. While you’re at it, Jim Belushi might need someone to hold his roach clip. The actor was recently caught with a joint in his pocket at Martha’s Vineyard Airport. We are happy to hear he was let go but not so happy the doob was confiscated. You know those notoriously unprofessional TSA agents probably smoked it up on their lunch break.

NBC fired the unnamed producer who doctored George Zimmerman’s 911 call in order to make it sound more “racist”—and who drastically inflamed American racial tensions by doing so. Thanks for nothing, whatever your name is—you turned this whole Trayvon mess into such a fiasco, even Al Sharpton abandoned Trayvon for Easter. I’m so sick of this whole race-baiting business. Where is The Donald when you need him? Don, please, please tell these fools that their Word of the Day has officially lost its meaning and that “racists” don’t live here anymore.