THE CRAP IS OUT THERE

1. Batman: Dark Knight/WB Wknd/$ 75.3 Total/$ 314.2
2. Step Brothers/Sony Wknd/$ 30.0 Total/$ 30.0
3. Mamma Mia/Universal Wknd/$ 17.9 Total/$ 62.7
4. The X-Files: I Want To Believe Wknd/$ 10.2 Total/$ 10.2
5. Journey To The Center… Wknd/$ 9.4 Total/$ 60.2
6. Hancock/Sony Wknd/$ 8.2 Total/$ 206.4
7. Wall-E/Disney Wknd/$ 6.3 Total/$ 195.2
8. Hellboy II/Universal Wknd/$ 4.9 Total/$ 65.9
9. Space Chimps/Fox Wknd/$ 4.4 Total/$ 16.0
10. Wanted/Universal Wknd/$ 2.7 Total/$ 128.6

THE JOKER’S NOT HIS ONLY PROBLEM
Batman: The Dark Knight holds on to the number one spot and now that we’ve discussed what’s good about it, let’s talk about what sucks. First, there’s that needless 20 minutes that kicks off the final act and drains the film of momentum. That’s a problem but it obviously only happens once, while what’s consistently bad throughout the film is Christian Bale’s “Batman voice.” It’s fine in small doses, but when he goes on and on in that forced gruffness, it becomes….well, kinda stupid. He overdoes it to begin with, so when he’s forced to spout these bad soliloquies, you keep expecting him to start coughing and ask for a glass of water so he can finish. Again, we look to the best Batman ever, Kevin Conroy, as the voice from the animated series who was smart enough to lighten Bruce Wayne’s voice a just a bit so that when he was Batman, just going a notch below his regular voice was impressive. Then there’s the simple fact that almost every superhero costume ever looks stupid when not in motion. This crippled that rooftop encounter between Spider-man and The Green Goblin and it ruins scenes here. They should have read more comics to see that Batman is much more impressive and intimidating when his cape is closed around him, so he’s like this mass of darkness. And speaking of intimidation, another low point is Batman’s supposed interrogation of the Joker. Basically, he slaps him around a police interrogation room while the cops watch. Yeah, that’s it. No building dangling or anything like that. I kept waiting for one cop to say, “Um, we coulda done that.” They don’t even go for drama and have it done by Batman in the dark. It’s in a light-flooded room so we’re back to two guys dressed up weird talking. And what’s worse, it’s for nothing. The Joker isn’t intimidated, has no fear of Batman and only tells him what he was going to tell him anyway. And you know what? Christopher Nolan and Christian “I Punched My Mom & Sister In The Face” Bale (okay, so he only pushed them out of a hotel room ‘cause they hit him up for cash) can suck my nuts when it comes to their dumbass “No Robin” policy. Robin matters and is important to Batman’s survival, not just in terms of popularity, but also in rescuing him from his own darkness.

I DO THIS FOR FREE EVERY DAY
Step Brothers opens at number two and sadly this is a great opening for the Judd Apatow machine. Yes, it’s another entry into their highly successful “man-boy” franchise. It’s also the latest entry into Will Farrell’s own “emotionally retarded males” series. I won’t even watch this on cable. If I want to see an emotionally retarded middle-aged manchild, I’ll look in the mirror, thanks. And how fucked up is it that Mary Steenburgen is playing Will Ferrell’s mother? She’s only 14 years younger than he is and while possible and sadly a reality for some, did every actress in her 60’s suddenly drop dead that she was the best choice!?! If you saw Life Is A House a few years ago, you know this woman is still smoking hot and should be doing more than playing the mom to a middle-aged man. She knows it too, which is why she still does nude scenes.

LIVE AND LET THOUGHTS OF SINGING DIE
Mama Mia is down to number three and in the brief clip I saw it was confirmed what everyone else is saying: Pierce Brosnan can’t sing worth shit. He subscribes to the Ewan McGregor school of somehow thinking that if you sing louder you’ll somehow get in key. You won’t. You just make it easier for the people in the next county to hear how badly you sound. And getting the short shrift in the ad campaign is Stellan Skarsgard. It doesn’t help that they make him look like Randy Quaid. Supposedly it was surprising to people that, with Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth onset, the hot dude was Stellan. Uh, no. Not if you’ve seen him in the original Insomnia, the movie that Christopher “I’m Too Stupid To Understand Robin” Nolan fucked up when he remade it with Robin Williams of all people.

I WANT TO LET IT GO
The X-Files: I Want To Believe seemingly opens poorly at number five, but given it only cost $30M to make (and looks it), this actually isn’t bad. But I cannot stress this enough: wait for DVD. Unless you’ve access to matinees that are about the same cost as a rental, wait. It’s just another X-Files episode. And not even a good one. None of the mythology of the series is addressed at all, leading me to believe that Chris Carter has the biggest fucking balls of any human alive to ask people to pay to see something that doesn’t even resolve the storyline. So, no. No “black oil”, no Krychek, no aliens, no government conspiracy, no nothing (not even their son, though he is mentioned…once). Just another case where the only strange thing is a pedophile priest who claims a psychic connection. And while on The X-Files, what limited the conventional authorities was a refusal to accept the paranormal, here it’s flat out stupidity. An FBI agent is missing. They find an arm from one of the supposed kidnappers. It was surgically removed and has an animal tranquilizer in it. At no time does anyone, not even Mulder and Scully suggest, “Hey, let’s look at animal hospitals.” Not even when the psychic says he hears dogs in his vision. Know why? BECAUSE THIS FUCKING MOVIE WOULD HAVE BEEN OVER IN FIVE MINUTES IF THEY HAD! Oh, and supposedly the FBI can’t find Mulder so they ask Scully. It turns out Mulder and Scully FUCKING LIVE TOGETHER, so maybe this FBI is run by the dumbest people alive that they can’t find him. Stay home and watch a good X-Files rerun on TNT. I mean if they’re running a good one. It seems to me like they run the same lousy six or seven all the time. Never the roaches, never the guy who can change shape or the serial killer who eats livers, or even the tattoo episode. Usually, it’s the crappy ones with Annabeth Gish and Robert Patrick.

YOU’LL MISS US WHEN WE’RE GONE
Journey To The Center of the Earth 3D is down to number five, followed by Hancock at number six and Wall-E at number seven and I’m not going to point out again just how many films are science fiction or fantasy. And you’ll miss these days when the fall comes and every other fucking film is a two-and-a-half hour piece of Oscar bait about some working class single mother with drug addiction, or some warts-and-all bio pic or adaptation of a depressing novel which is twice as depressing onscreen (yes, Atonement, I’m looking at you). You’ll wish you had superheroes, cute robots and yes, even monkeys in space.

FOR GUYS WITHOUT GIRLFRIENDS, GEEKS LOVE LONG AND LOVE HARD
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army is down to number eight and playing Abe Sapien (the fish guy) is Doug Jones who has secured his geek convention future because he also played The Silver Surfer (though Lawrence Fishburne did his voice just as David Hyde Pierce did the voice of Abe Sapien in the first Hellboy). He was also The Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth. Hell, he was even in the first episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Homeslice can lay around Monday through Friday for the rest of his life. He just has to talk to geeks on the weekend and his financial future is set.

BROADWAY & TV; TWO OUTTA THREE AIN’T BAD
Space Chimps is down to number nine and Stanley Tucci, Jeff Daniels and Kristen Chenoweth are the poor bastards who whore themselves out for this, hoping it might lead to a Pixar gig of which they can be proud. Well, Kristen Chenoweth got a much deserved Emmy Nomination for Olive Snook on the utterly amazing Pushing Daises, so hopefully that eases the whoring pain.

WANTED: A NEW BADASS CHARACTER TO CARRY THE SEQUEL
Finally, Wanted closes out the top ten at number ten and this has hit $224M worldwide fulfilling the 3x budget needed to turn a profit so maybe all that sequel talk wasn’t just blowing smoke. Sadly, the most interesting and most badass character doesn’t see the end of the movie, so who the fuck wants to see just James McAvoy in the sequel? I mean other than the legions of women who love him.

PREY YOU DON’T HAVE TO WATCH THIS
Also trying to cash in on the release of Batman: The Dark Knight is the DVD release of Birds of Prey, the horrible TV series of a few years ago that initially tried to cash in on Smallville, but learned the hard way all the stupid changes idiot producers make will cost you. Now you’re going to get some geek history so stay with me. In the 50’s the decision was made that all the characters that existed in the 30’s and 40’s and were in WWII actually lived on another Earth, called Earth-2. The modern Superman and Batman were on Earth-1. In the early Superman stories, Clark Kent worked at the Daily Star, not the Daily Planet so it was the Earth 2 Superman who worked at the Daily Star, get it? Now, on Earth-2 Batman married Catwoman and they had a daughter, Helena Wayne, who later grew up into a superhero herself, The Huntress. On Earth-1 obviously Batman and Catwoman haven’t gotten married, so The Huntress there is Helena Bertinelli, daughter of a murdered mob family, inspired by Batman to put on a costume and go after the mafia. She eventually joins Barbara Gordon (who was Batgirl until The Joker crippled her with a bullet to the spine) and Black Canary as The Birds of Prey. An all-female superhero team of total ass-whoop. It’s been a successful comic book series for years and since they couldn’t have Batman for TV (trivia fact: Smallville actually sprung from A Young Bruce Wayne TV series idea), they decided to go with the next best thing, his daughter, so they put the Earth-2 Huntress into the Earth-1 Birds of Prey. But that’s not where they fucked up five ways to Sunday. No, that starts when they give her super-powers, which is stupid, and ruins the thing people like about the whole Bat-family, which is that they don’t have superpowers. Then Black Canary is actually the Black Canary’s daughter and they have her as a lost teenager with psychic powers, while her mom who shows up for one single episode is the butt-kicker with a sonic scream we know and love. Then there’s Shemar Moore who pretty much turns up to just be pretty and take off his shirt (not that there’s anything wrong with that). It sucked, sucked, sucked. Not to mention the best thing about the show (besides the female cast) was the theme song. It’s not here.

BREAKING AWAY
I am now officially obsessed with my bike. "I want to ride my bicycle/I want to ride my bike/I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like." I ride it every day that I don’t go to kung-fu because my legs are barely holding up as it, but I will never again complain about the sturdy thighs my mom gave me. They haven’t given out yet. So yes, I’m doing something active six days a week now and while going home afterwards and eating potato chips with French onion dip then washing it down with a coke (for some reason, riding makes me want soda) kinda undoes what good I’ve done, but I’m not getting worse. And also, it’s making me love the city all over again. I go places I either have never been or haven’t been to in years. My location is ideal, because riding up and down along the west side highway along the bike/jogging/skating paths at sunset is a singular sublime pleasure. Say what you want about the city, some things they get right and crafting the various bike paths and recreation areas was one of them. They are an amazing feat of civil engineering and design. It’s even better in the summer now that the douchebag population leaves the city on the weekend, leaving it free for the real New Yorkers. And me. Saturday I rode down the west side, into Battery Park City, which is also gorgeous. I rode through there in into Battery Park itself…which is not so gorgeous. In fact, it’s so ugly and crowed I left it to ride around in the deserted canyons of Wall Street. I then went across the Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn then over the Manhattan Bridge and came back across it into the city. That lets you out in an area that is what’s left of the real Chinatown, where men sell fresh produce under the bridge and shops and restaurants don’t have English translations because they don’t want your gwailo tourist ass down there anyway. I then rode up the east side under the FDR up to the Williamsburg bridge where I came across Houston, up Broadway, over though the West Village to the Meatpacking District then back up the west side. It took about two hours and I can’t wait to do it again, though I’m thinking next week I’ll ride up to the Cloisters. But first I need a water bottle holder and a gel seat cover (my crotch!!!) and a chain so I can actually stop occasionally. Then and only then can I get the Captain America jersey. And it’s gotta be soon, because I feel this enthusiasm will fade with the summer warmth.

SADLY, NO GOPHER SIGHTING
If you follow tabloids, pretty much every celebrity seems to be in Italy, hence the lack of star sightings, so while he’s far from A-list I have mention that I saw Michael O’Keefe walking down 9th Avenue, because I love Caddyshack.

DELTA OF VENUS
Now, it’s no secret I’m a long-time enemy of Brazilian waxing. I’ve no desire to see a woman look like a prepubescent child and you should be suspicious of any man who does. So, to that woman walking down 9th Avenue in the white pants so translucent her full black pubic triangle was easily visible to all…I salute you!!!

DARK BLIGHT

1. Batman: Dark Knight/WB Wknd/$155.3 Total/$ 155.3
2. Mamma Mia/Universal Wknd/$ 27.6 Total/$ 27.6
3. Hancock/Sony Wknd/$ 14.0 Total/$ 191.5
4. Journey To The Center… Wknd/$ 11.9 Total/$ 43.1
5. Hellboy II/Universal Wknd/$ 10.0 Total/$ 56.4
6. Wall-E/Disney Wknd/$ 9.8 Total/$ 182.5
7. Space Chimp/Fox Wknd/$ 7.4 Total/$ 7.4
8. Wanted/Universal Wknd/$ 5.1 Total/$ 123.3
9. Get Smart/Warner Wknd/$ 4.1 Total/$ 119.6
10. Kung Fu Panda/Paramount Wknd/$ 1.8 Total/$ 206.5

IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY KNIGHT
Batman: The Dark Knight kinda breaks records (these numbers are not adjusted for inflation) and opens at number one and kids, I gotta tell you, it takes the “Dark” in “Dark Knight” pretty damn seriously. Let me put it to you this way: LA Confidential has a happier ending. Basically, Christopher Nolan used his power and clout from Batman Begins to sneak out an incredibly dark mediation on the nature of heroism in a big mainstream package and if studio executives could actually read they might not have let this pass. If you’re looking for another movie where Batman comes in, kicks ass and takes names, then you’d better look elsewhere because this is two-and-a-half hours of evil and chaos bitch-slapping good and order around. Personifying this evil and chaos perfectly is Heath Ledger and yes, everything you’ve heard is true: he’s amazing. For a lot of you used to Caesar Romero or Jack Nicholson a seriously creepy murdering Joker is new, but he started off that way back in the 40’s, briefly became that again in the 60’s and 70’s, but was firmly locked back into that mode in the 80’s with Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore’s horribly overrated, The Killing Joke. But this Joker is more like the one in the 70’s who would threaten the city and murder its employees with impunity while Batman struggled and failed to stop him. He fails here too. Boy does he fail and that’s my problem. I didn’t pay to see a movie called “The Joker” much less Batman have his ass handed to him for two and a half hours and that what happens here on both counts. In the end he doesn’t so much defeat The Joker as merely survive him. Not to mention it should have been two hours, but there’s a twenty mention derailing of the film (after the amazing climax of the second act) that should have never been filmed to begin with and damn sure should have been cut. And anyone who tells you different is a wussy fanboy apologist. Christopher Nolan and his brother stumble if you give them more than 90 minutes and this is no exception. And can people stop with the bullshit comparisons to 9/11!?! Every time a building is destroyed it does not make the film instantly about 9/11. I’m pretty you didn’t about allegory and metaphor at Harvard if that’s what you think. Sometimes a bad guy blowing up a building in an action movie is just a bad guy blowing up a fucking building in an action movie! It’s like your broken hearted friend who insists that every love song reflects their life from “Muskrat Love” to “Gangsta Bitch.” And this darkness only hammers home the point I’ve made for years: Batman needs Robin and both Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale need to pull their heads out of their asses and understand this.

KNOWING ME, KNOWING YOU, NEITHER OF US SAW THIS
Mamma Mia opens at number two and do not be fooled. This is an amazing fucking opening considering no straight man was present and quite a few women and gay men were off digging a movie with Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart and Heath Ledger. But I will not front: ABBA is on my iPod and “Dancing Queen” has always held a special place in my heart, but I don’t like them this much. I also loves me some Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan, but again, not this much. If the movie was only 90 minutes, maybe I would have given it a shot, but one second over is just not flying. And can you believe that’s the dumb girl from Mean Girls in the lead? And not just the lead, but the only person on the friggin’ poster. Is Meryl Streep going to make a movie with every cast member? In the meantime the only thing Lindsay Lohan is known for is her current experimentation in “the love that dare not speak its name.”

LORD TAKE THIS BADGE OFFA ME, I CAN’T USE IT NO MORE
Hancock is down to number three and I can’t believe took me this long to realize the connection between Hancock and one of my favorite comic books, Powers. Powers is set in a world where people with superpowers is just another part of life and such individuals have to register with the government. It’s done in a very film noir, hard boiled, pulp fiction style seen through the eyes of two detectives who work the “powers” unit of the police department. One of them, however, is an ex-power himself, but as the series goes on, you learn that he’s not just some guy who got superpowers, he’s had them since the dawn of time when he was just a caveman, though he can only remember the last few decades of his life. Similarly, Hancock is an immortal god, though with a mate he becomes human. In Powers, he tired of his life as a superhero and “accidentally” causes the loss of his powers and presumably his immortality. I recommend you go buy the very first Powers storyline “Who Killed Retro-Girl” rather than go see Hancock. It’s better written, more entertaining and quite frankly funnier. The scene where an 8-year-old girl asks the hero what a clitoris is in front of his female partner is pretty much funnier than all of Hancock including the head-up-the-ass scene.

THAT GOOFY LOOK IS MORE ACCURATE THAN YOU KNOW
Journey To The Center of the Earth is down to number four and Brendan Fraser is every writer’s nightmare of a producer. He speaks proudly of just changing things in the script to cut costs. Now, I understand why this has to be done having done it myself for my own little short, but I did it. Me, the writer. Not some dipshit producer (or dumbass actor who thinks he’s a producer) who doesn’t understand how the script fits together and in doing creates a plot hole big enough to push a planet through.

ON THE UPSIDE SHE’LL NEVER BE SOLD INTO SLAVERY IN DUBAI
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army is down to number five and returning in this as Liz, the firestarter who is also Hellboy’s girlfriend, is Selma Blair, who like very, very, very thin people (she’s practically two-dimensional) is becoming more gaunt as she ages. Call it the “Teri Hatcher” syndrome. What’s funny is that she claims to have let herself go for Kath & Kim, the American adaptation of an Australian sitcom. Needless to say, she looks a million times better with that extra 5-10 pounds. Not so much like a skin stretched over a skull. She also complains about never being cast as “the pretty girl.” What she was really saying was, “Why do bitches less attractive than myself get the lead just because they’re blonde?” You know it’s true. She was third fiddle to Cameron Diaz and Christina Applegate in The Sweetest Thing. She was the nemesis of Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde. She’s manipulated by Sarah Michele Gellar in Cruel Intentions and loses Jason Lee to Julia Stiles in A Guy Thing. She’s technically prettier than all of them, but the only lead guy she gets is a big red devil.

I’M LOOKING FOR CLUES
Wall-E is down to number six and Pixar is notorious for place references to the previous film in the current film. If there’s a reference to Ratatouille here, someone please let me know, ‘cause I missed it.

MONKEY NOT ALWAYS FUNNY
Space Chimps opens at number seven and I almost saw this because I’m a firm believer that monkeys make everything funnier and they’re in space on top of it!?! Yeah, baby! How could this miss!?! But the very presence of Andy Samberg as one of the voices of the chimps pretty much let me know how funny it wasn’t going to be. No one looking to create an exceptional work hires that little douchebag. No, I don’t like him and I can’t explain why.

AND GUESS WHO’S KING? YOU’RE DAMN RIGHT I AM.
Wanted is down to number eight and this gives us a total of three movies based on comic books, four movies either based on comics or superheroes, five movies based on comics, superheroes or secret agents and eight movies based on comics, superheroes, secret agents or science fiction. It’s a geek world and you bitches just live in it now!

THE END
Get Smart is down to number nine followed by Kung Fu Panda closing out the top ten at number ten.

HIGHLY ANIMATED
To coincide with the release of Batman: The Dark Knight, there was also a direct-to-video release of Batman: Gotham Knight, six stories by six different Japanese animators, in the vein of The Animatrix, which also told different stories of The Matrix using various Japanese animators. The bonus to Batman: Gotham Knight is the return of Kevin Conroy as the voice of The Batman. He did it for the Emmy-award winning series, Batman Beyond and Justice League and all due respect to Christian Bale, he is the best Batman ever. It also has the advantages of having actually writers of the comic creating stories, so if you need a little pick-me-up after Batman: The Dark Knight, take a look at this.

ONE MORE TIME: MICHAEL KEATON SUCKED…HARD!
Speaking of Batman, just in case you’d forgotten how bad the previous versions were, they’ve been playing all weekend:

Batman: Ugly leading man, no plot.
Batman Returns: Still ugly leading man, still no plot and even longer.
Batman Forever: Attractive leading man wasted with a horrible director, lousy, lousy script and intentional homoerotic camp.
Batman & Robin: Another attractive leading man wasted with same horrible director, stupid all-star cast and an even worse script. It’s like an episode of Love Boat in rubber tights.

Ironically, it turns from bad to worse when pop music enters the scene. Seal’s “Kiss From A Rose” is in Batman Forever (actually it’s a soundtrack album worth having). And Batman & Robin has R. Kelly’s “Gotham City” which I hate, hate, hate myself for liking. If only there were a Batman in Chicago to beat down his statutory raping ass.

I WANT TO RIDE IT WHERE I LIKE
So I sold the bike. No, not because I’m a fat, lazy geek pig and it’s unnatural for me to do such a thing. No, it took me a while to truly face it, but I’d been played by that asshole and the bike sucked. I put it back up on Craig’s List, only I fully listed what was wrong with it. Some French guy came by, took it for a ride and bought it just like that. I got back exactly what I paid for it and promised myself that this time I was going to go cheap and efficient. Five days later I found myself headed out to Brooklyn yet again for a bike, only this time even further out, winding up on Ditmas Avenue, where you get one block from the train station and it’s like you’re in the suburbs. Actual houses on tree lined streets. And I mean real houses, not those half-a-houses you see in Queens. It was no scam artist this time, but a very nice couple type of alternative music couple, the kind you’d find in the audience for a Weezer show. I was told he’d just had a birthday and got a very nice new bike or otherwise he’d be keeping it. I rode it for a bit and could tell the difference between it and the crap job I had before instantly. $40 later---less than half of what I’d paid the first time---I was the proud new owner of a GT All Terra Outpost. Unlike the last bike, information on this was found online easily and the reviews were all good. I briefly considered riding back home again, but given I was actually a few stops below Prospect Park, that wasn’t going to happen. I instead took the train to Fulton Mall, hopped off and took another ride across the Brooklyn Bridge. Because this was a good bike, at no time did I ever have to stop and walk the damn thing. Nor did I hop back on the train. I rode up to St. Mark’s Comics to have a little pow-wow with my fellow geeks on Batman (only we know that the Smashing Pumpkins song used in The Watchmen trailer was on the soundtrack of Batman & Robin) and try to convince the manager he should see it, though he and his girlfriend had sworn a blood oath not to after Heath Ledger dissed the comics and every previous portrayal. Sigh. It warms my heart to see the next generation filled with even more irrational hatred and anger than myself. After that, I rode over to the west side and biked along the West Side Highway all the way home. And did I mention that this bike is ever lighter so hauling it up and down the steps of my apartment is easier too? Now, I’m just going to go to Craig’s List and post that the first guy is a rip-off artist and just harass him until I get bored.

BROWN SUGAR, HOW COME YOU TASTE SO GOOD…
So if you’re immersed at all in the fashion world you know there’s a continuing controversy about the lack of ethnic diversity in models (i.e., ain’t no sistas on the runway). In response to this Italian Vogue (which like other European versions of the magazine is infinitely more interesting) came up with an All-Black issue, meaning all the models in editorial layouts would be Black, though obviously the ads would remain as lily white as ever. From Alex Wek to Naomi Campbell, sistas on display with four different covers. Honestly, this lasted all of thirty seconds in my brain. Which was dumb. I should have known my sister, the fashion maven, would care. And sure enough I get a call begging for a copy since she can’t find it in Georgia. It’s sold out all over the place but I managed to find it at the second place I looked. But then her best friend from childhood also wanted one, so I went back the next day---to find it sold out. And sold out for the next three days though he kept insisting they were coming in. I also made the rounds of whatever magazine stores in the neighborhoods I was visiting. I should have known no store near FIT would have them or the West Village, but still I checked. Nothing. Finally, while actually out buying Limeade for my frozen margaritas at the only store in 10 blocks that sells it, a magazine store had just gotten 150 copies of the 2nd printing. I got another, so I’m done. At $16 a pop, I simply don’t love anyone else enough. If you want to see the entire layouts, Jezebel covered it and you can see it here. So now you’re probably asking, does everyone get their own issue? Will there be a Latin Edition? Asian Edition? Nope because Mexico and Korea and Japan already have their own editions of Vogue. For better or worse, there’s no Ethiopian Vogue.

WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!?!
I’m old so VH1 is my thing, and I really love their little Rock Honors shows. I was actually wondering where the new one was when up pops this big show devoted exclusively to The Who. I have to admit it was pretty good. They’re hit and miss with the choice of artists to cover the songs, but this was spot on. I hate Jack Black, but Tenacious D was perfect for “Squeeze Box.” The Flaming Lips were perfect to do a medley of the the “Tommy” songs. The Foo Fighters were perfect for “Young Man Blues” and “Bargain.” Incubus was a good fit for “I Can See For Miles” (not so much for “I Can’t Explain”) and Pearl Jam doing “Love Reign O’er Me” was fucking inspired. That song was perfect for those humorless fuckers. Oddly, I couldn’t watch the actual Who because…well, it’s not the actual Who. The fucking rhythm section is dead! How could it possibly be them? Not to mention Roger Daltrey’s powerful voice is long gone. It’s just sad to watch them now for me. And how cruel is it to never mention Kenney Jones, who played drums after Keith Moon died. No, he could never equal him, but who the fuck could? Cut him some slack. For me Pete Townsend is second only to Lennon and McCartney as far as rock songwriting goes (sorry, not a Dylan fan) and I’m happy to see I’m not the only person who believes that The Who were actually the world’s first punk rock band. I’ve been saying it for 20 years and now it appears everyone else has caught up. Oddly missing from the people making tribute comments? Their contemporaries. Where are The Rolling Stones who cut them out of their Rock And Roll Circus film because The Who blew them away? How about Sir Paul? Rod Stewart? Eric Clapton? David Bowie? Where are the other gods of rock? Does anyone really give a fuck what Coldplay and Oasis thinks? Why not ask fucking Miley Cyrus while you’re at it? I’m sure she has some equally wonderful insight.

ANOTHER REASON WHY I’M KING
And no, I have not watched Joss Whedon’s “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Along Blog” because unlike most of you pathetic geek fuckers, I don’t have my head buried so far up his ass I think he only shits sunshine and candy. And the Buffy musical episode is overrated as hell.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, BRAIN

1. Hellboy II/Universal Wknd/$ 35.9 Total/$ 35.9
2. Hancock/Sony Wknd/$ 33.0 Total/$ 165.0
3. Journey To The Center… Wknd/$ 20.6 Total/$ 20.6
4. Wall-E/Disney Wknd/$ 18.5 Total/$ 162.8
5. Wanted/Universal Wknd/$ 11.6 Total/$ 112.0
6. Get Smart/Warner Wknd/$ 7.1 Total/$ 111.5
7. Meet Dave/Fox Wknd/$ 5.3 Total/$ 5.3
8. Kung Fu Panda/Paramount Wknd/$ 4.3 Total/$ 203.0
9. Kit Kittredge: American Girl Wknd/$ 2.4 Total/$ 11.0
10.Indiana Jones 4/Paramount Wknd/$ 2.3 Total/$ 310.5

GO STRAIGHT TO HELL, BOY
Hellboy II: The Golden Army opens at number one and I was never a big fan of the first Hellboy, but was lured in by the amazing visuals that Guillermo Del Toro is always good for. Sadly, a lackluster story is also what I know him for and this is no different. The plot is actually a good one: a renegade fairy prince returns to try and take back the world lost to mankind centuries ago. And this is the first mistake: your villain should not be more interesting or sympathetic than your hero and he is. I would rather have seen more of the ass-kicking fairy prince fight for a land of magic and wonder over shopping malls and parking lots than Hellboy who bores me senseless. The grouchy cigar-smoking hero who looks like a monster was never done better than The Thing in the Fantastic Four and at least there’s some poignancy there because of his lost humanity. I could give a crap about Hellboy and this movie doesn’t give me any reason to. So he likes cats and candy. That’s how we’re supposed to be able to relate to him? Well, cats suck and candy simply won’t get the job done. The scene where Hellboy and Abe Sapien (the fishman) sing Barry Manilow over heartbreak would have been much more effective and funnier if they’d made it three minutes instead of ten. This way they’re simply beating you over the head with it. They also try for, and completely blow, the X-Men/Spider-man concept of being disliked by a public you’re trying to protect. But hey, you get a ten-minute, unfunny Barry Manilow scene so how can you complain? Also, no reason is ever given as to why we as humans deserve the earth more than the creatures of magic and even when they toy with the idea that Hellboy feels saddened by the killing of one such creature, there’s no follow through. The film opens with a fairy tale about the first war between man and fairy and mentions “a hole in the heart of mankind” that actually starts the war. A good fairy tale would explain why such a hole exists and what can fill it, but not this one. So things like “tooth fairies” which are beautiful/ugly little insect like creatures who like calcium (but will actually eat anything and everything) are in the end wasted by a story that has no urgency. There’s never any real feeling of tension or excitement to the conflict. Del Toro simply does not know how to direct an action sequence. Blade II worked because Donnie Yen was the fight choreographer. Left to his own devices all Del Toro gives you is “Bad guy punches Hellboy around for a while, Hellboy wins.” All the excitement you just experienced while reading that sentence? Totally equal to what the movie gives you.

SUPER SPERM, THE HEIGHT OF WIT
Hancock is down to number two and this has already made over $340M worldwide, so never, ever doubt the power of the Fresh Prince because even his crap is golden. What’s really gotta hurt is that this did better in just a week than The Incredible Hulk has done in a month. Then again, the Hulk never shoves one man’s head up the ass of another and who doesn’t want to see that? Apparently that along with some sexual jokes (underage girls and the holes in the roof of his house being from masturbation which is from an old Larry Niven essay about Superman’s sexuality called “Man of Steel, Woman of Tissue”) almost got this an “R” rating, but the sex jokes were sacrificed to keep that one joke in. One of the few smart choices the film made.

NOW YOU KNOW WHERE THE TROY MCCLURE JOKES ON THE SIMPSONS CAME FROM
Journey To The Center of the Earth 3D opens at number three and Brendan Fraser seems to be quite content being a B-Level action star bordering on being a kiddie action star. This definitely leans towards the latter and looks just one lesson about geography away from being something you’d have to watch in school. But what really kept me away was no apparent bad guy or underground civilization. What the fuck? How can you have a center of the earth movie with no mole men or lost civilization? And you can’t just have three people because who’s gonna die? Your hero can’t die, nor can the girl and sure as hell not the kid, so where’s the suspense? You know the “threat” really isn’t’ a threat because everyone’s going to live. Even the crappy The Core knew that. Of course At The Earth’s Core with Doug McClure and Peter Cushing and the one time queen of science fiction fantasy and horror, Caroline Munro, only had two people, but that’s just the best underground science fantasy movie ever made and beyond the rules.

WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US
Wall E is down to number four and there are people getting up in arms because they think the movie is making fun of fat people. Yeah, because it’s the first film in history to ever do that. And the film is not making fun of fat people, but people who lay around doing nothing and become fat. It mocks those lazy bas---Hey! How dare you judge me!?!

HIS BEST SONG SINCE “MY PRIVATE LIFE”
Wanted is down to number five and what I actually liked most about this movie is the theme song “The Little Things” by none other than Danny Elfman, the composer of music for The Simpsons, Spider-man almost every Tim Burton film ever made. And it hurts me to admit this because his old ugly Oingo Boingo ass married and impregnated my beloved Bridget Fonda. I mean, it’s basically ripping off the White Stripes but it’s still good because unlike them there’s actually a guitar present and you’d be amazed at how that improves a rock song.

SOMEONE OWES WOODY ALLEN A CHECK
Get Smart is down to number six, followed by Meet Dave, which opens poorly at number seven (so poorly they retooled the ad campaign by Sunday night to look more like a family film) and I will admit to having briefly considered seeing this, but ultimately realized that, like Daddy Day Care, just because I laughed at few bits in the trailer, this will probably best viewed at home. This was originally called Starship Dave (a much better title) and the original story comes from none other than Bill Corbett, who was behind Mystery Science Theater (with an obvious debt to Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask). Now, you’d think if anyone could make a funny science fiction movie he’d be him, right? Well, enter Brian Robbins, the douchebag director behind Norbit (the movie that cost Eddie Murphy an Oscar) and the guy who produced Wild Hogs and took umbrage that people would ever call such a piece of crap a piece of crap. I’m sure any genuine wit was tossed out almost immediately. And yes, he was the “tough kid” on Head of the Class twenty years ago, alongside Robin Givens

CULTURAL IMPERIALISM: WHERE AMERICA STILL RULES!
Kung Fu Panda is down to number eight and in China they’re a bit upset that a movie like this---which is also a big hit over there---wasn’t made by them and are trying to figure out why. Well, here’s a hint: STOP MAKING MOVIES ABOUT THE FUCKING MONKEY KING!!! In other words it never would have occurred to them to make a movie that used elements of their own culture without being slavishly attached to that self-same culture. It would be like us making a sports movie that didn’t have an underdog team of misfits pulling it out in the end in slow motion sequence. We just don’t know another way.

ONE FOR THE ROAD
Kitt Kittredge: An American Girl is down to number nine followed by Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, closing out the top ten, ending our Shia Lebouf jokes until Eagle Eye opens this fall. And I will give him credit for a little self-awareness. He’s said he knows he’d never be able to kiss girls like Megan Fox if it weren’t part of the script. So basically he’s the Ron Jeremy of legit films.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!
I didn’t mean to go out drinking on Friday night, but it’s not my fault. It’s because of the clash between second wave and third wave feminists that I had to. Seriously. It begins with The Daily Show. Now, when people think of The Daily Show they think of Jon Stewart or some will even think of Craig Kilborn, but very few think of its co-creator and former head writer, Lizz Winstead. She left the show when Craig Kilborn mocked her on-air and as in many cases when it comes down between the face of the show and its creator, the creator often loses. Liz Winstead hasn’t exactly gone on to bigger and better things (though neither really has Craig Kilborn) but she’s still around doing things and one of those things is Thinking & Drinking, a part of shootthemessengernyc.com where the guests have a few drinks and are interviewed. Now this sounds like it could be fun, but it kinda went wrong when the most recent guests were two of the more prominent members of the Jezebel.com staff. It’s one thing to be funny in print, when you can rewrite and have others edit you. It’s quite another to do it off-the-cuff while inebriated and they could not. It was pretty much a train wreck showing that even when women make jokes about rape, it’s not that funny. That’s it’s your own rape doesn’t change a thing. It also didn’t help that Lizz Winstead is an earlier generation of feminist and not exactly enamored with the latest generation and felt no compunctions about going after them. Everyone showed their ass and it became the mother of all shit-storms on Jezebel.com the next week because the two staff members simply would not acknowledge how poorly they came off to a very pissed off internet audience. In fact the end result was that many long time commenters were banned and went off to start their own site: buttercuppunch.wordpress.com. This is why I had to go drinking. They wanted to have another night out to discuss what went down. Now, I was not part of the drama. I got that they’d fucked up in public, but they were also drunk and somewhat ambushed. And quite frankly, I’m a little too old for being kicked off a website to have any real meaning in my life. But for kids who’ve come of age over the last ten years, they don’t know a world without instant messengering, texting, friendster, myspace and facebook. For them the virtual world and its relationships are just as significant as flesh & blood ones (whereas when I got banned from a website I just logged in with a new name). It was also in Manhattan and given how I bitched about going to Brooklyn, I had to show. Finnally, it was one year ago to that Friday (actual vessel-popping date was July 13th) that my brain bled so I felt I had to be out doing something, anything. It was a smaller turn-out than usual. Being so soon after the last one and not starting until 10:00 didn’t help. Hell, even I didn’t arrive until 11:00 because I had to shower and recover from my martial arts class, where Brazilian Kaballah Woman popped me in the eye yet again (though once I found my bearings I gave more than I got). More dudes are showing up now which is good, but one got a reality shock when one woman asked for a consensus about a man she’d gone out with who kept hamsters. He fucked up in other ways to be sure, but the hamsters set off her radar. This is when the other duded realized that every little thing about his dating life would also be discussed publicly somewhere with women. Welcome to world of hanging with chicks. I’ve acquired an odd sort of popularity on the site, so during the night I kept hearing, “I follow your comments all the time and love reading them.” It really threw me when the two girls sitting at the bar who looked like they were out to party suddenly said it. Of course the bittersweet cherry on top of this is when the tall, slim pretty girl who sat next to me mentioned she liked my comments too. “So what do you that allows you to make comments all day?” she asked in her New Zealand accent. “Not much,” I honestly replied. “What do you do you?” “Oh, I’m a model.” Sigh. Where were you 20 years ago when that would have actually have meant something to me? Oh, that’s right. You were two years old! Excuse grandpa while he gets his medicine. Yeah, I know it looks like tequila to you, but trust me when I say it’s the only cure for what ails me

THE LACKNESS

1. Hancock/Sony Wknd/$ 66.0 Total/$ 107.3
2. Wall-E/Disney Wknd/$ 33.4 Total/$ 128.1
3. Wanted/Universal Wknd/$ 20.6 Total/$ 90.8
4. Get Smart/Warner Wknd/$ 11.1 Total/$ 98.1
5. Kung Fu Panda/Paramount Wknd/$ 7.5 Total/$ 193.4
6. The Incredible Hulk/Universal Wknd/$ 5.0 Total/$ 124.9
7. Indiana Jones 4/Paramount Wknd/$ 3.9 Total/$ 306.6
8. Kit Kittredge: American Girl Wknd/$ 3.6 Total/$ 6.1
9. Sex & The City/New Line Wknd/$ 2.3 Total/$ 144.9
10. You Don’t Mess With The Zohan Wknd/$ 2.0 Total/$ 94.8


PALM-PENIS WAS TOO OBVIOUS

WARNING! HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!
Hancock opens at number one and this is the story of a non-comic book-based superhero. It’s also the story of a down-and-out one. Hancock is a surly drunk whose heroic efforts cause damage that tends to dwarf the crime or disaster he’s averting. Rather than simply lifting a car off the train tracks, he tosses the car onto another one and lets the train hit him, causing the entire thing to derail. Into this comes Jason Bateman as a decidedly altruistic public relations exec who thinks he can save Hancock. This leads to the discovery that Hancock isn’t so much a superhero but one of the last of a race of gods because the other survivor is Charlize Theron, who is now Jason Bateman’s wife. She also just happens to have been Will Smith’s wife for the last thousand years. Now, this causes all sorts of plot problems as when the gods are together they slowly become human so they can age and die. This never happened to them, because---well, we don’t know why. At she yells at him that she’s tried to get away from him for a thousand years, suggesting a millennium of a love/hate relationship. Then she tells stories of how, whenever they settle down, they’re attacked because they’re both vulnerable, so she wasn’t running from him after all. Strangely, even though she tells him she’s stronger and faster he seems to defend her alone during these attacks where he’s hurt. The last one was 80 years ago in Miami where he lost his memory thanks to a head wound. After that she let him go. So basically, all this time they’ve both been in LA, she’s known exactly what’s wrong with him and how to help him and never lifted a finger. And even though she’s keeping her powers a secret, she doesn’t hesitate to start public super-fight with him. But this isn’t the only problem. We’re supposed to believe that Will Smith and Charlize Theron were attacked in America in the 1800’s and the 1930’s because they had super-powers and not because they were, oh, say A BLACK GUY MARRIED TO A BLONDE! I guess racial violence would have been too much of a downer for a lighthearted summer film. The film also lacks a good villain. Oh, there’s a bad guy, but he’s like a lightweight Lex Luthor, when what we needed was another god, still around because, perhaps, he murdered his mate to stop from becoming human. This film had a nice premise, of the less-than-noble superhero and they should have stuck to it. This god-thing is a left-turn that completely drains the fun out of the situation as who can relate to a god? A foul-mouthed superhero that gets drunk and doesn’t give a shit? So much could have been done with that.

PUN CITY
Wall-E is down to number two and if Wall-E’s noises sound familiar it’s because they are voiced by none other than R2-D2 himself, Ben Burtt. Apparently a decidedly human air is still beyond computers and there’s something comforting in that. And if you didn’t know Pixar was affiliated with Apple computers, the fact that Wall-E gives off the Apple start up chime when he recharges should let you know. It’s also no accident that Eve looks a bit like an iPod as one of the iPod designers helped design her as well. I was almost expecting a bunch of flying toasters to show up as evil robots, but the closest thing to a villain in this the ship’s computer that looks like---you guessed it---Hal. He even has “secret orders” responsible, just like Hal and his voice is Sigourney Weaver. But my favorite robot isn’t Wall-E, but the cleaning robot, Mo, also voiced by Ben Burtt. Mo is obsessed with cleaning up after Wall-E the moment he sets foot onboard the ship and it’s this due diligence that leads to him saving the day. Gonna get me a Happy Meal so maybe I can get a little Mo for my desk. Heh. I said “Get a little Mo” which I’m sure was the point from the beginning.

IT’S A BLACK THING; YOU WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND
Wanted is down to number three and if there is no other reason to see this movie, it’s to hear Morgan Freeman utilize his dulcet tones to say, “Kill this muthafucka here.” That’s almost worth the price of admission. It’s a different type of “muthafucka” than Samuel L. Jackson and because you don’t expect it from the man who drove Miss Daisy and played God, it’s twice as funny. Not to mention, Samuel L. Jackson wouldn’t have been thrilled to share the set with rapper, Common, who appears here as the assassin known as Gunsmith, whom, like Angelina Jolie is underutilized. I think he speaks twice. You put a real actor out of a job for that?

MORE PROOF HOW MUCH SEASON TWO SUCKED
Get Smart is down to number four and how can you not advertise that not only is Hiro from Heroes in this, but blow the simultaneous DVD release about his character in this movie (Get Smart’s Bruce & Lloyd Out of Control)? Did any of you know that before I told you? Exactly. Someone needs to be fired, because this movie is not exactly a flop.

BOY WONDERS NEEDED TO SAVE MOVIE FRANCHISES
Kung Fu Panda is down to number five, followed by The Incredible Hulk at number six and at the rate it’s going seems to be headed towards a pretty much equal take as the first Hulk movie which means maybe the audience for The Hulk just ain’t that big. Of course the one thing missing from both films is the character of Rick Jones, who in the comics is the reason Bruce Banner becomes exposed to gamma rays to begin with. See, the reason the “kid sidekick” exists (it began with Robin The Boy Wonder) is to allow the primary audience to be able to see themselves in the adventure. Iron Man really didn’t need it because the Robert Downey Jr performance is one of a big kid himself, whereas Edward Norton desperately needed some youthful comic relief. We’d be talking about a different gross if Zac Efron had been allowed to play Rick Jones, the wisecracking grad student helping Bruce Banner out. You know I’m right.

WE HATE SHIA LEBEOUF
Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull holds at number seven and it seems that Grandfathers-Who-Refuse-To-Accept-Their-Age and Ugly-Dweebs-Who-Aren’t-As-Cool-As-They-Think-They-Are are making a stand by keeping this movie around. And how many people do you think got that Indiana Jones’s son renames himself “Mutt” the same way Indiana Jones took the name of the family dog?

“SHE WAS AN AMERICAN GIRL…”
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl finally enters the top ten at number eight and if you think Transformers was just an excuse to sell toys, then meet the female counterpart. This is based on a phenomenally successful line of very expensive dolls called American Girl who became a target of the far right wing because they gave money to something called Girls Inc which they accused of teaching “radical feminism and lesbian values.” This means they support being something more than barefoot and pregnant, which Jesus apparently hates. And the very fact this movie exists pretty much let you know that little boycott failed. You can put it next to their attempted boycott of Disney for not banning “Gay Day” as learning some things you just can’t fuck with. And what’s our rule about appearing in kid’s films and horror movies? Well, it should come as no surprise former almost stars Chris O’Donnell and Julia Ormand are here playing the parents to Kit Kittredge, who is played by an actual star in Abigail Breslin.

MY HATE IS LIKE A TWINKIE, UNDYING
Sex & The City holds at number nine and the rumors about there being a Friends movie to cash in on the success of this are just that, a rumor. Thank god. Yes, I’m still holding a grudge against this show for being straight and white. And before someone levels the charge against SATC, if Friends had been set in the same demographic this was set in (moneyed, upper east side) I wouldn’t expect it to have a lot of minorities either. But SATC was filmed in NYC so the Great Melting Pot was always part of the landscape of the show. Hell, Big was seen dating a Black girl the second episode. Compare this to that piece of shit show where even the delivery people were cute blondes.

THE END
Finally, Don’t Mess With The Zohan holds on to number ten.

THE LACKNESS
Not breaking the top ten in its limited art house release is The Wackness, yet another movie about “the summer where everything changed.” I never had a summer where everything changed. Not even when my brain bled, but I’m just dense that way. In this case the summer is NYC in1994, before cell phones became everyday and Giuliani was cleaning up the city of squeegee men and its character. The person being changed here is a teen dope dealer named Josh Shapiro, who is getting counseling from one of his customers in exchange for weed. The doctor is played by Ben Kingsley, who like most movie shrinks is more messed up than his patients. Kingsley is also stepfather to Shapiro’s crush, played by Olivia Thirlby, who was Ellen Page’s best friend in Juno. Sadly, it never really clicks as evocative of ’94 despite the music, big gold earrings on girls and use of slang (not to mention a shout out to Notorious BIG as the “new shit” by Method Man in a small role). A Forrest Gump billboard here and an OJ Simpson headline there set to A Tribe Called Quest simply is not enough to invoke a mood of the past. First of all, you don’t do early 90’s without Mary J. Blige! Now, he gets points for going mostly East Coast, not the least of which was Craig Mack, ‘cause “Flava In Your Ear” was the shit (but you gotta have the remix), but this was also the time of Uptown Records with Jodeci and Heavy D. Also, I don’t know Drake & Josh, so watching Josh Peck as a teen weed seller doesn’t seem that shocking to me, but he does a convincing job of playing a lonely teenager and he’s a native New Yorker so much of his performance rings true. Like Wanted the movie starts off with a narration that it drops after the first ten minutes and you can tell that it was simply too difficult for the writer to maintain, when in better hands it would have remained consistent and given the film a much needed extra layer. The person it was too difficult for was writer/director Jonathan Levine, whom I’m sure thought he had a “summer where everything changed” but given the lack of depth here I’m pretty sure it was just “the summer where he first got laid” and maybe if he just accepted it was that, he wouldn’t have attempted so much pathos here. And yes, this is the film where Ben Kingsley makes out with Mary Kate Ashley, but it’s actually organic to the plot of Kingsley’s own failing marriage to Famke Janssen and if you want to be annoyed by something, be annoyed by the idea he could even be with someone like her, and not making out with Mary Kate’s flakey pothead character. But I do give it points for looking like NYC in a way that only a real New Yorker would make it look. In anyone else’s hands, the douchebag guy that Thirlby is normally with would be some WASPy blonde. Here he’s Asian and is the same of obnoxious, rich douchebag.

IN SHORT: UNTUCKED DRESS SHIRT ON DATE = LOSER
So, my plans for the long weekend were pretty much to frozen margarita it every night and catch up on little tasks I’d always meant to do. The funny thing is, doing the first pretty much means you won’t do the second. In any case for the first two nights my plan was pretty flawless, then fate reared its ugly head and Chasing Amy called to invite me out to a party. I refused, having already begun my drinking, but she guilted me because one of her boyfriend’s buddies has a very obvious crush on her and I was called upon to provide another defensive layer. The party started at 9:00 but we didn’t arrive until midnight and it was shockingly just about over. But this was a theme. On the way there I saw a group of bachelorette party women already heading home and a woman dressed to the nines being reluctantly dropped off at the door by some loser wearing the nighttime “uniform” of the modern man: jeans and untucked dress shirt. I’m sorry, but if that’s all you do to go out, you don’t deserve to get laid. Same for the women. If your night out wear is heels, jeans and camisole , then you deserve some douche in jeans and an untucked dress shirt. At least get something in a color or a fucking shirt that’s designed not to be tucked in. Not the same shit you’d wear to work with a tie. In any case, the party seemed mostly over, but there were a few people playing Guitar Hero and there was plenty of good cheese left, so I was not entirely unhappy. Since giving up gaming years ago, I’d never played Guitar Hero, which has become something of a phenomenon, appealing the air guitarist in all of us. Maybe having played guitar helped, but I found it easy and a bit dull. Give me a game with a car and a gun strapped to the hood. You know, something I really can’t do. The party was filled with guys who fancied themselves DJ’s so at a certain point the music was turned up for some French girls who wanted to dance. Now, it’s a statement of both the geek I’ve always been and always will be and the snob I’ve always been and always will be that I instead chose to drink and play MarioKart. Choosing a videogame over a girl is obviously the geek in me, but the snob in me was not having them trying to dance to the crappy DJing that was going on. And being French is no excuse. The music was sucking and what he was trying to do it by mixing was only making it worse so any self-respecting person would have kept still. I mean, isn’t the first rule of DJing the same as being a doctor: first do no harm? So, I drank the good wine (Layer Cake a red that’s as sweet as a Riesling) ate the good cheese and duck brie and played MarioKart. Chasing Amy, on the other hand, discovered the drum machine and could not, would not let it go. Hey, it’s not like she could make the music worse. And it’s just a coincidence that when the goat cheese ran out I decided to leave. I mean it was 4:00 am. I would have left anyway.

“I WANT TO RIDE MY BICYCLE/I WANT TO RIDE MY BIKE…”
One of the reasons I was trying to bunker down on Saturday night was because I was exhausted, having just ridden my bike in from Brooklyn. Yes, I have a bike. Coincidentally, Chasing Amy tried to get me to buy one with her earlier this year, but I was simply not dropping hundreds of dollars on something I’d probably never use, not even for the beautiful Captain America riding jersey it would justify me having. Then came the lack of improvement from the last two months of kung fu. I mean, yeah, I can see that I’m getting stronger. I can now do all 80 of the conditioning kicks without wussing out and some of the brutal ab workouts aren’t as hard as they used to be, but I’m not getting any thinner and man boobs are still a part of my reality. Then I read this article in Shape Magazine (shut up, we have a free subscription) written by, of all people, Maggie Estep. If Jonathan Levine really wanted to invoke the 90’s he’d have had some of that little poetry renaissance that was going on at the time that she was a part of. Nuyorican Café anyone? In any case, her article made it sound great and this would give me something active to do on the weekends that was easy. I wouldn’t need any mental discipline at all. I mean, it’s bike riding. So, I began to troll Craig’s list looking for a cheap bike. And I mean cheap. $100 was my limit. This was only going to be a weekend bike only and by weekend I mean Saturdays, so I wasn’t going to get roped into this insane bicycle culture where even wheels cost thousands of dollars. I consulted the husband of one of my former Wild Child girls (she’s now married with child in NJ) and he’s a serious biker, racing and shit like that. He advised me against some initial choices. I didn’t want a normal ten-speed (aka a road bike), because I’m in NYC. I learned the bike of the urban dweller is the hybrid, which is a cross between a mountain bike and typical ten-speed. But if I couldn’t get that, I’d settle for a mountain bike type of deal, because, let’s face, they look nice, whereas a ten-speed suggests some vegetarian pussy in a goofy-ass helmet. And no, I do not where a helmet. It looks too stupid. I’m one of the cavalcade of idiots who goes without, but don’t pretend we don’t look better, ‘cause we do. I finally found one I liked for $75, which sent me out to Parkside, Brooklyn at the ass end of Prospect Park. After waiting half an hour the guy showed up and essentially pulled a bait ‘n switch on me. Those bikes were gone, but he had one now for $90. It was still in my price range and otherwise I hauled my ass out there for nothing so I took it. It’s some sort of 21-speed Harley Davidson promotional number with a 7005 Series aluminum frame (which may need something to someone, but not to me), which was fine considering I almost went for a Dr. Pepper promotional bike. I rode it home through Prospect Park and discovered quickly how in shape I was not. When did bike riding get so damn difficult? There’s a long incline in Prospect Park that I made it halfway through before I had to walk the damn thing, as old people and kids went whizzing past me. Once past it, I went through the park, and into the wilds of Brooklyn, coincidentally past the place where I’d been drinking with my Jezebels. I was initially nervous about being on a bike in New York traffic for the first time in 20 years, but in no time I was running red lights and riding against traffic like everyone else. And I was able to do something I hadn’t done in the almost 25 years I’ve been here: go across the Brooklyn Bridge. But when I got across it was about 8:30 and I was dead. I became another regular NYC character when I then took my bike on the subway at city hall. But I’m gonna need a new seat because the portion of my ass near the “taint” is fucking killing me. No longer will I mock goofy, padded biker shorts. I may have to invest in a pair. But not before I get that Captain America biking jersey.