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| THE BLACK LIST: MARTHA STEWART'S PRISON PANTYLINERS. | |||||||||
| By The Black Table | |||||||||
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Here's something interesting: Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry once dated Morgan Fairchild. Isn't that amazing? And New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg used to date Diana Ross. We still can't get our minds around that. If that doesn't disorient you enough, welcome to The Black List, where we're rhapsodizing philosophic on Martha Stewart, pantyliners, Alan Alda and oh, so much more. For the record, the rumors about The Black List and Pia Zadora are flatly untrue; she's a lovely girl, but, really, we're just friends. Twelve rollicking whirlygig reviews this week, all here to tease your palette. And hey, you can make your name appear, right here, and this very site! Seriously! Just take a right and fill out the forms. It's kid-tested, mother-approved. --BT |
The Black Table needs your help! Every week, we need reviews of the latest media-related crud, new products from Capitalists and odd idea, concept or trend. All you need to have is a sharp opinion that you can distill down to one paragraph of 150 words and give a letter grade. To submit, please fill out the form below. Entries may edited for length, style and clarity. Hit us with your best shot. Fire away.
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SENDING A SUCCESSFUL WOMAN TO PRISON: We've heard the Martha Stewart prison jokes: New idea for making your own toilet-wine, Shiv-tastic homemade weapons for summer, etc. Now, it has become a reality. Last Friday, Martha was convicted on all four counts of conspiracy, lying and obstruction of justice. She faces up to 16 months in jail, and that's 16 months too much for a motivated woman who built an empire all by herself. Viacom is yanking her show, Martha Stewart Living, off the air. Her stock is dropping. Her company might dissolve. No one's ever going to look at her the same. I have two problems with this whole thing: ONE: Martha's being made an example of for something that would have gotten any man in the same situation a mere slap on the wrist. TWO: You don't send a 62-year-old woman to prison. I don't know what's wrong with our society. F -- Amy L. Stender M*A*S*H* RERUNS: Television's M*A*S*H just celebrated its 30th birthday … am I the only one blown away by this? Watch the early episodes; it doesn't seem as if it has aged a day, even though we're farther now from the beginning of the TV show than the TV show was to the actual Korean War. I'm talking about the first four seasons, incidentally, before Mike Farrell and Henry Morgan destroyed it. FRANK BURNS: "I'm a good doctor, you can ask any of my patients!" HAWKEYE: "We're not digging up people just for that." Will & Grace should get on their knees and scream "We're not worthy!" A -- Rick Chandler BLOGGERATI/PRINT/WEBZINE WARS: "East Coast Kill-ah! West Coast Kill-ah!" In what has to be the dorkiest "war" since the Trekkies "boycotted" William Shatner, Web writers and webloggers have been grappling with each other recently … and it can only end in bloodshed. Are we going to see TMTML and Nick Denton foolishly gunned down |
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by faceless mercenaries from the Village Voice and then the next week find Daily News writer Rick Bruner assassinated for attending a Happy Ending Reading series? Has this war of legitimate/illegitimate words reached a breaking point? Do bloggers wear Crip colors? Are the print writers Bloods? And what about the non-blogging web writing community? What about The Black Table, which encourages authors, essayists, Web writers, bloggers, cartographers, waitresses and Satanists to all contribute to its hallowed Web pages? I always thought *we* made the biggest fart bubble in the tub. I guess not. Somewhere Voletta Wallace is crying. C -- A.J. Daulerio PAYING TO GET MY LAUNDRY DONE: I was unemployed all last summer, so I did my own laundry. But after getting a new job, and then signing up for a night class and a gym membership, I have little time for such trivialities. So I let Paul and Huang do it. They're at the Laundromat from opening to close, olding laundry and doling out quarters. I drop it off, and when I return, my bag is about half the size it was when I left. (They have 14 hours a day to practice folding skills, I guess.). Sometimes I wonder what they do with my lingerie and stuff when I'm not there, but you know what? They're there all freaking day, and I'm paying a measly $7 to get an annoying chore done. Sniff away. A -- Flo LaRocca EX-GIRLFRIENDS WHO LOOK BETTER THAN THEY HAVE ANY RIGHT TO: I remember when you were "chubby" and had issues with your weight. I remembered fearing the immortal question, "Do I look fat?" You'd ask anyway, and I'd reassure you that you were fine because, honestly, I didn't care. I remembered you wearing sweaters and flip-flops. Then one year into the affair, after a night of hot dirty filthy, you turn to me in bed and say, "I see you differently now" (queue end of relationship). I leave, feeling somber but resolute that I was fine with the new arrangement. Six months later we meet again, and you look better than you have the right to. "I've been running everyday", you say flippantly. "I was such a fat cow," you openly declare. There's no flip-flops on your feet; just the best strappy open-toed heels for this sexy beast. And what the hell is a "pashmina"? Excuse my ignorant ass; it looked like a shawl to me. Plainly, you're dressed to the nine, you look like a "10", and I feel like a huge smelly pile of number two because quite frankly, in our time away, you've changed and evolved and I've stayed the same. D -- Paul Chan CAREFREE THONG PANTYLINERS: Gentlemen, avert your eyes. Okay, gals, let's get real. You're down to a trickle, the cramps have stopped, you're ready to ditch the granny-panties and feel like a human again, but that damned pantyliner hangs over the edges of your thong, sticks to your pants and is an all-around pain in the ass. So to speak. Along comes Carefree Thong pantyliners to save the day! Yay! You buy the biggest box in the store. First experience: You carefully affix the thing, wrapping the little "wings" around the smallest point of the thong, then go about your business. "This is great!" you think. The problem arises when the time comes to remove said pantyliner. It's stuck. And I mean Stuck. The little wings appear to have adhered together, forming an impenetrable bond not to be violated by man nor beast, and certainly not by woman. You pull, you pry, you end up yanking on the thing (ew!) and rip the flirty little lace edging on your thong. Angered, you toss the box of liners to the back of the cabinet. Next period, damned if you don't try it again! This time, you get smart. You grab the tiny scissors you use for trimming your … wait, what was I saying? No, you grab some little scissors and carefully cut the liner away. However, unbeknownst to you, the fabric of the thong has bunched up under the liner over the course of the day, and you inadvertently cut the thing. The experience leaves you with two ruined thongs. You toss the box of liners in the trash. Repeat. D -- Rosie SLEEPING AT LAGUARDIA AIRPORT: All right, so it's fine that my flight was delayed eight times and a 7 p.m. departure turned into 6:30 the next morning. And it's fine that I had to sleep on the floor next to the gate. It's even fine that the lady behind the American Airlines desk refused to give us hotel or food vouchers. What isn't fine? That some thick-necked security miscreant, seeing me sleeping on the FREAKING FLOOR, kicked me at 2 a.m., telling me I needed to clear out because "Anita" needed to "vacuum." Do you know how hard it is to fall asleep in an airport? I actually pulled it off, and you woke me up anyway. Next time, I'll take the bus. D- -- Will Leitch PEBBLES ON MARS: On March 2nd NASA scientists were creaming over themselves announcing that the Opportunity Mars Rover had found small round pebbles, providing "slam dunk" evidence that water once flowed over the red planet. Let me get this straight: We're getting breathless about fucking pebbles? Weren't the nerds pretty sure about the water theory in the first place? When they find some fossilized Martian poop, then I'll get excited. Let's face it, when you've grown up on a steady diet of Star Trek, a Tonka truck puttering a few feet a day gathering rocks over at the neighbors' seems incredibly pathetic. We were promised moon colonies and robot servants by now. Instead, we've got shuttles that explode because of errant foam and PCs that have us laboring over them for hours trying to decode arcane error messages. We're never going to discover warp technology at this rate. D -- Heather Kenny PLAYING HOOKY: Rule 12.4 of the Slacker Handbook states, "To properly celebrate the arrival of spring, one must commemorate the occasion by availing himself of any prior obligations and do something more worthwhile." This year, Old Man Winter's final gambit was especially bold and nasty: An entire week of cloudy skies with a mercury level that barely rose above 60 degrees punctuated by a day and a half of torrential rain had Southern California begging for salvation from the Notorious O.M.W. and his frosty death grip. Spring might have arrived fashionably late this year, but it brought back the status quo with a vengeance. Seventy-five degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Way too nice a day to waste away inside at some silly job. I left a message saying wouldn't be coming to work and met up with half a dozen like-minded friends for a killer midweek mountain bike ride. While all other chumps toiled away in their cubicles, we took in a view that stretched from Catalina Island to Mt. Wilson. The only punishment for our truancy was the year's first sunburn, which is always a little difficult to blame on bad falafel. Good thing I blamed my "illness" on undercooked sushi. A+ -- Todd Munson MAUREEN DOWD'S SUNDAY COLUMN: You can always tell Maureen Dowd has gotten lazy when, well, you see the name "Maureen Dowd" at the top of her column. But you can really tell MoDo is on auto-pilot when she starts in on a male politician's "masculinity." During last year's "metrosexual" craze, Dowd wrote different columns ascribing the epithet to President Bush, Howard Dean, Arnold Schwarznegger and Donald Rumsfeld. Now Dowd goes after John Kerry, bringing up his love of poetry, musical theater and old movies (wink wink, nudge nudge) until the column points out his love of football and eventually turns into a simple list of Kerry's favorite movies and TV shows, as MoDo struggles to avoid use of the M-word. The point, I would imagine, is to show the senator's "duality," whereas Bush is just a simple man who can't appreciate the fine arts. Or maybe there's something else; I apologize for not being fluent in Dowd-ese. D -- Stephen Silver THE TERM "DRAMATURG": O "dramaturg," how you tease! Your strange appearance and non-membership in my daily vocabulary promised exoticism unleashed. How could I know when first we met that you are merely the term for a theater employee whose responsibilities include writing program notes? You are an Arabian princess who beckons with dark eyes and bejeweled belly, but who, upon closer inspection, proves to be a transvestite stripper from Des Moines. Your strange spelling and pronunciation baffles and enchants: Is your "g" to be uttered softly, like "urge" and "dirge," or is it hard and incisive, like "Hamburg"? 'Twas with awe that once I stood before you, like Howard Carter before Tutankhamen's tomb, awaiting the esoteric knowledge you seemed to promise; now I am Geraldo in Al Capone's vault, forlorn and embarrassed, for you denote someone who often does little more than edit a script for performance. I once thought that you were to be uttered with reverence, eyes humbly averted, much as I order "haricots verts" at an upscale restaurant. Now I know, alas, that you are a profession that requires only the most superficial of training in the history of drama; you are, in short, merely green beans on my plate. You tease and deceive, o "dramaturg," but still I cannot resist! Take me, for I am yours! C+ -- Rob Lagueux
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