Caren Lissner on Class Warfare at Sleepaway Camp

A VERY GOOD LISSNER

The most excellent Caren Lissner woke up, put her clothes on, went to work, and wrote a piece on the superficial meanness of teenage girls at sleepaway camp.

Sorry about the pun.

Another "Tony Hightower," this time in Reno

RENO 411

This ain't me, but I have to play this place.

Right at the moment, I know of two other people who are using my name in the entertainment field. One is a singer who's worked with Lionel Richie on a couple of records, and the other one is a semi-professional wrestler who does occasional heel work in Pennsylvania for 5 Star and other indie wrestling circuits around the country.

Indie wrestling is cool. I can totally identify with going all out in a high school cafeteria with 35 people sitting in folding chairs who are there as much for the spectacle of something happening in their town as for anything you might be actually doing. I'd write him a theme song, but I suspect he might want something a little more grindcorey than what I've got in the pipe.

Let me get on that. (Get me Lionel Richie. Let's hook this baby right the fuck up.)

A NEW CAR!

A NEW CAR!

In a stunning validation of all that I hold dear to my heart, spleen and other organs, you fine voters chose me as the winner of last week's Songfight for my paean to the ineffectiveness of beer goggles, In Full Effect.

If you voted for me, thanks. See how good it feels to pull for a winner?

Next week's song, Let It Be, should be up by the time you read this.

Belgium Doesn't Exist!

BELGIUM DOESN'T EXIST!

I had a dream last night that I was talking to Alanis Morrissette.

She looked like this sixtyish woman, with slightly translucent skin and dimples that threatened to take over her face when she smiled. We were in this tiki bar on Eighth Avenue that I used to go to a lot more often in another life, or at least earlier in this one. A Norteño song was playing on endless repeat, and the bartender, who wore an uncomfortably tight-looking dress, would put a nine-dollar Maker's Mark in front of me every time the song ended. I was aware of how drunk I was getting and how needlessly expensive it was, but I wasn't feeling it.

She was three or four seats away, far enough so that we had to talk loudly to hear each other. I can't remember what we were talking about, but it was something about how the kids these days don't understand how important science is to a balanced formal education. The incongruously Valley-girlish way she'd pronounce the phrase "Ehrlenmeyer flask" was utterly charming, and she found a way to work it into the conversation in more ways than I thought possible.

I had the feeling I'd met Alanis before, like at my senior prom, or when we were both washing dishes at Mr. Greenjean's in the late 80's, though I didn't bring it up. Clearly she didn't know who the hell I was, so I figured I was just making it up in my head. Also, we were the only two people in the place who weren't undercover cops. The place was full of well-groomed men in denim shirts, talking furtively into their wrist-phones.

At exactly 3:00 in the morning, the music got louder, and people started dancing in the back of the bar. The doors were locked, but I knew a way out. I was smashed, and the floor was suspicious of my feet. Alanis and I had reached a natural break in the conversation, and she was now dancing with a very smart-looking elderly man who looked like a cross between Omar Sharif and Cesar Chavez. They moved quite well together, foot over foot, shoulders moving to and fro, their eyes locked, it was lovely to watch.

It was only after I had crawled through the window in the men's bathroom that I realized I'd left my wallet behind. It was empty, though, and I didn't like the damned thing, anyway.

Stern

HOW WEIRD

After Dick Cheney's outburst last week (not to mention the crumbling public opinion of the as-the-stomach-turns of the "Howard Stern profanity scandal"), they're still going ahead with prosecuting him?

Look. Stern's a dick, and I listen to him for about ten minutes every three or four months, just to make sure I still don't like him. Yeah, Howard is like radishes for my ear hole. But I'm pretty sure he never actually says any of the seven words on the air. Why would he, when coming up with stupid 4th-grade euphemisms for genitalia and various sexual acts is so much fun (not to mention still phenomenally lucrative)?

And if he's not speaking actual profanity, then what's the big deal? Someone said something semi-racist on his show? Oooh, it's a good thing the FCC doesn't monitor Hannity or Scarborough or Limbaugh or Savage or Grant or those other jokers this closely. We'd have nothing to listen to except Jay-Z remixes. Actually, Maybe I could handle that for a few minutes at a time.

If Cheney isn't fined and censured for his outburst on the floor of Congress... well, I was going to say it's just proof that their hypocrisy is no longer a secret and their dog-wagging is no longer holding water, but that train left the station years ago.