This week, this Calvin Klein billboard was erected in Times Square on the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway:

Here, in one of the busiest intersections on the planet, we have two “models.” The girl, who is so emaciated that she’s repugnant to look at (she looks like a spider who’s missing half her legs), is tugging at this gay guy’s shorts, presumably, to get to his cock. Is it my hyperactive imagination or is she suppose to be jerking him off high above Times Square? Lookout below!

The problem I’m having is that this is the peak of the holiday season. The area surrounding Times Square and the Bryant Park skating rink, which is just a block away, is choked with families who are visiting the city. Tell me if I’m being a tool here, but there are little kids everywhere who I don’t think should be exposed to this stuff.

Isn’t there some kind of faceless city board who approves ads in public spaces? Am I finally too old for the city?

Here’s our favorite New Jersey diner all gussied-up for the holiday. Warm wishes from the Garden State! I’ll post some holiday pics of the city in the coming weeks.

beware women grown
old
who were never
anything but
young.

I had two requests for that poem. It’s short but it really hits the mark, don’t you think? Part of what I like about Bukowski is his brevity and economic use of words. Here’s a classic. This one got me through many a lonely night.

oh, yes

there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it’s too late
and there’s nothing worse
than
too late.

We decorated the house and put up the Christmas tree on Sunday. It’s great having little kids around when Christmas approaches. Their enthusiasm is infectious.

I was assembling my gift list and realized that I don’t have to buy a gift for my mom. She passed away in May and this will be our first Christmas without her. I’m glad I’m going back to Ohio. I don’t get to go every year and I really want to be there. I hope my sister can replicate mom’s marinara sauce. The rumor is that she can pull it off, but I’ll believe it when I taste it. It’s no small matter to copy a master.

Here’s the front page from yesterday’s New York Post:

People, if you don’t have a muckraking, bottom-feeding, Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid in your town, you don’t know what you’re missing. You take one trashy story, some cheap Photoshop effects and the next thing you know, you have journalistic gold.

Eva Mendes was recently on a press junket promoting the the film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans with Nicholas Cage. Get a load of this. And I quote:

I’m not looking to be a—very dirty word—“celebrity” or “movie star.” Dirty words, again. I’m an actor. I go to acting class. I study my craft. (Emphasis hers.)

What an idiot. Listen, you insufferable bore. You’re not playing Ophelia. Just hit your mark and remember your lines. And forget acting class. You either have it or you don’t. Ms. Mendes can be seeing honing her craft in Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror and Urban Legends: Final Cut.

It’s the holidays and once again the airwaves are flooded with commercials that implore you to give a BMW as a gift. It’s always the same. Hubby leads wife out to the driveway with his hands over her eyes, he uncovers her eyes and there’s a shiny new BMW with a huge red ribbon sitting perfectly on the roof. This is an other-worldly proposition to me. Who gives a brand new BMW for Christmas!? Or gets one!? Have you ever? No one in my world.

I love the mess that Tiger Woods is in. I can assure you that the cut on his mouth isn’t from that 3 mph car crash into a tree. It’s from that golf club his wife was swinging.

He marries a stunning Nordic Princess. A perfect physical specimen. And here he is years later tom catting around Vegas with a casino hostess. Christie Brinkley is as beautiful as they come and she has had five men marry and leave her. Proof positive: you had better have some substance if you want to hold onto your spouse. That goes for both men and women. Charles Bukowski has a great poem about how you should beware a woman if all she’s ever been in life is beautiful.

Back in 1998, Cher had a big hit with Believe. In it, she used Antare’s Auto-tune software to modulate her voice. It was a fun gimmick that had not been used before. Today, people with marginal vocal skills use it as a crutch. It’s almost 2010 and just about all of the top five songs on the Billboard pop charts use this. Enough is enough. If you use Auto-tune software, your song sucks and you suck.

Do you know who else sucks? Rappers who hire women who can actually sing to do all the heavy lifting while they mumble a few lines and then repeat “yea, yea, yea” while the meat of the song is being performed. You guys are talentless suckasses, too.