Fume le Cigare

“My question is whether a President Obama and a Secretary of State Clinton, given all that has gone down between them and their staffs, can have that kind of relationship, particularly with Mrs. Clinton always thinking four to eight years ahead, and the possibility that she may run again for the presidency. I just don’t know.”
-Thomas Friedman, in Madam Secretary?

I can’t quite get behind the appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. I’m trying but I’m definitely not there yet. She doesn’t strike me as a team player, someone who will always have Barack’s back. I can already hear the passive-aggressive praise being dished out to foreign heads of state: “Yeah he sure can hoop it up, just don’t put a bowling ball in his hands;” “Americans do love him, especially the annoying ones with PhDs;” and “Of course he’s cool, he’s a black guy.” The real deal-breaker is that Hillary is reminiscent of the weaselly smart kid in class who, instead of simply refusing to let you copy his test, goes out of his way to pass you the answers. Except they are the wrong answers, handed over in a deliberate attempt to paint you as a moron…and if Martin Fitzenberger from Mrs. Kozak’s 5th grade class is reading this, you still have a beating coming.

Other than the Fitzenbergers of the world, the person who will reap the maximum benefit from this appointment is good ole Bill Clinton. I bet he’s already thinking about the official State visit to France…

While President Sarkozy and Secretary Clinton are busy discussing the state of Franco-American diplomacy, their respective partners, Carla Bruni and Slick Willy, will be ushered off to the spousal lounge. Can you imagine Bill Clinton alone with the First Lady of France in a room filled with aperitifs, cordials, and overstuffed horizontal furniture? You don’t need a black light to see this international incident coming. One can only hope that some Élysée Palace maid won’t have stocked the lounge with cigars.

Foreign Diplomacy

I received an interesting phone call from an old friend last night. We grew up together in Los Angeles. Dude is quite a character. Combine Larry David’s bluntness and lack and of tact with Will Ferrell’s physical demeanor and haplessness, and you’ve got an idea of the fellow I am talking about. Bad luck and worse judgment have frequently rendered him the victim of extraordinary circumstances. He stumbles into the kind of escalating pandemonium that no sensible person would ever have to face.

I could literally tell you thousands of ridiculous stories about this guy. I’ll dangle a short yarn, for background. In his early twenties, late one lonely night, my husky Jewish pal found himself wandering into an East Hollywood massage parlor. This was no day spa. No clients came in hoping to be wrapped in seaweed with cucumbers placed gently over their eyes. Upon being buzzed in through a steel door, customers were made to look into a video camera and recite: “I am not a law enforcement officer.”



After confirming he was not wearing a wire, my friend insisted that he receive services from a Japanese masseuse. Eventually, following some bickering, the madam of the house told him that he would indeed be serviced by “a girl straight from Tokyo.” Instead, he was met at the massage table by a woman who was clearly not Asian, with a distinctly Mexican accent, wearing heavy eye makeup in an apparent effort to appear Japanese. The situation deteriorated rapidly from there. Suffice to say that his evening did not have a happy ending.

So last night, my friend told me about a conversation he recently had with his wife. The two of them had fallen into a spontaneous serious heart-to-heart talk. They spoke about their family together (two kids), career ambitions, and life in general, over multiple glasses of wine. Well into this dialogue, she nonchalantly throws out: “If you could change one thing about me, what would it be?” At first he wisely resists the question, but his wife eventually breaks him with, “I promise I won’t be mad at whatever you say. Just be honest.”

Now at this point any reasonable man would give a pat answer like: ‘I would make you less attractive because you are so incredibly beautiful that I can’t stop thinking about you all day and it distracts me at work.’ But instead, my forthright friend looks his wife in the eye and says, with sincerity, “If I could change one thing about you I’d make you Asian.”

His wife, who is in fact blonde and very fair-skinned, flips out. And in response to her fury, my old pal shrugs and says, “I was just being honest.” Un-fucking-believable.

Oh yeah, one other thing, they currently have a teenage Thai au pair living with them. No shit.

I don’t know exactly how to articulate the moral of this story. I do know, however, what holiday gift I’ll be giving my friend and his wife this year—his and hers kimonos.

Fowl News

You cannot beat the symbolism in this video: watch as a sassy smiling Sarah Palin rambles on aimlessly, completely oblivious to the carnage unfolding over her shoulder.

A Well-Styled Bailout

“There’s a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hands. It’s almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high-hat and tuxedo. . . .I mean, couldn’t you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here?”
-Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.), to the chief executives of the Big Three automakers arriving to beg for cash from the public.

I must admit, I’m torn over this auto bailout. I’m not torn over what to do to the CEOs of Chrysler, GM, and Ford. They should be publically drawn and quartered, but by American cars in lieu of horses. It would give them a sporting chance, and thus, make it more fun to watch.




On Tuesday, I read Mitt Romney’s New York Times Op-Ed, Let Detroit Go Bankrupt. I found myself nodding my head, thinking that he really made some valid points. And indeed he did. But every time I find myself agreeing with Mitt Romney, I secretly wonder if it’s his hair? I’m convinced that if I stared at his immaculately well-coiffed dome long enough, I’d stop drinking, put on a nametag, and start going door-to-door singing the praises of Jesus and that Smith guy. I might even have sex to procreate. The horror.

Then I remembered the Mitt Romney we all met circa January 2008. The Republican Presidential Candidate who told his native Michigan: “Look at Washington. What have they done to help the domestic auto industry? Look, you can't keep on throwing anvils at Michigan and the auto industry and then say, ‘How come they are not swimming well?’” and, “I hear people say, ‘It’s gone, those jobs are gone, transportation’s gone, it’s not coming back.’ I'm going to fight for every single job. I'm going to rebuild the industry. I'm going to take burdens off the back of the auto industry.”

It’s hard to remember everything Romney said during the Primary (again, the hair gets in my way), but I don’t recall him mentioning anything to the autoworkers about a massive catastrophically spiraling bankruptcy. Of course, handsome Mitt is no stranger to contradicting perspectives. Although he professes to believe that the consumption of alcohol is morally repugnant, he keeps a fully stocked bar in his house for entertaining. Go figure.

Ultimately, concerning the auto bailout, I think I’m steering towards the perspective of economist Jeffery Sachs. I won’t bother to re-articulate the argument he made this week in The Washington Post; you can read it here: A Bridge for the Carmakers. The opening of his last paragraph sums it up: “We face an unprecedented financial calamity, energy crisis and environmental threat. A vibrant, growing U.S. automobile industry should play an essential role in solving all three.”

The Dark Underbelly

If you have four minutes and forty-four seconds to spare, you may want to check out Bill O’Reilly as he pontificates, supposedly, on the degenerative effects of San Francisco values. He opens this segment, entitled the “Unresolved Problem,” with the question, “Where will the new Obama administration take the country?” The video ends with the following illuminating exchange between O’Reilly and his producer, Jesse Watters:

WATTERS: Well, I found in Central Park at night now, at least after Rudy Giuliani, you can go out at night and walk around and feel safe. But in San Francisco, you don't even go near some of these parks at night.

O'REILLY: No, you wouldn't go to the Presidio at night in San Francisco. I wouldn't. So you felt that New York, or you feel that New York is much more under control than San Francisco?

WATTERS: It is. In New York, you know, you have your pockets of bad places. But in San Francisco, it's prevalent throughout a lot of the city.

O'REILLY: So wherever you went, Fisherman's Wharf and all that, you saw these guys?

WATTERS: Almost every single neighborhood has this dark underbelly that seeps into their regular society.

Here are my immediate observations:

1) I’m confident that Jesse Watters would be raped if he strolled through Central Park at night, perhaps even in the late afternoon.

2) I have no idea what this broadcast has to do with San Francisco, Barack Obama, or values—of any kind.

3) Given the deliberately selected cast of caricatured stereotypes depicted in the video, if I was one of “these guys,” to borrow O’Reilly’s code, I’d be very pleased with my decision not to vote Republican.

Destination: Vernon, Alabama!

Today, I’ve decided to unveil my first new post in what hopefully will be a recurring blog segment: my very own ‘Travel Section.’

As I’m a refined and resourceful gentleman, I feel it’s my duty to occasionally spotlight one of the many delightful, and yet seldom visited, tucked-away municipalities that pepper the landscape of our wondrous nation. Without further ado, allow me to take you away to tranquil Vernon, Alabama.





According to the official Vernon website, maintained by the Vernon Volunteer Fire Department, it is “a city rich in history.” The foremost landmark is “the Jason Guin home, where the first elected Sheriff of the county kept his prisoners” circa 1860. I can’t help but admire the Sheriff’s devotion to law and order; as I understand it, there were a lot of “prisoners” trying to escape the South in the early 1860s.

According to the 2000 census, of the 2,143 people in Vernon, 86.2 percent identified themselves as “white,” 12.7 percent as “black.”

If you click on the ‘Southern Air’ tab on the Vernon homepage, you’ll discover that: “Here you will find true southern hospitality and charm. Where the ladies have honey dripping from every word.”

Here are some highlights from an article that mentions Vernon in yesterday’s New York Times, entitled: ‘For South, A Waning Hold on National Politics’ –

Race was a strong subtext in post-election conversations across the socioeconomic spectrum here in Vernon, the small, struggling seat of Lamar County on the Mississippi border.

One white woman said she feared that blacks would now become more “aggressive,” while another volunteered that she was bothered by the idea of a black man “over me” in the White House.

Don Dollar, the administrative assistant at City Hall, said bitterly that anyone not upset with Mr. Obama’s victory should seek religious forgiveness.

“This is a community that’s supposed to be filled with a bunch of Christian folks,” he said. “If they’re not disappointed, they need to be at the altar.”

“I am concerned,” Gail McDaniel, who owns a cosmetics business, said in the parking lot of the Shop and Save. “The abortion thing bothers me. Same-sex marriage.”

“I think there are going to be outbreaks from blacks,” she added. “From where I’m from, this is going to give them the right to be more aggressive.”

Thank you for allowing me to introduce you to this charming southern town. I’m hoping that we can plan a group weekend trip to Vernon in the near future. I’d like to visit soon, before 272 of its citizens start becoming aggressive.

Gifted Children

As so many of our close friends have recently produced offspring, I thought it would be a good idea to get a head start on my Christmas shopping. With the kids in mind, I wandered down to a typical San Francisco bookstore to pick up some local favorites: