Big Mike: Am I Blue?

Things have been going awfully swimmingly the last few months. The Loved One and I are thrilled with each other. Work’s going well for us. Our home is in fairly good shape. The car’s still running. Our doctors aren’t warning us to wrap up our financial affairs just yet. And — hoo-rah! — spring seems to be here (although Constance, the big potato over at The Book Case, keeps saying You watch, it’s gonna snow again, the scrooge.)

It’s times like these — rare though they are — that make me wonder why I still keep taking Zoloft. I’ve been on it since 2002. Before that I did imipramine and desipramine, a couple of early anti-depressants that today seem laughably primitive. I also swallowed a lot of Xanax back in the 1980s and 90s.

In fact, I wouldn’t leave the house without at least a half dozen Xanax in my pocket. Not that I was going to take all six of them. But merely having them clacking around in the plastic pill case gave me just enough spine to go out into the world and face down agoraphobia, panic attacks, and — horrors — people. So I’d take one or two on a good day, four on a bad day.

Not only that, I had my head shrunk by psychiatrists, psychologists, and licensed clinical social workers. I tried prayer, meditation, chanting, booze, and good old positive thinking. No matter what I tried, my terrors of going outdoors, high places, confined spaces, and the rest of the cornucopia of neuroses I entertained made me a shuddering wreck.

I’m thinking about all this because I just finished reading a piece in The New Yorker about depression. The author, Louis Menand, seems to think all the rage for diagnosing depression in people is a load of crap. He implies that this mania is nudged along by drug manufacturers who want to peddle more and more anti-depressants.

He’s not the only one who thinks that way. He writes of a hot new book out called Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease. Its author, Gary Greenberg, also sees a lot of business opportunism in telling people they’re pathologically blue.

Gary Greenberg

None of this is new. My old pal Danny long ago told me his daddy-o felt psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists and the like loved to tell you your head was fucked up “so they could get you hooked.” It’s unclear whether Danny’s poppa-rino meant hooked on medications or hooked on weekly visits — probably both. The latest stats seem to bear his fears out. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that 26.2 percent of Americans can be diagnosed with a mental disorder (primarily depression) in any given year.

Sheesh! That means if you’re car-pooling this morning with three other people, you’d better hope today’s driver isn’t the NIMH’s one-in-four, especially when the car nears that concrete support column up ahead.

“Please, Please, Please Don’t Be One Of The Four!”

Then again, as Menand and Greenberg argue, the driver merely might be experiencing some normal everyday sadness — the loss of a loved one, say, or a pressing financial concern. She or he feels down about it all, happens to catch an ad for Cymbalta on TV, makes an appointment and says Hey doc, lemme have some of those skull jockey pills.

Menand even cites the case of Paxil. Its manufacturer discovered in the 90s that the drug seemed to make people less shy. So it went about the business of positioning shyness as a mental disorder so that shrinks could prescribe barrels-ful of Paxil.

No doubt all of this is true. Trivializing clinical depression just to make a buck is so craven you’d think a Wall Street banker came up with the idea. The only problem is when I read this stuff I start thinking that maybe — just maybe — I’d fallen victim to all the hype back when I was that shuddering wreck.

I don’t shudder so much anymore. I have no idea why. Was it the Zoloft? Or was it a combination of meditation, therapy, and booze? Or — worse — was I just imagining it all?

Someone very close to me once scoffed at my collection of loose screws. I won’t identify him because I don’t want to embarrass him (although I should.) Let’s call him Thomas. One day Thomas had as much as he could take of my little madnesses. “You know what your problem is?” he said. “It’s all in your head.”

Uh, yeah.

Even though I’m pretty certain Thomas was full of shit, there’s still that tiny little part of me that fears he was right. Then when I read the indictments put forth by guys like Menand and Greenberg, I start obsessing: I wasn’t really depressed; There was nothing wrong with me; It must have been all in my head.

Every once in a while, though, some crystal clear memory of the existential terror I felt being trapped in an el car some forty feet above the pavement hits me. I think of my racing, pounding heart. I recall hyperventilating. I can almost feel the sweat pouring out of me again. I get twitchy thinking about how I’d struggle to resist the urge in every cell of my being to tear the doors open and jump out. And that was only one of my little madnesses.

Then I realize that Thomas was right. It was all in my head. He just didn’t know how right he was.

All In My Head

Benny Jay: Bullock Kisses Streep!

I’m watching the Oscars….

Each year I say I won’t, but each year I do. Can’t help myself. Fact is, I can’t get enough of this shit.

I got a special reason this year. The Coen Brothers‘ movie, A Serious Man, is up for Best Original Screenplay and I want them to win. I love the Coen Brothers. Matter of fact, I sort of wish I were a Coen Brother.  But don’t let that get around.

They’re also up for Best Picture. But, trust me, that’s going to The Hurt Locker cause it’s directed by a woman and the Academy wants to finally give all the big awards to a movie directed by a woman, like they’re all noble and stuff.

I’m not hating, just saying….

Sure enough, they give the script-writing Oscar to Mark Boal, who wrote The Hurt Locker. Nothing against Mark Boal, but who the hell is he? He’s no Coen Brother, that’s for sure.

“Boo!” I exclaim.

“Stop booing,” says my wife.

“If you’re not gonna give it to my boys give it to Tarantino….”

I love Quentin Tarantino almost as much as the Coen Brothers. He’s up for Inglorious Basterds, which isn’t going to win anything either, cause of that woman thing I was telling you about.

I boo louder.

From upstairs my younger daughter, who’s trying to do her homework, yells: “Stop booing!”

Boal gives a great acceptance speech, thanking our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I feel kind of guilty for booing.

They give some award for something to some black guy I never heard of. He’s in the middle of his acceptance speech when some redheaded lady shows up out of nowhere, pushes him to the side and starts talking.

“What the fu,” I say.

“Who’s she?” asks my wife.

“This is like something out of Saturday Night Live….”

It’s Robin Williams’ turn to make a presentation. He refers to the Governor’s Ball: “It’s one of many balls that will be held around town tonight….”

It takes me a second or two – okay, I’m slow – then I get it.

My wife brings in dinner: Greek chicken, oven-cooked potatoes and salad. Damn, it’s good. I’m chowing down – got a chicken bone in my hand – as James Taylor starts singing In My Life, while they show footage of the greats who died last year.

“Taylor’s killing this song,” I say.

“Shh,” says my wife.

“He’s singing it like a dirge — but it’s not a dirge….”

“I’m trying to listen….”

“This sucks….”

“Stop hating….”

For best actress, they bring a bunch of celebrities on stage to give testimonials for the nominees. This one guy’s going on and on about Meryl Streep, like she’s a saint.

“Gimme a break,” I say.

“Shh….”

“This guy’s got her walking on water….”

Oprah starts talking about Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe, who’s nominated for her role in Precious.

“This is my girl,” I say.

“Quiet….”

“I’m sick of all the skinny girls winning….”

“Shush….”

Sean Penn opens the envelope and says: “The winner is….”

I chant: “Precious, Precious….”

“Sandra Bullock….”

“Boo…..”

“Stop it,” says my wife.

“Should have gone to Precious — Boo!”

“Stop booing!” yells my daughter from upstairs.

Bullock gives this fantastically gracious acceptance speech. Total class. Makes me feel salty for booing. I feel guilty all over again. Man, rough night for me.

As she’s finishing, she refers to Streep as a great kisser and calls her “my lover.”

I look at my wife. My wife looks at me.

“They’re gay!” my wife exclaims.

“How did I miss that?”

My wife grabs her cell phone. “I’ll call Sean.”

Great idea. Sean’s a hairdresser she works with. The man knows more Hollywood gossip than anyone alive. His particular specialty is The Golden Girls.

My man Sean knows all about it. Turns out Bullock kissed Streep at another awards show. It’s all a big inside joke. Only we’re not in on it cause we’re out of it.  Good thing we got Sean. This guy knows more stuff than Google.

“Ask him about that redheaded lady,” I say.

Too late, she’s off the phone.

In the end The Hurt Locker cleans up (wins Best Picture and Best Director) just like I told you.

“This sucks,” I say. “The Coen Brothers make one of the best movies ever and get shut out. That’s it. I’m through with the Oscars!”

“Yeah, right,” says my wife.

On my way to bed, I stop by the computer just to, you know, check out the latest on that redheaded lady. Turns out she and the black guy had been partners on the documentary before they had a falling out. The Academy designated him to pick up the Oscar if the movie won. Apparently, she said forget that and went for the glory. Said the dude’s mother stuck her cane in the aisle to block her from reaching the stage. I like that detail about the cane so much I read it twice.

Told you – I can’t get enough of this shit….

Letter From Milo: Sharp Dressed Man

A few years ago I started carrying a shoulder bag. I had been considering getting a shoulder bag for a long time, but there was something keeping me from getting one. That something was stupidity.

You see, I always thought that carrying a shoulder bag was an affectation, something a real man would never do. A shoulder bag, it seemed to me, was a sure sign of effeminacy. I mean, how much shit did a person have to haul around? You had your wallet, keys, cash, cigarettes and lighter, half pint of whiskey, extra-large, industrial strength condoms, and perhaps a concealed weapon, generally a straight razor or snub-nosed pistol.

All of those things could easily fit into the four pockets that traditionally come with a pair of pants in the Western World. Anything else was just extraneous bullshit.

But as time went on and life got more complicated, I found that four pockets were no longer enough to contain the things I had to carry around on a daily basis.

For example, when I got hired by Big Mike, the Barn Boss of the scabby, hygienically challenged crew that writes for The Third City, I had to start carrying notebooks and pens to write down the great thoughts that occur to me on a regular basis. And how was I supposed to haul around my paperback books, crossword puzzle books, sunglasses, vials of uppers and downers, bags of weed and other necessities of life? There was no way all of that crap could fit in my pockets.

As much as I hated to do it, it was time to get a shoulder bag.

The first bag I got was a funky old canvas bag that I found at a thrift shop on Roscoe Avenue. It cost about three bucks and served my purposes admirably. The problem was that it was an ugly old thing, covered with stains and falling apart at the seams. When my wife, the lovely Mrs. Milo, saw it she started laughing.

“Do think you could have gotten a nastier looking bag?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s covered with spaghetti stains.”

“I’ll throw it in the washer.”

“It stinks, too. Smells like a cat peed on it.”

“That should wash out, too.”

“Honey, you can’t wash out ugly.”

A few weeks later, Mrs. Milo came home and presented me with a brand new, black leather shoulder bag.

It was beautiful. The bag was made of deep, rich cowhide that shone like patent leather. It smelled like the interior of a brand new Buick Electra 225. It had shiny snaps and buckles and it was roomy enough to carry all of my essentials. Best of all, it was a manly looking bag. There was not a hint of effeminacy about it.

I’ve never cared about fashion. To quote the great Howlin’ Wolf, “I dress for comfort, baby, I don’t dress for speed.” I always considered people who made a fetish of fashion to be shallow, frivolous individuals. With so many problems in this world, with so many evils and injustices to contend with, spending time thinking about what to wear is a huge waste of time. Spending great amounts of money on clothes strikes me as the height of irresponsibility.

That said, my new shoulder bag affected me in ways I would never have imagined. I started paying more attention to what I wore. I started paying attention to what other people wore. And if I saw someone carrying a shoulder bag, I immediately compared it to mine. I wasn’t turning into a fop, by any means, but I will admit that the potential was there. I was becoming a changed person, a Milo 2.0.

But some things never change. The other day my youngest daughter asked if I had a pen. I told her to look in my shoulder bag. After looking through the bag, she asked:

“Dad, why do you carry that ugly knife in your bag?”

“Well, honey, “I explained, “if you ever need to cut somebody up, a knife is a good thing to have.”

“I see,” she said, nodding in understanding. “By the way, Dad, can I have some money? I need to buy some new clothes.”

“Sure, sweetie. That’s money well spent. How much do you need?”

Big Mike: The Half Of Life I Love

I turned 54 big ones this week. March 4th. The only date that’s a command.

March forth.

As in the years, which are now flipping by like calendar pages in an old movie. Eek.

The Days Seem Like Minutes

I can’t stop my paunch from growing, my lower legs from turning more mottled, the area just below what used to be my finely chiseled jaw from turning wobbly, and other signs that I’m nearer the soil than the womb.

Scary? You bet. Then again when my sis, Good Old Franny, died in January 2007 I sat in her bedroom alone with her. It was our goodbye. Cancer had torn through her bowels, her liver, and then pretty much all the rest of her internal organs until she was almost a skeleton. She only had a few days left on this mad Earth, maybe only a few hours. Everyone knew it. We’d all taken vacation and sick days to gather around her and usher her out. Each of us — her sibs, her kids, her grandkids, her old pals — took ten or fifteen minutes to commune with her, alone. I almost envied her. That’s the way to go, I thought, with people waiting in line to tell you how much they love you.

Ma, of course, was part of the bon voyage party. She took an hour or so with Franny, naturally. And, just as naturally, they fought. They’d been fighting all their lives. Why should they stop just because one of them was on her deathbed?

Anyway, it came to my turn. I’m not a sugar-coater and Franny wasn’t either. It would have been an insult to her to pretend I was there for anything other than to bid her adieu. So I said, “Well, this is it. Tell me, did you love this life?

Franny nodded, then after a pause during which I suppose she was gathering her strength to speak, she said, “Yes I did.” She paused again, eying me in a way that made me squirm, as if she was on the verge of knowing something that the rest of us couldn’t even begin to imagine. That coming knowledge liberated her from niceties and any possible hesitancy — no matter how slight it might have been in her case — to tell a painful truth. She said, “You don’t, do you?”

How could I lie to my dying sister?

“Not so much,” I said. “I’d say about fifty percent of the time I love life. The other fifty percent you can have.”

She nodded again as if she knew precisely what my answer was going to be. She’d only wanted me to tell her the truth.

So let me tell you about a part of that fifty percent I love. The Loved One asked me a couple of weeks what I wanted to do for my birthday. The first thing I said was, “Don’t get me anything; I got enough crap.”

“Okay, what do you want to do?”

“I dunno.”

You know, at fifty-four you really don’t want to get a James Bond 007 attache case. I got one when I was eight. Good god, that thing was so cool — I would have had an orgasm upon unwrapping it had I been capable of having one at that tender age. That’s one of the drawbacks of my age — there’s no longer any gift that can excite me that much.

An Eight-Year-Old’s Dream

And at fifty-four you really don’t want to go to the circus, which I was dying to do when I was seven. I pestered Ma and Dad to take me to the circus for my birthday that year. Both of them looked at me as if I were daft. As if they’d rehearsed beforehand, each said, in turn, “Whaddya wanna do that for?”

I had no answer. I was trying to buy into their outlook on life so I pretended that I knew the circus was nothing more than a bunch of lions and tigers and clowns and acrobats. A silly expense. How would going to the circus help pay the mortgage, tuitions, doctor bills, and keep the family’s credit rating pristine? So I shrugged. Of course, one of the advantages of the passage of time is the ability to think of a good riposte. Now I know that when they asked why I wanted to go to the circus, I should have said, “Uh, because I’m seven?”

A Seven-Year-Old’s Priority

So what did I want to do on my 54th birthday? It hit me. Tell Me A Story, Part Three at the Muddy Boots Cafe in Nashville, about fifteen miles east on us on State Road 46.

That’s what we did last night. It was, as the name suggests, the third installment of an open mike storytelling event sponsored by radio station WFHB (for which I’m a newswriter, by the way). Just plain old folk get up and tell some true tale.

Best thing we could have ever done. The Loved One had a chai and a slice of cornbread. I had a blueberry smoothie. And we listened to the most motley collection of storytellers rural Indiana could produce.

The Muddy Boots Cafe

There was a young woman who told of a car trip she’d taken with her family when she was a girl to the mountains of Virginia. All the way, squished into the backseat with her sibs, she listened to her older brother tell her spooky tales about vampires and Jesus. She recalled laying up all night long in her sleeping bag when they finally reached their campsite, her eyes wide, listening for the tell-tale sounds of vampires or a bloody Jesus come to scare the poo out of her. To this day, she admitted, she still can’t really distinguish between vampires and Jesus.

Another guy told a story he swore was true of his high school reunion where the most athletic, noblest and most popular guy in class finally decked the biggest bully and everyone cheered. But his telling of the old chestnut was so heartfelt and entertaining that none of us cared that everyone who’s ever attended a high school reunion tells the same damned story.

There was a grandma who began by mentioning that her completely gray hair was caused by her daughter Heather. It seems the family once had a pet ferret that constantly humped everything in sight. One day when she was about four, Heather stuffed the ferret into a pillowcase and swung it wildly over her head just to see how it would feel. She stopped only when she inadvertently clunked the ferret-bag on the dining room chair. “Mama,” she called out, “the ferret’s not moving!” It turned she’d paralyzed the ferret from the waist down. The incident, the grandma said, had instilled in Heather a lifelong desire to care for animals. As for the ferret, she said, it went on to live longer than most of its species-mates, only the family never again had to witness it humping anything.

A farm woman told a story about her ex-husband. He had a horse whom she loathed. The husband, she claimed, only kept the horse around to torture her. One day he was out putting fenceposts in the ground. He came in midway through his chore and grabbed a beer out of the fridge. He went back out and resumed his work. A few minutes later, he dashed back in and demanded of the woman, “Why did you drink my beer?”

“I never touched your beer,” she said. And, like many married couples, they went back and forth for long minutes. Finally, he ordered her to bring him out another beer.

A few minutes later, he burst back in the house and yelled, “You did it again! You drank my beer!”

“I did not,” she huffed and another back and forth ensued. Again he ordered her to bring him out another beer.

This time, the woman decided to hang around, hoping to see what was going on. A moment after her husband laid his beer and the ground and began to concentrate on his fence posts, the horse peeked around the barn, extended his neck, picked up the can with his lips, raised his head and drained it.

“Look, look,” the woman shouted. “Look what your damned horse is doing!”

The next day, the woman concluded, her soon-to-be ex-husband nailed a sign up on one of his new fenceposts reading, “Horse for sale. Cheap.”

The last storyteller of the night was a big, round guy with a long, thick, gray beard and equally gray hair hanging down to his shoulders. He was about 65 or so and looked like a cross between an overgrown gnome and a department-store Santa Claus. He wore suspenders and baggy jeans and carried a six-foot walking stick. His was less a tale than a prose-poem about how telling stories makes us human.

The Loved One and I drove back home on hilly, curvy State Road 46 in utter darkness. “I’ll bet we could see a million stars,” she said. Upon hearing that, I pulled off on a gravel road leading into a secluded forest. We came to an opening and I put the Prius in park. When I turned the lights off we couldn’t even see each other for the first few moments.

“It’s too cold,” The Loved One said.

“Let’s just look for a minute,” I said.

We got out of the car and turned our heads skyward. There were so many stars it was hard to make out the constellations. We saw the Winter Triangle easily, though, with brilliant Sirius, the brightest star in the sky other than the Sun forming its bottom point, the red supergiant Betelgeuse forming its top point and white Procyon the triangle’s third point. We saw the blue Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, riding on Taurus the Bull’s massive shoulder. The Loved One broke the silence when she exclaimed, “Look at that! A shooting star!”

She then kissed me as if I were no longer a 54-year-old goat but a someone who had a finely chiseled jaw and no paunch. Those calendar pages suddenly stopped flipping, if only for a moment, in the dark under a million stars.

It was better than the all the circuses and all the James Bond 007 attache cases in the world.

Procyon (upper left), Betelgeuse (upper right) and Sirius (bottom)

Benny Jay: Drinking With Nelson Algren

Flipping through the pages of the Sun-Times, I see a story that says Johnny Depp’s making a movie about Nelson Algren.

Perfect. First of all, I love Johnny Depp – seen a bunch of his movies. Sometimes twice.

Second of all, it’s about time Algren got his due. He’s one of Chicago’s great writers. He tells it like it is. His prose poem, City on the Make, is all about how Chicago’s run by hustlers and con men. Nothing’s changed since he wrote it back in 1951.

As talented as he was, Algren made a mess out of his life. He lost most of the money he made and he drank too much.

He used to hang out in seedy Wicker Park dives, back in the day when Wicker Park was a really seedy place.

He felt the local literary elite didn’t appreciate him. So he moved to New Jersey.

That’s the part of his story that always gets me. You figure Algren would go somewhere warm – the Florida Keys maybe, or Mexico — once he leaves his hometown. I know I would.

But, no, he went to Jersey and never came back. Wound up in Long Island. Died in 1981.

I’d like to tell you I hung out with Algren at those seedy Wicker Park dives, but we never met — he moved out of town just as I was moving in.

Besides I hardly ever hang out in taverns.  I don’t like to drink. Oh, I’ll nurse a beer or too, but basically alcohol makes me dizzy. Especially white wine. I can’t stand white wine. Just the smell of it makes me want to throw up. Not that I’d be drinking white wine in a seedy Wicker Park dive with Algren. I’m just saying….

The point is you can’t be much of a drinker if you don’t like to drink.

The closest I came to drinking with a famous writer happened on St. Patrick’s Day 1978. I was at O’Rourke’s, the old pub on North Avenue, looking at Roger Ebert, who was sitting at another table. I was too in awe to say a word to him. I just watched him talking to his friends.

Oh, wait, one day in about 1978 I was walking down Lincoln Avenue and I saw Tom Fitzpatrick stumble out of a bar. Well, that doesn’t count as drinking with him. I wasn’t in the bar. And he wasn’t even drinking, at least not when I saw him. But still….

You probably never heard of Fitz – he died years ago. He used to write a column for the Sun-Times. When I was a kid, I idolized him. Not as much as I idolized Mike Royko, but close. I still own All Together Now, a compilation of Fitz’s columns.

In particular, I like his column about the Days of Rage. That’s when dozens of radicals went on a rampage through the Gold Coast, smashing windows, throwing bottles and overturning cars. Happened in 1969.

Reading that column puts you in the middle of the riot — like you were there. As a matter of fact, one time I told someone I had been there. It wasn’t true. I made it up. Probably using information I remember from the column. Just trying to make an impression.  In my defense, I had a few beers. If you’re out there, sorry.

As a rule of thumb, I suggest you not believe anything anyone tells you over drinks in a bar. Especially if he says he was at the Days of Rage, or Woodstock for that matter. Yes, I know someone must have been there, but it’s probably not the dude you’re drinking with.

Another time, I did a late-night radio show with a couple of newspaper guys. Afterward, we went to the Billy Goat tavern and I watched them knock back beer after beer. Never seen two guys drink so much.

They were swapping tales about the girls they’d screwed and the guys they’d beat up. The more they drank the more girls they screwed and the more guys they beat up. They were probably making half of it up, like me with the Days of Rage.

Now that I think about it – maybe so many writers drink to cover up the fact that they’re afraid to give powerful people the bashing they deserve. Conversely, maybe I bash so many powerful people to cover up my fear of drinking.

Well, it’s a theory anyway.

The thing about Algren – he drank like a fish and he beat up on the big boys.

That’s why he’s one of the greatest. Like Royko. And Fitz.

I can’t wait to see the movie….

Randolph Street: Loop Trail

These photos were taken 4 March.  All Photos © Jon Randolph  2010

Big Mike: Vajazzling

You want proof that human beings are sick and stupid? Here it is: the hottest new thing is vajazzling.

For the uninitiated, vajazzlers decorate their their female genitalia with jewels. The leading proponent of this craze is Jennifer Love Hewitt, who long, long, long ago starred in I Know What You Did Last Summer and since then has been so deservedly ignored that she was forced to, well, encrust her nether-asset in diamonds in order to get the attention she believes she so richly merits.

And you thought women having half-cantaloupes surgically attached to their pectoral muscles was a sure sign of the coming end of the world.

The End Is Near!

Maybe vajazzling is the last gasp manifestation of the Age of Reagan — you know, the fabulous three decades that gave us Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, real-life Gordon Geckos, McMansions, the Hummer H2, gazillion-inch flat screen TVs, Enron, Bernie Madoff and Lloyd Blankfein. I thought the Great Recession had cooled off this holy land’s fascination with greed and hyper-materialism. Maybe Jennifer Love Hewitt and her ovine followers are simply behind the curve.

Trendsetters

We can only hope.

Then again, as good old H.L. Mencken once wrote, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

Jennifer Love Hewitt may be too dense to understand that her glittery hoo-hoo is old hat. She’s certainly not smart enough to grasp the simple fact that having gems mashed into her honey pot makes her, de facto, a dope.

Of course, it could be that vajazzling is merely another benchmark in women’s long struggle for equality. Sexual expression is an historically recognized statement, a revolutionary demonstration even, in the liberation of the oppressed. Jennifer Love Hewitt et al may be announcing to the world that their vaginas are their own property, and they may do with them as they please. In that case, women have now achieved parity with the opposite sex — they are just as stupid as men.

My old pal Aaron Freeman passed on this video of the vajazzling process, via Gawker. The beauty of the whole clip is the woman who actually does the vajazzling (is she the vajazzler or is the woman who gets it done to her the vajazzler?) is embarrassed to say the word vagina!

Nice to know that the certified, professional woman to whom you’re entrusting your girl-junk has the sexual attitude of a kindergartener.

Don’t think I’m coming down hard on these people just because they’re women. I guarantee that if Lloyd Blankfein wasn’t too busy doing god’s work of raping the world economy, he’d be having his phallus gilded this very minute.

Maybe the creationists are right and Darwin and his gang are wrong. We aren’t the progeny of apes. Evolution suggests species improve upon their forebears. Jennifer Love Hewitt and her vajazzling subspecies can’t possibly be an improvement. Have you ever seen a chimp or an orang with jewels on her vagina?

Smarter Than Jennifer Love Hewitt