Abu Huh?

Photo by James BunoanCher was on vacation in the Caribbean last week. “I'm walking through the airport in Fort Lauderdale,” she told me, “and all the headlines are in 'WAR IS DECLARED'-sized fonts. 'I TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY.'” Cher was concerned. She had, it seemed, missed a pretty important news week. Who was taking full responsibility? And for what? Oh, Lucy! What had we done now?

It must have been pretty important if it knocked the oddly monkey-like—and yet still oddly attractive—Olsen Twins off the teevee for even a moment. (I like Mary-Kate best; she looks all Gothy and rock N roll, and I wouldn't be surprised if she grew up to be Christina Aguilera. I like Christina Aguilera!) The Olsen Twins are this week's Paris Hilton, except they seem nice.

I gave Cher the executive summary. “Bad. Very bad. Abner Louima-style. Hearts and minds. Fiasco. Quagmire. People pissed. Bad month for the president. Dogs. Scrotums. Wanna come to my mom's John Kerry fund-raiser?”

I'd come late to the Abu Ghraibparty myself. I don't watch TV news; the one time I tried, for a sitdown with Teresa Heinz Kerry and Baba Wawa, I got the time wrong and had to suffer instead through a Primetime Live about extreme plastic surgery. The delighted patient's dental veneers were so long she couldn't close her mouth. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

And I try to ignore anything about Iraq; it's my duty as an American to stay placidly uninformed. I mean, I'd watched Richard Clarke's testimony (remember him?), but that was about Sept. 11, which it seems the Iraqis masterminded, according to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill (remember him?). Oh, wait. O'Neill said President Bush was focused on Saddam before Sept. 11? Which the Iraqis had nothing to do with? Never mind.

Abu Ghraib? Bad. Very bad. My only question is this: Aren't “the troops” the most sacred thing in American life since Loyalty Day? What happens when “the troops” is bad? Are we allowed to—gasp—say so?

I wouldn't dream of it.

I'm loyal like that.

Kelly O wanted to head up to the Viper Room Friday night for Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise. “He sounds like Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye!” she said. “He's an old, blind black man, and his band is young and rock N roll!” I was up for a trip to Hollywood. Maybe we would see someone famous, and I could snub them!

We didn't.

And just because you're an old, black blind man doesn't necessarily mean you can sing. He looked at least as nice as the Olsen Twins, though. I don't know. We were hammered.

I believe I kissed three boys named Frank.

Opener Jim Bianco, though? He was witty and funky and had an accordion player/clarinetist, forcing Kelly O to dance fancily at the front of the stage. (Kelly O is always a party.) In fact, he was completely LBC, and he didn't even know it. He'll be playing The Space May 22, for anyone who wants something to do after Commie Mom's John Kerry fund-raiser.

The bouncer was mad at us because we were hammered and talking loudly (outside) to a bunch of boys. The waitress was mad at me because I almost knocked over her tray of drinks, headbanging while the DJ was spinning something really inappropriate for headbanging (Busta Rhymes, maybe? Nobody seems to remember). And the valet rear-ended someone with my car. “Hey, you just rear-ended someone with my car!” I said. “No problem. No big deal,” he said, without even bothering to check for damage. It was awesome! The Viper Room rules! Still, Johnny Depp needs to spring for bigger women's restrooms. They've got less leg room than airline seats. We got home in full daylight. We were a fiasco, and we had so much fun.

I was near-dead Saturday night when my photographer James arrived at the fashiony thingie at the Inka Grill in downtown Huntington. There I'd been sitting, all by my lonesome, with nothing to do but watch the Olsen Twins on E! It was supposed to be a party for Miss Sixty with the very cool Flaunt Magazine, but I didn't know anybody, and I wasn't yet hammered enough to start naming random men Frank and then kiss on them. “Barf!” said James when he finally got there. “Barf!” he said again, every time he looked at any person there. “That guy's scum,” James said, when I pointed out a man who had the exact same Stitches hair as James himself. “Barf!”

The runway? It was projected on a video screen at one end of the restaurant where there was nowhere to sit and watch it. The people? Most were pretty attractive, despite what James thought. (The only slutty blondes he likes are the naked ones on his couch.) But among them were women who had unfortunate swollen lips—and people with unfortunate swollen lips really ought not to be stuck-up. And yet? They were!

Since the Inka Grill has no cabaret license, anyone who tried to dance to what the DJ was perpetrating was immediately shut down by reasonably friendly bouncers, just following orders. We met one random girl on the “dance” floor and said one random remark to her, whereupon she launched into an entire friendly conversation. Naturally, she was from Long Beach, where by law the girls are parties. Fuck Huntington and its horrible, awful puffy snobs; I hereby and officially upgrade it from fiasco to quagmire!

Wanna come to my mom's John Kerry fund-raiser?

Need directions to my mom's

John Kerry fund-raiser? Co**********@ho*****.com">Co**********@ho*****.com.

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