Being a woman is great in this post proto-feminist world, and if you aren’t already a modern woman, I’d like to take you out of the kitchen and bring you up to speed. I was raised to believe in antiquated ideas — such as a woman needs to act like a lady and that a child needs both a mother and a father! Preposterous. Last week I squeezed out eight fatherless kids while at the sports bar during half-time – I do have a few pre-existing kids from different baby daddies, but I was keeping up with all the octomoms in the neighborhood.

Multiple births are the new Mercedes.

The only married couple I know, Bob and Bruce, come over every so often to teach my boys how to be men, and then take them shopping for child-appropriate skincare and those awesome bio-degradable Chanel onesies I’ve seen on many fatherless celebrity babies.

When Bob and Bruce are busy, the guys I pick up at the bar the night before hang out with them for guy-time. This is handy because I learn these men’s names as they introduce themselves to my brood. Once they are acquainted I can get to work on my new fragrance line without worrying about the rugrats.

Had a real job back in 2008, but that stable, pre-proto-feminist lifestyle is so not important these days. Who needs jobs and money when you can be featured in a reality show and/or dance with the stars while pretending to not exploit your friends, family and children? (more…)

Timothy Treadwell loved bears. In the name of loving them, with a stalwart sense of the innate sanctity of his mission, he continuously abused them for thirteen years. Time and again from 1989 until 2003 he invaded their territory — startling them, scaring them, angering them. Interrupting their hunting, their mating, their sleep, their play, he would coo sweet nothings at them in a flamboyant, high-pitched whine. He gave the savage beasts silly names like Lulu, Cupcake, Daisy, Ginger, Booble, and Mr. Chocolate, robbing them of their natural dignity. He firmly believed he was their protector, and unleashed torrents of self-righteous hatred upon anyone who dared question his treating of one-thousand-pound predators as if they were cute cuddly teddy bears. Handsome and charismatic, yet narcissistic and naïve, filled with honest caring, yet a smooth liar thoroughly at home in delusion, he became a constant danger both to himself and to everything he loved, ever on the verge of instigating a sudden volcanic eruption of nightmarish unintended consequences.

In short, Timothy Treadwell was a perfect liberal. He loved bears, with all his heart.

And then one ate him.

The story of Treadwell (1957-2003) is told in Grizzly Man (2005), a film destined to be remembered long after the likes of Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Munich, Capote, and the rest of that cinematic annus horribilis are blessedly forgotten. Directed by the fearless and unflinching German filmmaker Werner Herzog, it’s also an intensely conservative film, in its conclusions if not in its subject. (more…)

This is an amazing story. Not because Kourtney Kardashian, a reality television star, chose not to abort her child, but rather her willingness to candidly discuss the evolution of her thinking as she mulled her “choice.” I’ve emphasized the most powerful parts of her statement; the parts that must sound like nails on a chalkboard to an abortion industry not used to this kind of thing from young, female celebrities:

“I definitely thought about it long and hard, about if I wanted to keep the baby or not, and I wasn’t thinking about adoption,” … “I do think every woman should have the right to do what they want, but I don’t think it’s talked through enough. I can’t even tell you how many people just say, ‘Oh, get an abortion.’ Like it’s not a big deal.” …

I looked online, and I was sitting on bed hysterically crying, reading these stories of people who felt so guilty from having an abortion,” she recalls. “I was reading these things of how many people are traumatized by it afterwards.”

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I had a date with Judd Apatow.  It was around 1991 and I was between husbands: the out-of-work-Jewish-Gypsy-fire-eater-musician, and the high-school-sweetheart-Baptist-helicopter-police-pilot.  I needed a date to a premiere.  I knew the rules of engagement for a Hollywood career, and I tried to follow them.  It’s difficult to do this when you carry the burden of ethics around with you, but I tried to do it and stay within the bounds of morality.

1) Go to the right places.  I went to the Playboy Mansion to find an agent, and I did.  I was 21 and a Baptist virgin, and I found Betty from the William Morris commercial department there.  Check.

2) Wear something provocative to a Hollywood premiere so you can get free publicity.  I did that.  When I was an SNL castmember trying to increase my movie roles, I attended some Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan premiere (go figure – it was a flop!) in a see-through black shirt with a flowered bra underneath.  I felt ashamed, but I did get my picture in a few magazines.  All press is good press, and press leads to opportunity.

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