The New York World

Judith Owen, the Welsh singer-songwriter, actress and wife of comic actor Harry Shearer, was waiting for me inside the Paramount Hotel on a recent dreary Saturday afternoon.

She was on her second coffee and I was running late. My bad!

Had I been meeting, say, Natalie Merchant, I would have been there five minutes early, but I hadn’t seen Ms. Owen perform yet; I didn’t know how talented and funny she was.

I’d met her twice before. The first time was by chance outside Barneys back in 1993. I was with a female mentor, she was with Mr. Shearer, and the four of us were staring at Mr.  read more »

So everyone’s claiming to have been real tight with David Foster Wallace because they played tennis with him, had a class with him, got a book signed by him, did the naughty with him. Seems thousands of people were “pretty tight” with him and they want to make sure you know it.

I’ve hauled my copy of Infinite Jest, published in 1996, in and out of seven apartments I’ve lived in. Never made it past page 3. A few phone numbers scribbled in the back. Never wore a do-rag but had an earring in 10th grade. Took it out after someone made fun of me.  read more »

As the Yankees head into their final meeting of the year with the Red Sox, looking up at them like at a distant star, one has to wonder what all this means to them. If we are to believe what the commentators say, every Red Sox game is special, and despite the standings, the Yankees will not go into the game as “spoilers” but as competitors, dignified and determined to show the true colors under their pinstripes.

This year, all the hullabaloo about A-Rod’s dalliances, the ascension of the Steinbrothers and the readying of the stadium for eBay makes one wistful for the old days when the Yankees could be seen on the streets with scarves and top hats.  read more »

I’d heard that Mama Donna, the Urban Shaman, was planning an “emergency Equinox Blessing” in front of the Stock Exchange at 11:44 Monday morning. I arrived on Wall Street at 11:37 a.m. to find a 63-year-old woman laden with necklaces and African bracelets conferring with security guards by the barricades. (The Stock Exchange has been closed to visitors since Sept. 11.) This must be the Urban Shaman herself! “I cleared everything with them,” she reported back to her five supporters. “This won’t be another one of Mama Donna’s equinox arrest excursions.” She was making an in-joke about being arrested with 33 celebrants at South Beach in Staten Island in 1998.  read more »

My very first thought about Sarah Palin? That would be: “I want to have sex with her.” Want to lick that face and drool on it like a dog.

I found an old clip of her on Charlie Rose. Wow, she can sure keep up with Charlie, no problem! Dodged that one nicely.  What a delightful nose!

Then during her speech at the convention: No cleavage? No fair. Slurp slurp.

O.K., I’m only going to say this once: Sarah Palin is much better-looking, smarter, wiser and savvier than 99.5 percent of the hysterical New York City liberal chicks whining about “scary” and “mean” Republicans.  read more »

What up, RNC!

(cheers)

You white motherfuckers!

(laughter)

This conference so white, Helen Mirren tried to snort it!

(laughter)

Y’all the whitest white people in the history of white people. Even Barbara Bush sitting here right now going: ‘These are some white motherfuckers.’

(laughter)

You’re so white, your vice presidential nominee got the word ‘pale’ in her name!

(laughter, applause)

Look at this place. I can’t believe this shit! Y’all couldn’t find one single brother?

(shouting)

There is? Where?

(shouting)

Yo, what up, brother! Looks like you the only chocolate chip in the cookie.  read more »

I was limping around the sticky town looking for a pair of Sperry topsiders because the cheap sneakers I had bought were giving me blisters. At Union Square, secretly eyeing Filene’s Basement, I decided to spend my limited disposable income on flowers instead of raiment, so I headed West to Chelsea Market.

On the crosstown bus I sat down next to a little fat woman who immediately asked me for change. I said if you want change, vote for Obama. I thought that was clever, but she was voting for McCain even though I pointed out that if he had been a decent pilot he might never have had to spend face time with the Viet Cong.  read more »

A few months ago, at the beginning of a holiday weekend, I was waiting, for what seemed like hours, in a dingy Budget Rent-a-Car office on the East Side. I had a reservation, but there were no cars. I waited, and waited, stewing, periodically asking when my car would be ready and getting a helpless shoulder shrug.

Then a woman came storming into the office. “Is Jose here?” she demanded loudly. “Jose always handles my reservations.”

Jose? The other people and I looked at each other. Did this woman hold the answer to our rental car conundrum?

“Your manager, Jose,” she hissed.  read more »

On a recent Monday morning, Oksana Baiul was pulling on a pair of battered skates at the Ice House in Hackensack, N.J., a few miles from her top-floor high-rise apartment in Cliffside Park. (When friends come over and see her Manhattan view, she said, “they’re all like, ‘Mo-ther fu-cker!’”) She yanked off one American-flag-bespangled blade protector, then another, pushed up the sleeves of her fuzzy Tweety-yellow sweater and made her way onto the crowded ice, skating past five-time national ice dance champions Peter Tchernyshev and Naomi Lang; Ukraine’s Olympic aspirants Sergey Verbillo and Anna Zadorozniak; some pubescent skating students; and a pair of ice acrobats.  read more »

On a blustery day last December, my 78-year-old Tibetan father stepped out of customs at John F. Kennedy Airport into the unforgiving air of his new home. After eight years apart, his family was reunited in a land where he could find the freedom and independence for which he spent the better part of his life fighting.

I first met Wangyal (many Tibetans use only one name) as a student 13 years ago when I lived with his family, who were among the thousands of Tibetans who had fled Chinese control of their homeland and ended up in Kathmandu, Nepal.  read more »

When someone asks, “How’s it going?” answer, “As the necessary consequence of previous actions!” While they attain satori, make your escape.

If someone asks, “What’s new?” spread apart your hands and answer, “Everything!” with a creepy grin. If the creepy grin doesn’t work, try adding, “And also, nothing!” and tapping them on the nose.

If someone asks, “How’s it going?” answer, “How isn’t it going?” (cf: “What isn’t new,” “What time isn’t it,” “How isn’t it hanging,” etc.)

If someone asks, “What’s going on?” say, “What, indeed,” and then deliver a full and complete lecture on the doctrine of dependent origination.  read more »

The music on the subway has improved dramatically, don’t you think? Recently, I saw Floyd Lee, an electric blues musician, in the 34th Street station (at Sixth Avenue), backed by two extremely thin Japanese musicians: a bass player and a drummer. Mr. Lee is an up-tempo showman. After one blistering solo, he took off his hat and fanned the strings, to “cool off” the guitar. His version of Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say” was so infectious, three generations of music lovers gathered, smiling. Mr. Lee, who was sitting in a chair, stood up, spurred by the crowd’s delight. He also slightly altered the lyrics:

Baby, what’d I say?

Baby, what’d I say?

It’s all right—

Let’s party tonight!

 read more »

“For a long time, Robert Jordan was the man I admired above almost all others in life and fiction,” John McCain wrote a few years ago about the doomed guerrilla hero of his favorite novel, Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. Last month, in an interview with Rolling Stone, Barack Obama, when asked to name “Three books that have really inspired you,” cited the same epic Spanish Civil War tale, alongside Shakespeare’s tragedies and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.

Besides revealing an unusual area of bipartisan agreement, Mr. Obama’s choice signaled the end of a curious, idiosyncratic reading trend among politicians that began two summers ago with George W.  read more »

Ross Field has invented a portable stabilizing pole for a passenger in a subway or bus. It attaches to the ceiling with a suction cup. This comes in handy when the train is so crowded that you can’t reach the center pole or side bars. (And the cute girl in the tank top asks you to please not use her shoulder for balance, ever again.) You’ll also save on Purell. Patent No. US 7,367,347 B2 (May 6, 2008)

   read more »

Apparently, there are some pet owners who like to read aloud to their pets as a way of spending time together.

Truth is I don’t cheat, don’t get laid extracurricularly, ever. Against the rules.

Fine with it! It’s been many years since I said good riddance to the occasional late-night hookup and the once-in-a-blue-moon, drug-fueled marathon bang sessions. Three hours nonstop one late night circa 2000. No nonsense. Non. Stop. Sting kind of stamina. Not bragging, just sayin’. Provided her with 9 to 14 orgasms. Me: zero. Downside of Viagra.

Those days are gone, R.I.P., don’t miss it, don’t look back.

Of course, I can draw on those experiences and say, “That happened, I did all that, sowed my wild oats and now I can be dignified, altruistic, focus on lofty ideals, convert to Catholicism.  read more »

I was sitting at a warped card table in a church basement on a cold Monday morning last December, surrounded by guys dressed like homeless people, trying to make small talk with Vincent D’Onofrio. He’d called in sick on Thursday and Friday, and the shoot had to be pushed back. He looked uncomfortable in his rumpled suit and tie, his giant frame heaped onto a metal folding chair.

“You feeling better?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Good.”

He looked at me as if it was still my turn to speak.

“At least you had the weekend to recuperate.”

“That’s true.  read more »

“You shouldn’t get too attached. Don’t you want to date around? I was with so many people in my 20s.”

My parents have been nervous about my relationship with my Ivy League-educated, hardworking, literary-minded boyfriend from the beginning. They’d always been intrigued by the idea of my having a serious romance, but once it happened about a year ago, when we met at college, it was a whole other story.

The legacy of the feminist movement has made my free-love-promoting, baby boomer parents excited about my promiscuity and nervous about long-term relationships. I remember the summer after my freshman year at college, their eyes glittering with delight around the kitchen table as I told them about my escapades post all-girls high school.  read more »

GEORGE: This a new couch?

DR. SELMAN: So what brings you back?

GEORGE: Well, it’s been six months.

HILLY: Well—

GEORGE: I’m a little groggy, I have to admit, because I had to work last night. Went to this benefit at the Central Park Zoo. What animal did you like best?

HILLY: This huge porcupine and the little fox and an owl that was just gorgeous.

GEORGE: And Al Gore was there.

HILLY: Whatever.

DR. SELMAN: Personally, I’ll leave the petting of wild animals to other people, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

GEORGE: And then as usual, I started getting a little rambunctious, didn’t want to go home, so I put Hilly in a cab round midnight, and ended up in some apartment sitting around with kids half my age playing this game I invented.  read more »

Morgan Freeman and his wife, Myrna Colley-Lee, were the first to arrive. They stepped out of a town car in front of the French restaurant Tocqueville on East 15th Street and made their way to the empty bar area. Neither knew what to expect; the hostess, Ruda Dauphin, had called it a “salon.” They were offered flutes of Ruinart champagne; the Oscar winner asked for vodka on ice.

Ms. Dauphin is a petite, stylish but tough lady who grew up in Brooklyn. Her father was in the shmatte business. She wanted to be an actress, and she married the director Claude Dauphin and they moved to Paris.  read more »

This is how I found out a good friend of mine—we’ll call her Lauren—was engaged: I was at her birthday party, and I ran into this other girl I know through mutual friends, and when I asked her how she knew Lauren, she said, “I’m a talent manager and her fiancé is my client.”

I nodded and pretended I knew what she was talking about. When she walked away, I asked the guy I’d been talking to—we’ll call him Max—if he had heard the news. He looked wide-eyed. “Did you see a ring on Lauren’s finger? I didn’t even look.”

I went over to Lauren and smacked her on the arm with a paper plate. “You know how I found out you were engaged? From Brian’s manager!” She giggled and showed us her left hand. “It just happened yesterday! I was going to tell you guys, I swear.”  read more »

I remember being 18 and watching three seniors dancing ecstatically to Talking Heads’ “Wild Wild Life” and feeling sorry for them. They were 21—their lives were practically over. Suckers.

I’m five hours away from 40.

When I turned 30, I was optimistic and totally deluded. So many possibilities. The inside of my mouth gets numb after a smoke these days. Probably be talking through a voice box, which’ll be great during interviews: “So. What. Are. You. Going. Through. Now?”

So this is when things start to get interesting and intense, right? No more pipe dreams: You are who you are, the fix is in, it’s going to be a real struggle to improve. Hang on to what you got, work harder and you won’t end up homeless or in the cracker factory.

Great!

Don’t think about it. Kind of cool being at the halfway point, presumably. Exciting, isn’t it? At my peak! Let’s examine that. Are the synapses firing like they did at 25? Nope. How we doing physically? Flabby.

I’m not trapped, I’m not trapped. … Wiser, morally superior. Got a swagger these days. I’m not trapped. Born on a Tuesday at 2:30 a.m. Nice to have an evening at home. Read the Steve Martin book. Imagine when he turned 40, he was okay with it. Boning Victoria Tennant. All of Me had just come out. I remember being at Hatsuhana, baked on opium-ated pot, the plot of All of Me being explained to me. Couldn’t follow. Everyone’s head the size of hot-air balloons.

It’s been fun watching Friday Night Lights with Hilly. What are we gonna do when we run out of episodes?

Probably shouldn’t have hurled the shower curtain into the living room at 3 a.m. Mad at her for washing it and frustrated I couldn’t hook it back up.

Thing about 40 is there’s no more mystery. When you’re 20 or 30 you can still be like, Oh boy, what’s gonna happen to me? Now you know.

I’m going to pop that Tylenol 3 crumb I found in a pocket. Turning 40 in 10 minutes. Then the serious tick-tock begins! Until I cease to exist for the rest of eternity! Never having finished all these books I’ve Amazoned. Or scuba-dived around the Galapagos, hanging out with sea lions, catching waves with turtles, chasing iguanas.

Need to understand Nietzsche better, fast.

Steve Martin memoir fascinating. Sorry your childhood was such a mixed bag, Steve. Sounds pretty fricking idyllic to me. You grew up in Texas and Hollywood in the 1950s? Worked at Disneyland? Sorry your dad was so cranky and spanked you once.

Forty years old now. Bed.

Noon, I’m up. Bob Marley died at 36; John Lennon at 40. Blueberries and raspberries. Carolyn Maloney’s on NPR. Shaddup, loud annoying lady. Misery. All I’m asking for, Lord, is 25 million dollars and a private jet to Thailand—let me get on with my life.

Coffee, followed by au poivre burger slathered with mayo, catsup, avocado and Tabasco. No bun. There, I’m back. FreshDirect is better than sex.

Gonna keep things boring tonight. No boozin’ or Adderall. Worked it all out—no big birthday party, no “surprise!” bullshit. Got a big bowl of peanut M&Ms going. Sunny. Time for a bike ride. Pick up some Addie/Xannie scrips.

Ugh. Bike ride didn’t elevate mood index. Try a bath. Oh look, Huntington Hartford finally died. I took him out on the town, on his 87th birthday. Organized by Baird Jones—dead. Helped him take a bath that night, with his fourth wife—dead. Think she hit on me in the kitchen. Oh, fuck you, New York Times: 2 Columbus Circle was “considered a folly or worse”? You twerpy little insignificant mosquitoes.

Clean as whistle after bubble bathage. Smell good. Is it the Lilac Vegetal or Selsun Blue? Cat has dandruff, too. Wish I had someone to throw a Nerf and frisbee with. Don’t know anyone on Roosevelt Island that well. Anyone, period. Like to hire a friend.

Lately, only about 40 percent of my e-mails get replies.

It’s funny how on certain issues and topics, 90 percent of upscale New Yorkers think the exact same way. And yet they think this makes them sophisticated, not body-snatched zombies.

The word “fiancé” is too pretty, girly. Literal meaning is “a man engaged to be married.” Well, there’s no built-in connotation that suggests you gotta do it soon. Doesn’t come from some Latin word that means “If you don’t get married in a year, we’ll bury you alive or feed you to the lions.”

So if an 18-year-old girl with an exotic name calls me up at 3:17 a.m. asking—begging—me to come meet her and her girlfriends, saying she’s going to keep bugging me until I get back into her life, and that she has a present for me—this is not so I can get them into a nightclub? This is good, right, means I’m not over the hill?

I used to go out at 3 a.m. No, I’ll be YouTubing tonight. Wow, haven’t heard this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05liCKaT9xQ) in 25 years and still remember exceptional lyric: “And a cute little redhead down the road that wants to ball with me.” Kinda dirty song. Had the album when I was 6. Lots of John Denver and Barry Manilow, too. Saw Tommy at 7. Had to hang in the lobby until “Acid Queen” was over.

Had Farrah Fawcett sheets, posters and T-shirt. Hope she’s doing O.K. That’s a dumb fucking thought.

Haven’t seen Lesbian Sasquatch in years and no idea what happened to Hippie Chick. She let me have sex with her once, as a b-day present.

Kind of a relief not having to think about girls all the time: Pussy, pussy, me want pussy, wah-wah pussy, please sir, may I have some more? Kinda gay. Thinking bout Oliver Twist. And porridge. Next Page >

Six boys in a cabin. Four strewn about on bunks, affecting casual repose, though their eyes were fixed on two boys at the back of cabin. Something about to go down. We were all around 12. A short, pudgy-but-proud choirboy from Ohio was adamantly refusing to share even a few granules of his enormous supply of Kool-Aid. His confronter, a Canadian beanpole with a long nose shot out from under a perfect bowl of orange hair, wasn’t having it. The noble, carrot-topped weed had shared many homemade treats with “Ohio,” as well as the rest of us.  read more » Next Page >

I was about to turn 40 and something major had to happen. With three weeks to go, I found myself getting hammered at an exclusive nightclub. I looked through the haze and saw a roly-poly man who, like me, had no business being there. He was wearing glasses and a conservative blue suit; he looked like a giant sea turtle.

I watched as he sipped red wine in the corner. Soon we stepped outside to smoke. Eric Sigward, a 62-year-old limousine driver, grew up on the Upper East Side, attended Horace Mann and Harvard University, where he was a champion oarsman and member of the exclusive Porcellian Club. He won a fellowship to Cambridge University, where he got caught up in hashish, LSD and free love, which cost him his Danish girlfriend, an au pair with a milky complexion named Mudi. Then suffering from depression (“My brain … aches with the thoughts of lost loves,” he wrote in his diary in 1970), he became involved with Satan and the occult. (“Perceiving I could not serve both God and Satan, I chose Satan.”) After he cleaned up, he coached the crew team at Stanford University, got a master’s degree in divinity but failed to set himself up long-term as a preacher.

For the past thirty years he’s worked various jobs (office manager, stockbroker); written a memoir (From Harvard to Hell and Back: An Account of My Life from 12 to 25 Years of Age, self-published in 2001); and, now, drives a limo. Perfect. Here was my spiritual mentor.

On a Sunday night, he met me on the corner of 79th Street and Broadway, where Redeemer Presbyterian holds services. He was wearing a blue blazer, a windowpane blue shirt from Brooks Brothers, Macy’s trousers and fancy running shoes. He was carrying a book bag.

On the way in, he chatted with an apple-cheeked, pigtailed gal handing out programs. She kept nodding and smiling until we took a seat in a pew. There was a Christianity-lite vibe: Jeans, sneakers, a CBGB’s T-shirt. A jazz band onstage. Pop culture allusions during the benediction. I tried to sing along during “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” but I kept getting distracted by dewy female flesh. For several minutes I stared at a yummy Asian girl’s left ear.

Mr. Sigward calls Redeemer Presbyterian “the Church of Outrageous Babes.” He leaned over and showed me a cell-phone picture of a very tall brunette he’d recently become infatuated with. After the pastor finished his sermon, I took communion and felt redeemed.

Mr. Sigward and I had dinner. We gorged on buttered rolls and veal chops. I listened to him go on for paragraphs. He speaks slowly and says “yeahhhhhh” in a seductively mellow way. He told me that he became a downtown nightclubber after meeting some hipster kids at church.

“There’s a whole underworld of Christians of the night,” he said. “These are kids who just hang out at night at all these clubs. All those places are all infested with Christians.”

He said he liked the “warmly sexual” atmosphere at the nightclub where we’d met.

“I like the touchy-feely atmosphere,” he said. “It’s something I noticed immediately. When I went there, everybody touched you, they would bump into you or dance with you or hold your arm. I really liked that. A physical warmth about the place. Over and over again, you feel lonely, you feel lost and someone will brush against you, and you sort of suddenly feel, Oh, I feel okay. That was nice for someone to touch me. … I don’t go home with anybody, I go home alone. So, what interests me at the moment is the nocturnal art of it. These are lights, faces that shine in the dark.”

Sin, he said, is more complicated than moral transgression: “There’s a lot going on at the same time as a person sins,” he said. “There’s darkness, there’s ignorance, confusion, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride, a desire to live and the self-deception that sin will help you to live better.”

So what was he doing at these dens of sin?

“I want to be in some kind of world in New York, I want to meet people,” he said. “Many of the girls have been very beautiful, but there’s also evidence of intelligence. I hope I’m not a great sinner; I don’t mean to sin. My problem is, I grow to have affection for the girls. I develop deep affections for them. I remember their names.”

Mr. Sigward spoke about a waitress who had once been very nice to him.

“She gave to me,” he said. “Something went on there where she gave me a plug of some sort, a charge, some energy, something from her heart of substance flowed to me. You know that Jesus said: The kingdom of God is not with words, it’s with power. You can feel when someone gives to you. I said to myself, ‘Well, I’m not a socialite, I couldn’t afford her sandals.’ But the reverse is also true: She wasn’t asking for anything, she was giving and I have received. I wouldn’t hang out at the nightclub if I was depraved or deprived. You are giving to me, we’re giving to each other, and we met there.”

I picked up the check and we walked uptown. “Come on up to my place and see how I live,” Mr. Sigward said.

I mentioned that during the service, though I wasn’t feeling it a hundred percent, I did feel that I had the spirit in me somewhere.

“Well, there’s no use for Christ without sin,” he said. “Because the basic message of Christianity, and of Christ, is of crucifixion. Christ was crucified. He was not crucified to give you some kind of example of selflessness. He was crucified to save you from your sins. … God commands you to repent and believe because he has a point and a day when He will judge the world! When Christ returns, it will not be as meek and mild Jesus.”

Would it be wrong for me to return to Redeemer Presbyterian simply to ogle the ladies?

“Well, you’d just be like everyone else there,” he said. “It’s just like nightclubs. What’s the difference? That’s why I go, too. The notion of beautiful girls is something that I myself have to work through, because of my past.

“You and I are having a very unusual conversation,” Mr. Sigward added.

We agreed we both enjoyed Chariots of Fire.

I mentioned that during the church service, I also concluded the only real solution to life in New York is having lots of money. “Boy, would I love that,” he said, stopping to rest and light a smoke. “Oh, may God smite me with that curse! I’m getting old, I worry about a sick and poverty-stricken old age.”

He’s down to one pack a day. He’s had two heart attacks, diabetes, neuropathy in his feet, two prostate operations and a hydrocelectomy, in which water is removed from the testicles.

“I was immortal until 50,” he said.

He was about to toss something on the sidewalk; I pointed to a trash can. Next Page >

I’m getting married this summer and thought it might be a good idea to speak with some gentlemen who I suspected could give me some pointers.

It was raining on a Friday morning when I met Bo Dietl at his office on the 50th floor of One Penn Plaza. Despite some shreds of cloud, Mr. Dietl—a homicide detective turned security consultant and media darling—had a clear view of the city below and, off in the distance, in the middle of the choppy harbor, the Statue of Liberty. Every surface of his office seemed to be covered with awards and framed pictures of Mr. Dietl with folks like O.J. Simpson and Bill Clinton. The day before, Staten Island Congressman Vito Fossella had admitted to having an extramarital affair resulting in a secret love child. “Poh, Baby!” blared an issue of the New York Post resting on a nearby chair.

“You know what I think the problem with relationships is?” said Mr. Dietl. “People search real, real hard for love, and the word ‘love’ is passed out—like my daughter, her friends, say, ‘Goodbye, I love you.’ Love, love, love—the word ‘love’ is thrown around too easily.”

He leaned back in his leather chair. He wore a blue shirt—made from the best Egyptian cotton, he told me—with a white collar. His cuff links were square sapphires lined with diamonds. On his hip, he wore a holstered Glock pistol. His round face was deeply tanned, tight and shiny, enhanced by well-kept white stubble.

“It’s nice to say you love someone,” Mr. Dietl continued. “But the truth of the matter is I’m 57 years old, and I never felt love until maybe I was 53 years old, and I was through one marriage, and I had two children through marriage, and I wasn’t exactly the best husband in the world, and what with my job being a New York homicide detective, and with all the rah-rah’s running around—I was a bad boy, I was a cheater, admittedly, and I wasn’t happy.”

Like the congressman from Staten Island, Mr. Dietl said he himself had a secret love child. Or two.

He went on, noting that he’s seen many good marriages torn apart by unnecessary adulterous affairs, frequently committed by bored, pampered wives. The key to a relationship, he told me, is communication. Especially in the bedroom.

“When you are making love, ask her what she likes: ‘Is this good?’” said Mr. Dietl. “Don’t think that because you are endowed with a large penis, you’re jumping on top and ramming and ramming, that you can make her feel great. You know the whole thing is about her feeling good.”

He gave me a serious look. “There are a lot of women,” he said, “who are not reaching orgasms.”

“People think it’s all about how long you do it, and this size bullshit,” he said. “You know what? Size doesn’t matter. … The majority of the women are not into 12- or 14-inch penises because it hurts them. When you are making love, and you have aroused her sexually, to that plateau, where every part of it is romantic, where you kiss all over the body from her head to her feet—that’s lovemaking. Not jumping on top and ram-a-dama ding-dong—that don’t mean crap.”

Mr. Dietl said he began dating his fiancée, Margo, seven years ago, but only four years ago did he realize that he was in love.

“To me, being in love with someone is you wake up, you go to sleep, thinking about that person,” he said. “She’s my best friend, she’s my soul mate, we think the same. The only problem is that she has the same personality as mine, so when there’s an argument, there’s no give, it’s like a car crash, head on. But I think we are starting to handle it, because we understand each others’ personalities.”

He gestured at a calendar girl in a bikini on the wall. “I can look at a Playboy playmate, 19-, 20-year-old, a hot, young tight-body babe, and you know, that’s there, that’s there, it looks good, and I’m a man. But if I weigh it out, and I weigh it with what I have …” He added that people shouldn’t be afraid of incorporating role-playing and pornography into their sex lives to keep things fresh.

I emerged from One Penn Plaza feeling woozy. Back at my office, I phoned someone who might also have some wise words on marriage, Raoul Felder, the famous divorce lawyer.

“You want my advice on marriage?” he said. “I got three words: Pre. Nuptial. Agreement.”

“The divorces are getting uglier, because there’s a certain quantum of anger in these relationships, and because divorce is becoming basically no-fault, they end up fighting about kids and money. And they get much meaner and tougher,” said Mr. Felder, 71.

And his own marriage? He and his wife are still married. What’s the secret?

“Fear. My wife is a divorce lawyer. I gotta run, kid.” Next Page >

Think of a book club, and the image that comes to mind is one of a group of middle-aged women in a suburban living room, munching on crudités and sipping white wine, talking about The Kite Runner for 20 minutes and then sliding effortlessly into gossip about the markers of suburban ennui: children, husbands, lovers (always other people’s, of course), school boards, nosy neighbors, nosier bosses, and how Linda has lost so much weight since the divorce, maybe we should say something?

My mother has been in such a book club for over 20 years. It meets on the first Monday of every month, and twice a year each member brings in a list of books for the following six months, and then all the women vote. (Paperbacks only, please!) I personally have been in at least four failed book clubs, so the thought of being in one for 20 years seems almost quixotic. Most recently, a co-worker and I decided on a New York-themed book club; we made it through some John Cheever short stories, The Age of Innocence and Washington Square before giving up.

But the book club that met the other evening at the Upper East Side apartment of Susan and Charles Avery Fisher—who is better known as Chip and is the son of Avery Fisher, for whom the hall in Lincoln Center is named—did not seem like the sort of book club that gives up easily. Mr. Fisher, who is 52, runs a company that manufactures a “cranial stimulator,” which delivers an electrical current to the brains of patients suffering from depression; he has also owned a catering company, a cookware store and an Upper East Side ice cream shop called Mr. Chips.

Mr. Fisher started his book club three years ago; it meets only four times a year, always on a Monday evening, in the vast living room of his apartment at Fifth Avenue and 87th Street. (It is the kind of living room where one hardly notices the grand piano in the corner.) Only nonfiction books are read. “I really don’t like fiction,” Mr. Fisher said. “It’s just not my style. I read it occasionally, but it doesn’t really interest me.”

Mr. Fisher often gets the books’ authors to pay a visit to the book club to discuss their books, and usually he invites them back as members. Michael Gross joined after the club read 740 Park, as did Karen Abbott after the club read her book Sin in the Second City, about sisters who ran a Chicago bordello in the early 1900s. “Most authors have been flattered,” Mr. Fisher said. “They rather like the chance to hear what people in a small book club say.” Gay and Nan Talese are on Mr. Fisher’s e-mail list because they are personal friends, though they do not usually attend.

“We have a no-bullshit rule,” Mr. Fisher told The Observer. “You can come if you haven’t read the book, but you can’t bullshit.” Mr. Fisher is on the library committee at the University Club, where he likes to play squash and backgammon. At the meeting the other evening was a new member, Peter Otto, who is one of Mr. Fisher’s backgammon and squash sparring partners. Before the others arrived, Mr. Otto and Mr. Fisher discussed the pro-am (professional-amateur) tournament taking place at the club. Squash doubles, they told me, is quite challenging.

The book under discussion that night was Einstein: His Life and Universe, by former Time managing editor (and current columnist) Walter Isaacson. Mr. Isaacson was, sadly, out of the country, although Mr. Fisher said he had kindly responded to e-mails, and there had been a brief, though ultimately unfruitful, discussion of doing some sort of book club conference call with Mr. Isaacson.

Mr. Fisher’s book club follows a rather set schedule. Members are welcome at the Fishers’ beginning at 7 o’clock, when they may have a cocktail or a glass of wine. (Jackets and bags go in the library.) By 7:30 or so, dinner—made by the Fishers’ housekeeper—is served, buffet-style, on a long table in the dining room, and then eaten on laps in the living room. The other night, there was a tasty curried chicken, macaroni and salad, and two tarts for dessert. When the grandfather clock in the corner chimes 8, it is time for the discussion to begin.

“I’m not a control freak,” Mr. Fisher said, “but I have a routine that works. It’s pleasing for me and it’s not annoying to anyone. Most book clubs meet 10 to 12 times a year. I think that’s a punishing schedule.”

The members in attendance that evening were an Upper East Side hodgepodge; they included Georgia Shreve, the poet and writer who sold her duplex penthouse in Mr. Fisher’s building for a reported $46 million in December; Mr. Gross’s wife, Barbara Hodes, who designs knitwear (Mr. Gross was attending the PEN Awards gala at the Museum of Natural History that evening); an arts and fashion writer named Marcia Sherrill; handbag designer-turned-real estate agent Carey Adina Karmel; art appraiser Catchia Goggin; and lawyer Blake Hornick, who went to overnight camp with Mr. Fisher.

“We’re very liberal about who comes,” Mr. Fisher said. “It’s usually friends of friends. We only had one guy who got kicked out. He was a lawyer we knew. Basically, the first meeting he came to, he had a list of comments about the book. It was like preparing a brief for a litigation trial. I sort of didn’t comment on it, but he got the idea that it wasn’t a great idea. Next Page >

I spoke to Archimedes J. Selby, inventor of the six-sided television. I visited him in his loft in Dumbo.

Sparrow: So this is your six-sided television.

Selby: One of them, yes.

Sparrow: It’s a cube. When I heard ‘six-sided television,’ I didn’t picture a box.

Selby: It’s perfectly cubical. I call it ‘Total TV.’

Sparrow: It must have taken you a long time to perfect.

Selby: Actually, it’s not that difficult to distribute the television signal to six screens simultaneously. All you need is a dual-sided polarity catheter, really.

Sparrow: The problem is watching six screens simultaneously.

Selby: Yes. On the other hand, it makes TV much more sculptural.

Sparrow: What about the bottom of the cube? How do you see that?

Selby: Of course, you don’t have to watch it. But if you want to, you can suspend the TV from a wire, or place it on a glass table.

Sparrow: Have you encountered any surprises yet, in your inventing ?

Selby: I’ve built three Total TVs so far, and everyone seems to like the black-and-white one! Particularly when I show movies from the ’30s. Watching Ronald Colman wander around six sides of a cube pleases everyone.

Sparrow: Is your real name Archimedes?

Selby: Yes, my father named me that. Perhaps that’s why I became an inventor.

Sparrow: What did Archimedes do?

Selby: He was born in approximately 287 B.C.E. in Syracuse, Sicily. Archimedes invented compound pulley systems, war machines and the planetarium. He began the study of hydrostatics and pycnometry (the measurement of volume or density of an object).

Sparrow: Well, you’ve certainly lived up to your name!

Selby: Thanks. Next Page >

“I believe I’m the first person ever to bum a cigarette on the Internet,” reveals Ned Henly, a graphic designer in Forest Hills, Queens. “I met a guy named ‘dogelliott’ on MySpace. He lives in Cleveland and has a complete collection of the original Punk magazine—but he also loves techno! We began to have long cyber-conversations, and one day I asked him: ‘Do you have a spare cigarette?’

“‘Sure,’ dogelliott replies, and he drops an unfiltered Marlboro in an envelope and mails it to me. Two days later, I pull out the cigarette and light up—while listening to Eat Static, the underrated glam-techno band! It was like being the first man to orbit the moon!” Next Page >

“Why do you keep replying, ‘Thank you, but we already have plans for that evening,’ Marsha, when you know we’re free?”

“It’s just an excuse, Mauro. I just want to avoid an invitation by boring people.”

“Yes, but it sounds too … How can I say? Grandiose to me. In Italy we don’t make plans. I mean, not normal people. The government, maybe, sometimes. At least they boast it, to impress voters and pretend they are in charge. But ordinary people …”

“We are not ordinary. We’re supposed to have plans in our life. They can’t invite us like that, on the snatch, impromptu, with only a few days’ notice.”

Marsha, my Upper East Side girlfriend, can’t understand how Italians can survive always improvising—without inviting, nor making theater reservations or booking restaurants one month in advance.

“Come on, Marsha, don’t play it big. Don’t act precious. If one of my Italian friends calls us to go out on that same evening, we don’t have to invent ‘plans’ for fear of showing that our life is empty. You know we love to spend most of our evenings here, sitting in front of the TV. Actually, upgrading our cable TV menu has flooded us with wonderful movies, and improved my English, although it has almost killed our social life…”

“That was your idea.”

“No, no, no, darling, my idea was just to replace a crummy old little TV set with something civilized.”

“Yes, but then you invaded our sitting room with a monster, this humongous 42 inches plasma. Where the hell am I supposed to place food and beverage for our next parties?”

“Actually, I haven’t finished yet.”

“I know. Don’t come up with that again. No way. Don’t get me started on your freaking sound system with wires all over the place. Don’t even raise the subject.”

“But Marsha, that’s the normal consequence of buying a large-screen TV. What do we make of it, if the sound is not comparable to the vision, at the same excellence level?”

“It’s already stereo.”

“We’re talking ‘home cinema’ here, milady. … ‘Dolby Surround system.’ Remember the private screening we were invited to by the Italian distributor of Woody Allen’s Scoop in his luxurious Palazzo Borghese apartment in Rome?”

“Gee, but that was another planet. They are professionals, that’s their field. We are not movie geeks. Come on.”

“I just saw a five channels 400 dollars sound system in the store near my Rizzoli Bookstore office, on 57th Street.”

“I told you: I don’t want any of your ‘surround’ sound around here. Not that I don’t appreciate your will for improvement, but the only thing I’ll be surrounded by will be wires. See this? They’re already mushrooming all over: the TV cable, the connection to the DVD, the wire for the pay-TV box, the high-speed Internet, the telephone ... There’s such an intricated bush under the plasma screen. It was supposed to save room, but now it’s invading us.”

“It’s wireless.”

“What?”

“Yes, wireless.”

“You mean the five speakers come without wires?”

“Yeah … kind of.”

“Kind of what? The last time we had something wireless around, it was that pirate neighbor of us who stole from our wi-max, getting connected for free and making us pay for his all-night porno browsing and wanderings around the Net.”

“We discovered that almost immediately.”

“Yes, after some wonderful astronomical bills … You don’t like flat rates, do you?”

“The sound system is almost totally wireless, Marsha, I swear.”

“What do you mean ‘almost’? ‘Almost totally’ sounds sooo Italian. Like ‘Almost pregnant’.”

“The rear speakers are wireless.”

“You mean two out of five.” Next Page >

Was in the presence of a stunning Latina last night. Staring at her shoulders and back. Also met Fiona Apple. She’s either shy or was averting her eyes from the sight of me, couldn’t tell.

Dude, how many days did you wait until you fired up some porn when you got your HDTV? Tempted to now, but Hilly’s in a Really Bad Mood.

Did I already mention that my advice for Wes Anderson would be to rent Gallipoli before he steals another two hours from my life? See, it’s not only visually beautiful, it’s spiritual, too. Has something to say. Unlike the Darjeeling Limited which looks good here and there but sucks donkey balls.

I’d almost be disappointed if they’re weren’t a lot of racist crackers at NASCAR races in scary ass parts of the South.

You know, you could go purchase some Metamucil of your own right now, much as I’d like to spot ya some of mine.

Damn. Hate having to remember me dancing the night before. Played air guitar and air drums. Feel like a jackass now.

At New York Athletic Club earlier, in this little private room next to the Colonial Room. Think you not only have to be a member but a war veteran to go in there. In the corner by the card table they got pictures of maybe 40 vets on one wall and on the other, a big display of Nazi memorabilia, swastikas—stuff taken from German soldiers, but still weird. No plaque explaining what’s up.

Sure I’d bone Samantha Power if she walked into my room right now with a bong and a fistful of Viagra. Probably bone just about anyone named Samantha.

Hey—no real reason to write “El Ay.” Save yourself some time by writing “L.A.” or even better, “LA.”

Interviewed a Mistress Brie once. Told me she took a dump on a famous rock star at Pandora’s Box. Off the record statute expires after ten years with that kinda stuff.

I once told Sloane right after a normal chat one night that she made me pre-ejaculate in my pants. Other than that, no conflict of interest.

Here’s my attitude since you asked: women get scared and lonely, have needs, issues, feel abandoned and stuff. Daddy and so on. So be nice to em, give em a hug, tell em it’s okay, cheer em up. Sure, fuck with their minds a little—they like it—but then later on give em a nice back massage.

Thinking about changing my name to Firefox. Mozilla Firefox.

Dude, I can’t find Nat’l Geographic Channel.

Boulder sucks. Everyone is perfect there. Perfect hippies, everyone’s cool and groovy and is in great outdoor shape. Hey, we’re going rock climbing, you in? Fuck you, Tripp. And fuck you Sandy, pseudo-communist. Those pics say it all. No way you get to score either of those chicks with the innertubes. Sure, they’ll dance with you at the String Cheese show, but you’ll get nada. Now go whip one up in your tent.

You’re a scallops guy if they’re done right. Like saying you’re not a chocolate chunk or olives guy. But you will eat crabs which are like giant bugs.

Basically you guys have gotten to the point where you can’t live without music. You’re addicts. No music and you’re all sad. I want my music, where’s my music, oh I need my music, my precious music.

Sorry, nothing gay about liking Judy Garland. She’s for everyone. Was James Mason or Gene Kelly gay for being in movies with her? No. Were Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin gay for singing with her? She was a member of the Rat Pack. Takin’ her back from the gays.

Can’t stop watching this. Pretty crazy at the end when they break out the rubberbands: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce8nfWyX7P4

I think I’d like to ban the use of “mmm-kay” and “for realsy”.

Sick of these puritans, all this schadenfreude. Spitzer was tired of boning his wife or vice versa, he was stressed, needed some, got some—what’s the big deal? What kind of country are we living in? If you had his hectic schedule wouldn’t you like a Penthouse Pet to swing by your hotel room once a month, pay her a grando? For that he has to step down? He got a little addicted to really good quality vagina.

Never knew Ted Turner was that insane. He’s on Charlie Rose.

Agree with you she has aura of 70’s anchor slut. Not so sure she has a big old hairy bush and wears see through underwear. But I’m with you on never listening to a single thing she says, which is good because she’s on CNN. Wonder why she’s got that banana tattoed on her ankle. Any theories?

Feel pretty wise and think I got a solid grasp of reality, good “feel for the moment,” good at reading people’s minds, pretty good at Jeopardy!—but worry I got “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” going on.

Wait. You think Clinton is a sex addict cause he fucks anything that moves but Spitzer isn’t cause he plans ahead? You may be right, but I think they both got the “me need pussy now” trance.

Woke up this morning feeling GREAT. Practically skipping around the pad. Know why? B12 patch. They cost $29 now.

Almost finished with the regular classic big container of Metamucil which I purchased by accident. Very psyched cause now I can get some Orange Flave. Sure does work too. Whooooshhhh! No grunting.

Dexys were great? Question: When, how did all you come to rediscover Dexys Midnight Runners? Don’t tell me you were saying this 10-20 years ago, cause I never heard you ever even mention the band. What started this? Smell a rat. Next Page >

The revelation that Eliot Spitzer was a connoisseur of $1,000-an-hour prostitutes hit New York like one of those bolts of lightning in a cartoon that splits open the pavement in two perfectly perforated halves. No one could believe it. Now, a month after he ’fessed up and resigned, a crater in the proverbial town square continues to smoke and belch. For example: His 22-year-old hooker du jour, Ashley Dupré, becomes a millionaire off downloads of her song on MySpace and is offered six figures to pose for Penthouse. District Attorney Robert Morgenthau publicly defends his former prosecutor, saying, “I think he has been punished enough.” Mr. Spitzer and his wife, Silda, meanwhile, lay low. And men and women, couples and singles, are left to wonder: Just how many men in New York are paying for sex?

Last Thursday I went to Starbucks with one of Manhattan’s former top-dollar madams to get some answers. We met first at her attorney’s office to set the ground rules. No names. Let’s call her Jane!  read more » Next Page >

The other weekend I went to a housewarming party that an editor I know was throwing in Prospect Heights. It was one of those parties where everyone there is someone you’ve seen at another media party but never hung out with one-on-one and the conversations tend to veer toward industry gossip (stuff like: “Well, I’m considering taking the editor-at-large position”), what I like to call byline stalking (“I loved your profile of Chelsea Clinton, but your blog post on your corner deli was hysterical”) and not-so-subtle undermining (“That Web site seems like a really good place for you right now”).

One woman, who is always wearing the types of dresses I wish I owned because they seem perfectly suited to media parties—simple, black, vaguely vintagey-looking, knee-length, very flattering—made a beeline for me.  read more » Next Page >

On Saturday, March 29, Sanaa Sondhi’s short story “The Story of the Girls That Love to Dance and Love Each Other” was brought to life by 15 New York improv actors on a stage in the basement of the Drama Book Shop on West 40th Street in Manhattan. It was a sold-out show—about 60 people. Ms. Sondhi, the author, wore a yellow dress and sat in the front row. She was a little nervous. She had just turned 5 years old.

Standing in the back of theater, Jamie Salka—31, medium height, short brown hair, pointy nose, intense eyes with matching dark circles underneath—was grinning in a way that many of the youngsters in the audience might associate with a mad scientist.  read more » Next Page >

Connolly’s Bar and Restaurant on 47th between 5th and Madison avenues is the official home of Black 47, a politically charged Irish rock band, whose name is derived from the worst year of the Great Irish Famine, 1847. They play every Saturday night. During the week, the bar is the de facto Bear Stearns after-work hangout: Some 6,000 employees of the fallen bank work in the $1.5 billion, 45-story, granite-and-glass octagonal tower around the corner.

“On an average night there would be between 20 and 30 Bear guys,” said a 23-year-old Bear man we’ll call Tommy. He works on the investment banking side and has been a Connolly’s regular since he started at Bear a year ago. He said that on Friday, March 14, when it was pretty clear that the bank was heading south, and fast, more than