From The New Yorker:

In May, 2006, Maupin and Turner were going up to the Lake District, and McKellen had hitched a ride to Grange-Over-Sands, where he was making fortnightly visits to his ninety-six-year-old stepmother, Gladys. As a teen-ager, McKellen had had a strained relationship with Gladys; in adulthood, he had grown devoted to her, the oldest witness to his life. Now senile, however, Gladys had become convinced that the only reason McKellen came to see her so often was that he was having an affair with her cleaning lady. “Ian spun it as a great source of laughs,” Maupin said. “He said, ‘She wasn’t even an attractive cleaning lady. She had an ass like the back-end of two lorries.’” McKellen tried repeatedly to disabuse Gladys of the notion, but she persisted. Finally, in frustration, he said, “Gladys, for heaven’s sake, I’m gay.”

“So they say,” she said.

(No link. I bloodied my goddamn finger typing this for you ingrates.)

From today’s NYT obit:

Though Ms. Paley’s work also rings with Irish and Italian and black voices, it was for the language of her childhood, a heady blend of Yiddish, Russian and English, that she was best known. Reviewers sometimes called her prose postmodern, but all of it — even the death-defying, almost surreal turns of logic that were a stylistic hallmark — was already present in Yiddish oral tradition. For instance:

A man meets a friend on the street.

“So, how’s by you?” the friend asks.

“Ach,” the man replies. “My wife left me; the children don’t call; business is bad. With life so terrible, better not to have been born.”

“Yes,” his friend says. “But how many are so lucky? Not one in ten thousand.”

Sea of Love clips are sadly scarce so you’ll have to do without the clip. But this captures a bit o’ the flavor, no?

MAN: Yo, bro. Where the Yankees at?
FRANK KELLER: They’re coming.
MAN: You a Yankee?
FRANK KELLER: You don’t recognize me?
MAN: Shortstop?
FRANK KELLER: Used to be.
MAN: What?
FRANK KELLER: Sure… holy cow!
MAN: I thought so. You’re the Scooter! Yo, Efram, this dude is Phil Rizzuto.
MAN #2: Do that again.
FRANK KELLER: Holy cow!
MAN #2: Phil, how come you pouring us juice?
MAN #3: How we get to the game?
FRANK KELLER: We got you covered.
MAN #1: Yanks up in here?
FRANK KELLER: Oh, yeah.
MAN #2: Right. I’m sitting down.
MAN #4: Yo, Scooter.
MAN #5: Scooter!

Bill Walsh, dead

So sports fans, who gets the dubious distinction of being The Greatest Living Football Coach?

If we’re excluding college football (sorry, Paterno!) I’ll pick Chuck Noll — subject to change upon Bill Bellichek winning another Super Bowl.

Tom Snyder, dead.

So sports fans, who gets the dubious distinction of being The Greatest Living talk show host?

If we’re excluding cable (sorry, Maher) I’ll pick shit … I don’t know who I’ll pick — subject to change when talk shows don’t suck.

Ingmar Bergman, dead.

So sports fans, who gets the dubious distinction of being The Greatest Living Director?

If we’re excluding documentarians (sorry, McElwee!) I’ll pick Brad Bird — subject to change upon the release of the Anderson and Coen flicks.

Fuck J. Hoberman. Manhattan doesn’t need defending.

I usually reserve these things for “Beauty Parlor” or my own blog, but since we’re still in our “beta-version” of MRev, the beauty parlor isn’t quite there yet. I’ve been a little lax in blogging, as I’ve been vacationing … a little east coast, a little high desert, and some routine body-maintenance, too. Y’know - physical, blood work, poking, prodding, xraying, dermatology, not to mention my ongoing dental woes.

But this sort of news gets me down: high cholesterol. God knows I only eat non-fat everything except for the full-on filet mignon I get at Musso’s about 4 times a year, if that. I hike, I lift weights (just little ones), I walk the pup (an 80+ pup, that is;) I do yoga and exercises every day, my bones are in great shape (I got them scanned, just like Superman), the dermatologist REFUSED to consider giving me lipo (!) and complimented me on the condition of my skin as well as my vast knowledge of sunblocks.

I haven’t had a drink in years b/c it makes me puke. I’m allergic to narcotics. I’ve already come to terms with the fact that I probably was selling drugs to preschoolers in a former life and am paying for it now karmically. The upside to all of this: I look pretty good, if I say so myself. And it’s all real. More importantly, I feel great.

But what about the insides? Why is my cholesterol high? Ah … the one thing that gives me great skin, red hair, that younger-looking-as-I-get-older-thing: genetics. I want to scream “it’s not fair!” but there’s lots that not fair (besides, that phrase will forever be linked in my head with a crying Paris Hilton) … and it’s not the end of the world, blah blah blah. It just makes no sense to me. All of those burgers I passed on, all of that half-and-half that I pass by at Starbucks, all of the REAL ice cream that I avoid in favor of nearly flavorless “low fat frozen yogurt!” garbage. Why?

speaking of ass …

I don’t usually link to LAObserved, but this story is too important and they had it before I did:

Al Langer, deli patriarch was 94

The founder of Langer’s Deli died Sunday in Agoura from complications of being 94 years old. He is survived by his son Norm Langer, daughter Laurie Bernie and grandchildren.

DL: “died … from complications of being 94 years old” is great!

Coitus interruptus?
Naked couple who fell from roof to their deaths may have been having sex

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Police on Wednesday were investigating how a naked couple fell 50 feet from the roof of an office building to their deaths.

The bodies were found on the road by a passing cabdriver around 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Clothing was discovered on the roof of the four-story building, leading authorities to suspect the man and woman, in their early 20s, may have been having sex. Their identities were not released.

“It’s too early to rule out anything,” Columbia police Sgt. Florence McCants said, but McCants said a preliminary investigation did not show any sign of foul play.

May?

DL: just ‘cuz I’ve been on vacation doesn’t mean you have to ignore me all the time! What am I, the redheaded stepchild?

Not quite the mile-high club
Posted June 20th, 2007 by Donna Lethal
Categories: what the fuck?, Darwin Award

… or as my friend Eve Golden quipped, “The Sailor Who Fell with Grace from the Roof:”
OR: “Sgt McCants investigates No-Pants Dance gone wrong”

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Police on Wednesday were investigating how a naked couple fell 50 feet from the roof of a downtown office building to their deaths. The bodies were found on the road by a passing cabdriver around 5 a.m. Wednesday. Clothing was discovered on the roof, leading authorities to suspect the man and woman, in their early 20s, may have been having sex. Their identities were not released. “It’s too early to rule out anything,” Columbia police Sgt. Florence McCants said, but McCants said a preliminary investigation didn’t show any sign of foul play.