Won’t you extend your lighters as we send out this classic power ballad to reality star, Broadway diva, hair metal frontman and “Gilmore Girls” player Sebastian Bach? For him, it’s bad times, for a change. Real bad times: “Original Skid Row & KISS fans, I have bad news for you. Gone are irreplaceable items, such as my KISS Gargoyles from the 1979 tour. KISS pinball machine. Skid Row master tapes, video & audio, concerts, master tapes from Oh Say Can You Scream etc. Boxes & boxes of one of a kind Skid Row memorabilia, from the first tour to our last, all stuff I collected on the road that no one else had. I had a library in the basement with every single magazine that had Skid Row on the cover. This library took up a big part of the basement. All of this is lost now. We will salvage what we can of course. But how I wish there was a reason to do a box set or something before Hurricane Irene hit. Nobody cared. Now it’s too late. Don’t know what you got till it’s gone, indeed. I have been holding on to my house since December, when my divorce papers were filed. I just could not let go of the only home I had ever known. Well, God has other plans for me it seems. He has made His decision for me. My home has been taken away by an ‘Act Of God.’”

Mr. Bach is now moving to Los Angeles, because he is living a Nathanael West novel in reverse. Our condolences to him and to the archivists of hair metal.

by Natasha Vargas-Cooper

Cat shows are far more populist events than dog shows. Having a show dog can cost a fortune. Beyond paying large sums for the creature’s pure bloodline, there’s also training, kennel fees, handler salaries and all sorts of other costs. Less so with the kitties. You can get a purebred cat for well under a thousand dollars and because cats aren’t bred to do much more than live in total domesticity (lying about, sunning themselves, sprawling out inappropriately on piles of work papers, kneading air muffins) the rest comes rather cheaply. The owners of show cats mostly consider themselves to be hobbyists and regard an event like the Cat Fanciers’ Association All Breed Cat Show, hosted by the Santa Monica Cat Club this past weekend, as a kind of exhibition of their animal husbandry talents. This year’s show, which drew thousands of feline contestants, was Tiki-themed. Many owners wore shorts.

The best cat of the day was naked. Tinkerbell is a Sphynx breed; she has no coat. She looked like a wrinkly eggplant with eyes. To the touch she felt like a microwaved peach. Or a hot water bottle wrapped in suede. This Sphynx breed has only now been in existence for about thirty years, however, the Cat Fancier’s Association stopped recognizing the pink-skinned kitties as a legitimate breed briefly in the 1980s because of rampant inbreeding. Cats like Tinkerbell are from some other bloodline that does not involve mating cousins. She was my favorite cat of the whole show.

There are seven rings where the cats are judged. Their owners bring the cats into one of the large vestibules off the side of the main floor and place their cats in separate cages. Then the cat is put on a small inspection table (lined with Hawaiian flowers, elephant grass and tiki masks) before a judge. Some judges will snuggle the cats and even kiss their paws. Some cats seem to know to butter up to a judge by pushing their faces into judges or closing their eyes blissfully while purring loudly. There was no such canoodling at Ring 3. The judge at Ring 3 would grab hold of each cat by their bellies and drop them with a thud on the table, to see how squarely each could land on his feet. This judge was a man in his 60s with a gray thinning crew cut, tweezed eyebrows and a small silver ring in his ear. During his silent inspection of the cats, he would run his hands down their spine, tug their ears and pluck their tails with his pinky in the air. His small mouth would purse, then he would squint and dismiss the cat. Needless to say, the tension at Ring 3 was immense. When it finally came time for him to announce his winners, he broke into a passionate eloquence for each cat. “He sparkles, he glistens, he glows,” he said about a champagne-colored Burmese cat. Thrusting a prize-winning American Wirehair into the air he said: “Look at her gentle profile and her scooped-out nose. Her bones are balanced and she is a winner.”

Spectators walked the floor of the grand exhibition hall with peacock feathers in their hands. The feather is used to draw the attention of the competing cats without petting them. Owners do not like it when you pet their cats because they have spent a lot of time grooming them to perfection. Persian and Himalayan cats have particularly leaky eyes that congeal into goo and so they require constant de-gooing throughout the day. Their faces are so flat and small that many essentially have their nose resting right between their eyes.

The most popular breed this year seemed to be the Japanese Bobtail. There were countless members of this breed in the competition. I do not care for this breed one bit. They lack personality and tails. They are prized for their angularity and high cheekbones, two features I neither possess nor actively covet. They have wedge-shaped heads, tubular bodies and lemon-shaped eyes. These are cats with light bones. All these Japanese Bobtails seemed haughty and their owners were ornery. I am biased towards cats with dense bones, snub noses, round faces and girth, like this astonishing British Short Hair.

Household pets are the most popular and beloved category among the cat fanciers. This is a category for rescued cats, shelter mutts, domesticated strays; the genetic riffraff of the feline world. (Of course no such category exists in the Westminster Dog Show.) The crowd gets rowdy for this lot and the owners take particular pride in being, pardon the phrase, the underdogs. The judge for the Households told the crowd that he picked his winners based on their health, their personality and if they seemed like the sort of cat who would “curl up on a Vermont night in a rocking chair and read a book with you.” He said of Lancelot, a mustachioed mutt who was rescued from a shelter this March, “This cat has a gentle personality even though he had no one to love him. He lived on the streets and now he is cared for, he is alert, and he wants to know all your names.” Before making his final selection, the judge would take a pen and run it along the bars of each cat’s cage. When someone from the crowd asked about the mysterious ritual, the judge said, “That’s when I let the cats tell me what place they should get.” Lancelot placed third in the Household category.

Natasha Vargas-Cooper likes cats but is far more interested in gibbons and marmosets and men.

“His datapoints proving that Wall Street is irrelevant are (a) the fact that Lloyd Blankfein has hired a criminal defense lawyer; and (b) the megamerger between Deutsche Börse and the NYSE. Both stories, of course, have been extensively covered by DealBook; they’re right in its wheelhouse. And neither of them shows what Brisbane seems to think they show — that DealBook is an anachronistic throwback because Wall Street is less relevant than it used to be. Wall Street has always had lawyers and mergers; they’re what it’s built on.”
 — Arthur Brisbane is a terrible Times’ “Readers Representative,”

chapter 23 in a series. He’s been at the job 14 months; we’re fewer than halfway through his tenure.

There are only 16,777,216 colors that can be represented on the web (under our current system). The Tumblr that celebrates them, Pretty Colors, has posted 1077 of those colors since January. That means this Tumblr can only exist (if it continues posting at the same rate) for another 10,433 years before it runs out of colors. If my math is right. Which it may not be. But it’ll have run out of “pretty” colors long before then, most likely. How many of the colors that can exist online can also be considered pretty, even with an open mind? I’d give that Tumblr about another 3000 years. I look forward to my avatar-archive enjoying its grand conclusion.

If you’re in town on Tuesday the 6th — and you will be; Labor Day and the summer that preceded it are OVER — you might want to head over to Awl pal Noah Tarnow’s Big Quiz Thing at The Highline Ballroom. This one’s for the ladies, which makes for a nice change from your usual trivia event: “Proving that acumen knows no gender, the BQT gives a six-round multimedia shout-out to XX-chromosome trivia fans (while welcoming male fans, too), with discount admission for the ladies, a spotlight on women of entertainment and history, and the all-female Three-Way Finale, plus the cash jackpot of $300.” You go, girls. Etc.

Last week, it was announced that NASA is partnering with Tor/Forge to put more science in their science fiction. We like the idea of keeping the brilliant NASA engineers busy now that they’re no longer firing shuttles into the cosmos, but we see more than one potential problem with this arrangement.

Jon Methven is the author of This Is Your Captain Speaking, due out in 2012 by Simon & Schuster. He can be reached here, or follow him on Twitter @jonmethven.

“For nearly a decade — starting in 1989 — I published a print ‘fanzine’ called Obscure Publications. Its mission was to review fanzines and profile their editors. In early 1998, I decided to start selling fanzines online through a new site called The Obscure Store. My challenge was to get ‘customers’ to my website. I decided to do that by linking to stories that I found interesting. I had general interest articles on the top of the page and ‘Media Gossip’ items on the bottom half. In May of 1999 I decided to create a separate site — MediaGossip.com — for those media stories. It was a life-changing decision: the Poynter Institute heard about Media Gossip (via this story), hired me, and let me work on my own out of coffee shops in the Chicago area — while paying me a salary that I never thought I’d make as a journalist.”
 — Jim Romenesko is not only semi-retiring from Poynter, he is also shutting the door on his much-loved (by us, especially) Obscure Store. Here’s the goodbye note.

“As fans know, ‘Real Housewives,’ with Mr. Armstrong’s collaboration, skillfully locked him into the role of an unstable killjoy. He was an intriguing character to watch, but no doubt a hard character to embody — or live with. Indeed, Taylor, his wife of six years, filed for divorce in July. Shortly before he died, Mr. Armstrong told reporters and friends that his myriad problems — financial, marital and personal — were aggravated, if not caused, by the show. This is not hard to see. He was playing a dour jerk and bankrolling the production that was meant to prop up his wife with his dwindling fortune. No wonder his finances and marriage fell apart.”
 — Somehow Virginia Heffernan got through an entire indictment of the reality television industry without once mentioning Dr. Death Drew.

You are more likely to be a jackass while drunk if you are in unfamiliar surroundings, a study (and thousands of years of observing human drunkenness) has found.

U.S. Open: Breaking Down The Men’s Bracket

by Thomas Golianopoulos

Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams are the clear favorites at this year’s U.S. Open. Djokovic is playing at an insanely high level and has distanced himself from the rest of the Big Four — Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray. And as far as the women, the withdrawal of two-time defending champ Kim Clijsters clears the path for Serena Williams to win her fourth U.S. Open title. But since both Djokovic and Williams suffered injuries at a recent warm-up tournament, it might be premature to dispense trophies just yet. Some questions remain: Can Andy Murray somehow get by Djokovic to win the big one? Do any American males have a shot? Will Gavin Rossdale make an appearance? Who is ripe for an upset? Which matches should you DVR? And, most importantly, who will win? Today, we’ll pick apart the men’s draw; more on the women tomorrow.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC’S QUARTER
Djokovic is in the midst of a dream season: 57–2, two Grand Slam titles, five Masters 1000 shields and one star-making performance on “The Tonight Show.” So, how did he evolve from the third wheel in the Federer-Nadal duopoly to world No. 1? He’s winning more free points off his serve, and his movement, which was already tops in the sport, is now off the charts. (Credit for the latter goes to a gluten-free diet. “I have lost some weight but it’s only helped because my movement is much sharper now,” he said in April. We smell a marketing opportunity!) Simply put: Djokovic gets to every ball and returns it with depth. It’s awfully intimidating and dispiriting for opponents.

But that narrative took an unexpected turn when Djokovic retired with a shoulder injury in the final of the Cincinnati Masters. He had trouble stretching out wide for his forehand and serving. This is disconcerting. Shoulder injuries can screw with the mechanics of a serve — see Sharapova, Maria — but Djokovic says that he’ll be fine. If he’s close to 100%, he should reach the semifinals. Gael Monfils (7) doesn’t have the weapons to win a 5-setter against Djokovic and Tomas Berdych (9) is too unpredictable. Richard Gasquet (13) is a player to watch simply for aesthetics: He lacks the disposition required to make a deep run but, oh, that one-hand backhand is so pretty!

Must-See First Round Match: Gael Monfils (7) vs. Grigor Dimitrov
Nicknamed “Showtime,” Dimitrov is one of the most promising young players on tour. Expect lots of flair from the kid who’s also been dubbed “Baby Federer.”

Potential Early Upset: 3rd Round, Janko Tipsarevic (20) over Tomas Berdych (9)
Tipsarevic is one of the most interesting players on tour — he loves Nietzsche and has a Dostoevsky quote (“Beauty will save the world”) tattooed on his left arm. That’s all well and good, but, more importantly, he’s a scrapper and 3–0 lifetime against Berdych.

Quarterfinal: Novak Djokovic (1) vs. Gael Monfils (7)
Monfils gave Djokovic fits earlier this month in Cincinnati (3–6, 6–4, 6–3) but tends to shrink against the top players in majors.

Semifinalist: Djokovic (1)
62–2

ROGER FEDERER’S QUARTER
It’s been jarring witnessing Federer’s descent from being the world’s most dominant athlete. That said, he’s still the third best player in the sport and always capable of magic. No one else has his variety of shots or soft-hands at the net (or, for that matter, the support of Gavin Rossdale, Gwen Stefani and Anna Wintour) and he can still end points at any time and from any angle. If his first serve is pumping, watch out. If not, he’ll be quite vulnerable, especially with his killer draw. The landmines appear early and often: Federer might face Thomaz Bellucci, a lefty who hits with bundles of topspin, in the second round. In case you haven’t heard, Federer struggles against lefties with barreling topspin. His third-round opponent could be Bernard Tomic, Ryan Harrison or Marin Cilic (27). Tomic, who plays like a young Andy Murray, would be the most intriguing match-up from a tactical standpoint. A potential fourth-round match between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (11) and the top American player Mardy Fish (8) should decide Federer’s fate. Fish is playing the best tennis of his career but it’s hard to imagine him taking three out of five sets from the great Federer. Advantage Tsonga: He defeated Federer earlier this summer in the Wimbledon quarterfinals.

Must-See First Round Match: Radek Stepanek (23) vs. Philipp Kohlschreiber
Stepanek is a joy to watch. He’s a quirky player and one of the last natural net-rushers in the game.

Early Potential Upset: 1st Round, Ryan Harrison over Marin Cilic (27)
The 19-year-old Harrison is pegged as The Next Great American. He’s brash, petulant, possesses a big serve and tons of self-belief. Cilic, meanwhile, has struggled with his forehand and, puzzlingly, his intensity since his semifinal run at the 2010 Australian Open. During a match’s tense moments, the disinterested Cilic looks like he’d rather be smoking cigarettes outside of the Croatian bar around the corner from my apartment.

Quarterfinal: Roger Federer (3) vs. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (11)
Federer is the greatest player of all time but Tsonga blasted him off the court twice — at Wimbledon and in the third round in Montreal — this summer.

Semifinalist: Tsonga (11)
That third set beat down in Montreal (7–6, 4–6, 6–1) might be telling. If Tsonga is fresh and healthy, his power might again overwhelm Federer.

ANDY MURRAY’S QUARTER
Despite winning last month’s ATP Masters 1000 event in Cincinnati, Murray, the greatest male player to never win a Grand Slam tournament, comes in a little under the radar. His first test should be Feliciano Lopez (25) in the third round. Lopez possesses a huge lefty serve and great bone structure but not much else. (Murray’s mom, Judy, however, is a big fan. On her Twitter account, she’s referred to the Spaniard as “Deliciano” Lopez.) Murray could then avenge last year’s early exit with a potential 4th round match against his 2010 conqueror Stanislas Wawrinka (14). 2009 Champion Juan Martin Del Potro (18) looms in a potential quarterfinal. Del Potro, who missed last year’s U.S. Open (and basically the entire season) with a wrist injury, has rebuilt his ranking after falling to no. 485 but his play has plateaued a bit this summer.

Must-See First Round Match: John Isner (28) vs. Marcos Baghdatis
Both have a tendency for long, unforgettable matches and for the second time in less than a week, Isner will face the maddeningly inconsistent Greek Cypriot.

Potential Early Upset: 2nd Round, Alex Bogomolov Jr. over Robin Soderling (6)
A few years back, Bogomolov Jr. was virtually out of the game and teaching tennis out in the Hamptons. He’s collected some impressive scalps this year (Murray in Miami, Tsonga in Cincinnati) and now ranked a career-high 44. Soderling is a big-hitting terror but has missed some time with injury.

Quarterfinal: Juan Martin Del Potro (18) vs. Andy Murray (4)
A classic contrast of styles: Del Potro slugs monstrous groundstrokes while Murray relies on retrieving and counterpunching. The fact that these guys don’t like each other much spices up the proceedings.

Semifinalist: Murray (4)
Murray leads the head-to-head 5–1 and Del Potro’s fitness is a bit untested in best-of-five set matches.

RAFAEL NADAL’S QUARTER
The defending champion has a cupcake draw. Nadal’s first round opponent is Andrey Golubev, a guy that had an 18-match losing streak earlier this season. It should get tougher afterwards. But it won’t. Nadal will probably face either the Croatian slugger Ivan Ljubicic or David Nalbandian in the third round. Both are old, oft-injured and have, um, to put it kindly, problems with their mobility. (Okay, okay, they’re slow and/or overweight.) The rest of the seeded players in the draw also have issues: Mikhail Youzhny (16) and Jurgen Melzer (17) have had poor hard-court seasons; David Ferrer (5) is recovering from a left hand injury; Nicolas Almagro (10) can’t break serve and is a little nutty to boot; and Andy Roddick (21, not a typo) is the same tragic Andy Roddick (more on him later in the week).

Must-See First Round Match: James Blake vs. Jean-Rene Lisnard
Though way past his prime, Blake still plays an entertaining brand of high-risk tennis and it’s always kind of neat watching him at his hometown tournament. Hopefully, the J-Block — his loud, slightly obnoxious cheering section — will accompany him.

Potential Early Upset: 1st Round, Ernests Gulbis over Mikhail Youzhny (16)
The 53rd ranked Gulbis is a talented head case with a colorful history and is on a roll after winning last month’s Farmer’s Classic in Los Angeles.

Quarterfinal: David Ferrer (5) vs. Rafael Nadal (2)
Ferrer took out Nadal at the 2007 U.S. Open and in Australia earlier this year…

Semifinalist: Nadal (2)
 …but Rafa struggled with injuries during each match. If healthy, Nadal will advance to his 4th consecutive U.S. Open semifinal.

SEMIFINALS

Djokovic (1) over Tsonga (11)
Tsonga lacks the patience and nuance needed to defeat Djokovic. At this point, no one can hit through his defense. 63–2

Murray (4) over Nadal (2)
This is a push but Murray can beat Nadal on hard courts — 2008 U.S. Open semifinals, 2010 Australian Open quarterfinals — and had a better summer on the hard stuff.

FINALS
Djokovic (1) over Murray (4)
Murray has to eventually win a Grand Slam, right? It’s tempting to pick him here because Djokovic’s shoulder injury is concerning but to quote Sports Illustrated writer Jon Wertheim (quoting tennis great Mats Wilander): “You can’t be favored to win a Slam until you’ve won a Slam.” 64–2

Thomas Golianopoulos is a writer living in New York City whose work has appeared in The New York Times, New York Observer, Spin, Vibe and a few other places. You can follow him on Twitter.

Photo by The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.