• Dog Eat Dog is having a record release party on Saturday!? (No, not the band of boys, that came later.) This 80s lady-fronted band never even put out an album — till now.

• Watch archival Woody Allen footage — starting with his first “60 Minutes” interview in 1974.

• Two films by Argentine director (and NYU grad) Martín Rejtman at MoMA!

• Go see Bridesmaids because apparently if you don’t, no woman will ever be allowed to be in a movie again.

• HEY THERE IS A NEW CHRIS ADRIAN BOOK, IT CAME OUT LIKE TWO WEEKS AGO AND WE MISSED IT. It looks tough but what else are you doing with your brain? (Laura Miller can’t seem to wrap her fingers around it in the NYTBR.)

• Go see three painters in SoHo, of all places.

• Go to brunch at M Wells (early!) and see the exhibition Made in Long Island City.

• Take an Internet Sabbath! Hurry, sundown, etc.

• Hi, the Alexander McQueen show is up at the Met! If you’re not still mad at him.

• Barb Wire just went up on Netflix Instant the other day! That is the best Pam Anderson movie ever. I love it.

• Go outside to our four fave places.

• Everyone’s going to see Donald Glover at the Musical Hall so you could sneak out to see My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult (Yes, I know it’s 2011!) at Santos Party House. Or The Queers at Asbury Lanes!

• They finally updated Angry Birds: Rio, so you could download that I guess.

Or we can give you some things to read from this week:

• Sex and the Single Lady Spy

• A Note from Beirut

• Coveting Norman Mailer’s Wacky Old House

• The Perfect Solution to NYC’s Bike Problem

And then there’s part two in our survey of eating with religious people — this time, the Sikhs — and a story about dealing with private grief and Facebook intrusion after 9/11.

11. Life Stinks

10. Dracula: Dead and Loving It

9. Spaceballs

8. Robin Hood: Men in Tights

7. High Anxiety

6. Silent Movie

5. History of the World: Part I

4. Young Frankenstein

3. The Twelve Chairs

2. Blazing Saddles

1. The Producers

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Bridge

When objects become fraught,
we choose one and wait
to make depth interactive.

I’ll do the assuming.
Guess which one is fracture?
Good, you didn’t close your eyes.

I hate loneliness
when you’re on the other side,
and also when you’re in me.

Art is for the people?
I’ll be the judge of that
with illustrations and charts.

He knows depth, reveres it.
He drew us a picture of
the center of a planet.

In front of death, I laughed some.
Not out of disrespect, but
because I was afraid.

Built like a cage for the heart,
this frigid room was my port,
sinking or not.

Had we been strangers today,
we might haven’t. But we did,
and even the lamp was surprised.

The sun blurs the mountain
which is a message meant for me.
It means throw your fate out.

In a few minutes you’ll see
the place where we were born.
It’s like human but it’s stone.

Your Data Is Political

Your presence rises from scavenging: pages and words and webs
and signs. You’ve become a target but without the old spy store gadgets.
I’d like to know what you know, not just your count. I click on you,
clickonyou, click on you, then you click back, precious darling surface. We add, poke,
text. On my iPhone, you’re called The Outlier. Your profile pic of a yellow vase
is so allusory, so art, or your skirt flips up and you’re viral,
or someone else outs you as the double-crossing wife because it’s Old West,
open season on Facebook. Pages ripple with alacrity, with betrayal and
Outlook keeps the other engine purring and sneaky. Two presences; the real and
the fable vanish before you and to them within barcode, a cornucopia of insight
(a family’s fleecing, caravans of product, blurry pirated video). I’ll play Sarah McLachlan
over your visage, elegiac, or someone will paste your face onto the porno performance
artist baptized with unseemly liquids. I’ll be the cultural anxiety and you can be the Luddite.
We’ll be a perfect pairing of antediluvian (the wine) and digital (the host).

Carmen Giménez Smith is the author of the poetry collections Odalisque in Pieces (University of Arizona, 2009), The City She Was (Center for Literary Publishing, 2011) and Goodbye, Flicker (University of Massachusetts Press, 2012). She also wrote a memoir about motherhood, Bring Down the Little Birds (University of Arizona, 2010). She teaches in the MFA program at New Mexico State University.

For more poetry, visit The Poetry Section’s vast archive. You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.

It is around this time of year that I am pleased to remind The Public that I am available for speaking engagements at all manner of Commencement Ceremonies, be they for fancy-pants four-year Universities of Higher Learning or Two-Year Junior Colleges, like the one I went to. Also, Trade schools, GED programs, you name it, Hamburger f’ing University, man, if you’re looking for someone to address The Graduate and give them some sorta clue as to What’s Next, I am ready to travel to Your Town, USA, for a modest honorarium and confirmed accommodations at the nearest Best Western or full-on Holiday Inn, and not one of those Holiday Inn “express” joints, OK?

Anyway, it is around this time of year when all the graduates and graduatresses come down out of their Academic haze and ask themselves for the last time (or maybe the first time) if they Really “enjoyed” college: “What lies ahead? Will we have rainbows every day? How did I let my roomie talking me into wearing just my underpants under my rented Graduation gown?”

And look, I’m not saying I am an Expert Authority or Preeminent in a Field, I’m just saying one time I went to somebody’s graduation thing and they had the guy who played Rhoda’s dad on that teevee show “Rhoda,” with Valerie Harper, which was a spinoff of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and had this guy who always did a really funny voice-only bit as “This is Carlton your doorman,” and he would talk to Rhoda over the intercom of her apartment, Lorenzo Music was the guy’s name, and he was also the voice of Garfield from the comics on some cartoons, but then they got Bill Murray for the Garfield movie because I guess the Carlton guy died, but anyway, Harold Gould was the commencement speaker to a bunch of graduates, so no offense to Harold Gould, but just saying, really, I’m not being a showoff or anything when I say I can do this, and I can’t remember a fucking word that Gould guy said, no offense, in his speech. I guess he opened with a joke, because you are always supposed to open with a joke to get the crowd loosened up or something, but like they say, man, the joke’s in your hand, and it’s got D-I-P-L-O-M-A scrivened upon it, and it cost somebody a lotta money, and now Baby Bird, you are supposed to flap your golden tassels and fly away into The Future, won’t you?

I also remember he was in the movie The Sting, staring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Harold Gould, I’m talking about. He played a guy called “The Green Hornet” or something; in one scene a hooker was like “Hi Horney!” I think he also got a “Cold Case” and a “Nip/Tuck,” and he was definitely in the last version of Freaky Friday, so there’s a connect to Lindsay Lohans for you kids. Now they are calling her “Linnocent,” that’s a good one, yeah, this one blog is like “She’s drunk and braless,” which brings me back to the assembled graduates, right? Hiyo. Anyway, look man, Robert Redford, wow, he is really looking craggy these days, eh? I haven’t seen that movie he did about Abraham Lincoln’s mistress or whatever but I’ll definitely check it out on my Netflix.

OK, look, they set up these Commencement Speakers to stand up here and basically tell you what it’s like to be an Adult, and right away, you should be asking for a Partial Refund on your financial aid because like what the fuck have you been doing here in College, right? You take my dough for two-to-seven years and then you have some clown up here giving me The Speech to send me on my way? It’s bullshit, right? But really, the whole reason most of you even went to College is because you didn’t know what to do, I mean Linnocent Lohan didn’t get any College and she’s a success, seriously, because she is Out There getting it Done. She gets paid to be Out There, that is her Industry. A lot of you were like, “Well, I don’t know what to do, so I guess I will keep going to school until I figure that out,” and if that’s the case, then just go to school some more right away and then go Pro, right? Professional Schooler, whatever, Scholar, I know the word, be quiet, I get Paid to be up here talking, so just be quiet.

Let me give you a little bit on what it is to be an Adult who Graduated from stuff. Here’s how I start my day — better yet, here’s how I start my night, I brush my teeth, and look, if there’s anything you punks “take away” from this lecture today, please do not let me underscore the importance of good Dental Hygiene. Maintaining Good Dental Health is one of the things that sets us (as in, U.S.) apart from many other Nations of the World. I’m not saying we’re perfect or anything, I voted Democrat last time so I know what’s going on with the rest of the Planet, I’m just saying have you looked on Google for the thing with brushing your teeth on the regular and Heart Attacks and stuff? It’s right there, you don’t need College for this one, it’s like, if you don’t clean your teeth, all that garbage that passes over ’em on the way to your Digestive Tract and, ultimately, Your Bloodstream, all that food and a lot of other stuff that really isn’t food, if you know what I mean, all that stuff leaves trails in your mouth, man, sediment or whatever, and that crap builds up on your teeth and beneath — down below your gumline, and you can forget Terrorism, man, because Below The Gumline, that’s where the true Enemy is, you gotta keep the Theater of Operations known as Your Mouth spic and span, boys and girls, I am not kidding about this, you think this is some sorta Tangent, like I’m veering off the Prepared Remarks, but I am totally on point with this message, serious as a Heart Attack: keep those choppers clean, that’s where the true Enemy is, man. You gotta keep the Theater of Perations known as your Mouth spic and motherfucking span, ladies and gentls, I am not kidding about this. I am as serious as a heart attack, keep those choppers clean.

And if the toofuses are clean, generally you will have good breath, and Out Here in the day-to-day? It’s all about your breath, and that goes a long way in that Job Interview, do you understand what I am saying here, Young Men and Women of the America? Yeah, they talk about how if you are good looking you get a lotta things in Life handed to you, but I am here as a Paid Representative of what is Real, and I don’t care how hot you are, if you have the Dragon dwelling back there in your speak-hole, Halitosis, whatever you wanna call it, Stank Bref, The ‘zacklys, if you have that going on, nobody will be hiring you any time soon, except maybe for some Customer Assistance Help Desk Line stuff on the phone maybe, and you better hope they have individual headsets because if you’re on a regular phone, whoever comes on shift after you is going to bitch about how the instrument smells, please listen to me on this.

So anyway, after I brush my teeth I knock down three or four of those ROLAIDS-TUMS-type antacids because I have the Acid Reflux, but I have a handle on it, I got the prescription stuff that inhibits my Proton Pump or some bizarro Science Fiction thing like that but I just do this to make sure, because I tend to eat late after the bars close, you know? OK, so you will be working in Food Service, this is what I’m trying to get to, don’t be afraid of it, and don’t give me that crap about how can you work in Food Service if you hate People, that’s where all the really good maître d’hôtels come from, seriously, you have to have genuine Contempt for human beings to be a good maître d’, and if you’re going to be a waiter, don’t be a friendly waiter, think about this because they did not teach you this in your stupid-ass College, people don’t tip their friends as much as they tip strangers, be a pro, keep your distance, focus on Customer Service, pay attention to keeping my water glass filled at the table because I am dealing with this Acid Reflux like a lot of other Americans, nobody’s paying attention to the depletion of our Precious Bodily Fluids, there’s too much soda pop and coffee and booze and stuff and it’s fucking up our electrolytes and corroding the National Stomach, so when you see me at your table at the restaurant where you will soon be employed, just top off that fucking water glass and we’re straight. Thank you.

Mr. Wrong can instruct you via many medias.

by Andy Rooney

Did you ever notice that from time to time The Awl offers its editorial space to citizens with a point of view? It’s true, we totally do. Today we hear from a man with a lot on his mind.

I watched the Republican debate on Fox the other night. It was in Iowa. I’ve been to Iowa so I can tell you a thing or two about corn. Corn isn’t all that different from politics; both of them flourish in cow flop. No wonder presidential campaigns always start in Iowa.

But the debate, if you can call it that, made me realize that there are a lot of elderly curmudgeons out there complaining that our government is an enemy of its people and I know that because I am one of those elderly curmudgeons complaining that our government is an enemy of its people. People who feel this way are called the “Tea Party,” even though it doesn’t seem like they care all that much for proper tea. Neither do I. But then, the Republicans don’t seem to care all that much for proper republics, so we’ll call it even.

Anyway, this realization is why I’m announcing my Tea Party candidacy for President of the United States for 2012. You’ll probably want to know what my policy positions are.

Crime
When it comes to criminal justice, I have some radical ideas, and by radical, I mean the kind of ideas I’ve heard asked around the coffee machine for years. I believe in rehabilitation. But just because it has the word “bill” in it, doesn’t mean the taxpayer should get one. Did you know that it costs tens of thousands of dollars a year to house a prisoner? My house has bars and nobody gives me thousands of dollars to be in it. In fact, I usually only get paid when I leave. And why does it cost the same to house a murderer as a pickpocket? Their crimes to society aren’t the same, so the why should the annual cost to rehabilitate each one be? My administration would create individual prisons for each crime. A prison for murderers would have all the fancy expensive bells and whistles, while a prison for thieves would just be made of molded concrete, so they couldn’t steal anything else.

National Debt
I saw something in the newspaper saying that our national debt is over $11 trillion. It said that if you stacked all those dollars end to end, they would reach past the moon. Such an attempt sounds a lot like one of the useless government research projects that got us to such a high debt in the first place. I think one of the real reasons so few seem concerned about the debt is that nobody knows how much a trillion dollars is. That’s why one of my first acts as chief executive would be to demand all reports about the debt be in terms of something everyday Americans understand, like how many gallons of gas the debt is or the number of #1 McDonald’s hamburger meal deals the debt would buy. But not the supersized ones, our nation is already too supersized. Anyway, I bet people will pay more attention then.

The Deficit
The debt is not the deficit, or so I’m told. It’s hard to understand the difference. I know that it’s also too high though. I think the word “deficit” has “deaf” in it because anytime anyone brings it up in Washington, everyone pretends they can’t hear. As president, I don’t know exactly what I would do to fix the deficit but there seems a lot of places a little extra money can be made. For instance, with Hollywood so eager to make a movie about Osama bin Laden’s death, why not auction movie rights to the highest bidder? That would be sure to make at least a few million, which of course is what it costs to fix a few potholes these days. Not that I ever see any potholes getting fixed on my street.

National Defense
Why is it called national defense spending when all we seem to do is be on the offense? My administration would stop the use of “national defense.” I would employ a Secretary of Offense, and then we’d see how popular he is. I’d consult with Ron Paul on this, as he seems to have some good ideas, even if he has two first names.

America is also now involved in three wars. Sure, we don’t officially call them wars, but the kids in the foxholes aren’t armed with semantics. It would be my policy that America would not enter any foreign conflict if less than 75 percent of the population could find the country on a map.

Quality of Life
Here’s a campaign promise you can take to the bank. Any legislation that crosses my desk that restricts eyebrow length for Americas will be vetoed. No ifs, ands or buts about it. Veto.

Same Sex Equality
When I was growing up, to be gay meant to be happy. It seems as America has gotten more “gay,” it’s gotten less gay. That’s too bad. Now, I’ve heard some of these men refer to themselves as “twinks.” To me, that sounds a lot like “Twinkie.” Believe me, I love Twinkies. I ate my first Twinkie with Loretta Green on the half-price Tuesday night ferris wheel ride, but only because I wanted to do anything with my mouth other than have to talk. I was a shy kid. Twinkies don’t taste like much so I don’t know why anyone would want to identify with one. And given how married people are always shown as fighting, I’m not sure why anyone would want to fight so hard to be able to be married.

Earmarks
What’s an earmark? A scar from an earring? Why don’t they just call it a name everyone can understand, like “Unnecessary Spending?” Or maybe that would be too obvious. At my age, I may not be able to always balance myself, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to balance a budget. It’s basically like eating; you want to have about the same amount go into your mouth as comes out the other end. Pork spending is just like pork eating, it never almost comes out the other end, and when it does, it’s often not in the way you’d hoped.

The Economy
Every notice “economy” only has “my” in it and not “yours?” Maybe that’s the problem.

Medicare
Medicare is an important program that we need to save. But I don’t think many people my age know what it costs to go to the doctor. My administration would mandate that all clinics and hospitals put a price list on a big sign over the counter where you sign in, just like they have at fast food restaurants. A colonoscopy is $500. A treatment for flu, $90. There could even be “meal deals,” where a person could get a discount for getting a boil lanced at the same time as having a broken finger set. Who knows how much that would save Medicare a year, but it would certainly make us all more aware of our health care spending.

I hope my campaign can count on your local Tea Party group’s support, or at least that you’ll deny it to my competitor.

Andy Rooney makes observations.

“A disturbing new study finds that a growing number of British men consider carrying knives a legitimate response to both potential threats and lack of police protection. The majority of respondents to a survey conducted by researchers from Flinders University in Australia and Lancaster University in the UK viewed those who didn’t pack knives as irresponsible and deserving of any violence they experienced.”

“Thomas Bruderman’s pals still tease him about the lavish 2003 bachelor party that landed him in financial regulators’ crosshairs. There was a yacht, visits to strip clubs and a dwarf hired for entertainment…. Bruderman is trying to start over, having co-founded a hedge fund.”
 — I may be mistaken but isn’t partying down with dwarves a lot better for your reputation than hedge-funding?

Presumably this expedition on Eighth Avenue today is related to Ed Helms being the host of “Saturday Night Live” this weekend. Or perhaps… perversion? Reportedly the raccoon pooped. Photo by Tom Reid.

Here’s an old joke: A newly married couple, on their wedding night, have just consummated their bond. As they lie back in pleasured exhaustion, the husband turns to his wife and says, “Darling, that was wonderful. But I know that men and women have different degrees of desire when it comes to being intimate, and I never want you to feel any sort of pressure in that area. So here’s what I’m proposing: If the evening comes and you feel like making love, pull on my penis once. Should you not feel like making love, pull on my penis a hundred times.”

by The Awl

Dignity, a new book by Ken Layne

, is a novel composed of found letters, set in the post-housing crisis California wasteland, when people must learn again how to make food.

My friends in Goleta Meadows,

I think about you always and honor the sacrifices you make for our community.

How is our little group? Are people from the area still showing up for the weekly suppers? Keep your gates open to neighbors, and hide nothing from the honestly curious. We are living without the three poisons by choice, to show the world a new path, in fact a new map of the world. Don’t be weary. Don’t rob yourselves of music and conversation and laughter!

It saddens me that Salvatore and Jane have left us. Why did they leave? I can’t answer that. Maybe it’s because they were the last in your community who knew B. Think of all the questions the newcomers must have, the expectations that those few who lived and worked with B somehow take his place.

You write, “And now we try to live up to what B wanted for us, and not one of us ever saw B face to face.” Maybe that makes it easier. I knew B as well as anyone could, and I often stare at the blank page wondering what to write to our scattered communities.

But I will tell you a story that you can tell the others.

After B was set free from the Los Angeles county jail, those who remained loyal to him gathered at the home of Vera and Tommy in Echo Park, that crumbling old cottage that looked ready to topple down the hillside. We shared a meal around their great wooden table. The blinds were closed because already the unmarked cars were clumsily parked outside and the spies were watching from the street. The table was lit by two great candles and we were about to begin when the garden door flew open and B ran in, laughing, because he was forced to go through the alley and over a fence and then jump down to the garbage cans below and the knees of his pants were ripped and dirty.

We embraced him and he looked at us and said, “This gloom is intolerable. If you can smile and enjoy each other’s company, sit down with me. If not, go outside and scowl at the policemen.”

Then he led us in a song and we filled our glasses and he said, “Honor this food, honor each other, honor this world that is our home.”

Someone, I can’t remember who now, started crying and said, “But what will we do?”

B smiled in the candlelight and helped himself to the food and passed the dish to me, sitting at his left.

“What will we do?” He took a bite and answered, “We are already doing it.”

Ken Layne is the proprietor of Wonkette; Dignity is available for the Kindle.