In case you’re not totally engrossed by “La Proxima Victima” or “Entertainment Tonight” or Showtime’s airing of Vanilla Sky tonight at 8 p.m., there’s also the live webcast of Jonathan Franzen and Lorrie Moore in conversation right here on the Internet.

Fat people can smell food better than skinny people, says Science. This may be why they keep eating even though they’re full (and fat). Seeing as this is not entirely dissimilar from the way I react to the odor of bourbon when very drunk, I guess I buy it.

It wasn’t enough that my poor mother was the only woman in a house of three men; she also bore witness to my family’s continuing competition to see who could be the sharpest to each other, verbally. Because she was such an easy target (since seeing success as a sign of growth gave her a sense of having done a good job as a parent) she wound up being on the receiving end of more of the barbs than was fair or even decent. And those were just the regular dinners. Holidays were an endeavor of a whole other order.

My mom was too well-schooled in the responsibilities of properly entertaining by her own mother (a Jew from Boston’s North Shore — a tribe which, ironically, makes for the world’s most severe Episcopalians, holiday-wise) to rise above the drudgery that Thanksgiving provides for the unlucky homemaker, even one with a full-time career. My brother and I — who grew successively less charming commensurate to the amount of alcohol we were allowed to consume — would consider our holiday tasks completed once we had added the extra leaf to the table, while my father’s duties mostly consisted of mixing the drinks and picking out the wine, a job which seemed extremely complicated until I was old enough to understand that he was mainly hiding out, lest he be drafted to do something in the kitchen.

So, my poor mother. Apart from planning and cooking the meal, ensuring that the table was set just right (according to some kind of bizarre algorithm which will expire along with her), and arranging the consistent flow of appetizers and entrees and desserts, she also had to charm a motley assortment of guests, which generally included: a pair of visiting relatives from her side of the family — if not her actual mother, which was the worst case scenario — who were trained in the same kind of Jewy New England Thanksgiving entertaining procedures and could thus judge the most harshly; a random friend of my father’s who had suddenly found himself, either through widowerhood or abandonment, between families and befuddled by the turn of events; and whatever old and surly member of the Balk tribe was there to share a life’s worth of wisdom in the form of incessant griping (the curse of the Balk man is that he lives forever; well into the 1990’s our Thanksgivings were regaled by some elderly version of me ranting about something that sonofabitch Senator Taft said about Roosevelt more than half a century earlier). Then there were my brother and me, who, no matter how many years had passed, reverted immediately back to our teenage selves, fighting over issues that had long ago been resolved and never really made a difference in the first place.

Through it all, she shone. She continues to shine. Thanksgiving is her time. Having her family together, feeding her friends, overseeing an evening’s worth of entertainment that makes everyone feel contented and cared for — this is one of the things she waits the whole year for. And no matter how mouthy or drunk or irritated we get, we all know at the end of the night that it doesn’t get any more meaningful than what we’ve been through, and that even if we’d rather be anywhere else, there nowhere else where we’d be as loved and appreciated. That’s the kind of Thanksgiving my mom puts together.

For as long as I can remember, she has made this recipe for dessert: “Baked Wine-glazed Apples Stuffed with Marzipan, Cranberries and Raisins.” She pulled it out of Bon Appetit when they first ran it, and it has been a Balk Thanksgiving staple ever since. “I use small apples instead of the large ones,” she told me when I asked her how she makes it. “They get softer and bake better and I have found that people can only eat one small one as they are very rich.” You should take her word for it. I’ve never tried them myself — marzipan squicks me out and I can be a really obstreperous dick, even to my own mom — but every year they’re the first dessert go, and every year even the surliest of the old men leaves the house raving about them. Now maybe it’s the wine, but I like to think it’s the love. It’s certainly not the marzipan; that stuff is fucking nasty.

Update: “I use small Macintosh apples,” e-mails Mom. Now you know.

Illustration by Susie Cagle.

by Maud Newton and D.E. Rasso

Is “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” a protracted 2012 campaign ad? An End-Times relocation brochure for fundamentalists? Or just the most boring hour of television since Lawrence Welk? Probably all three. Most of my friends are baffled by the media’s obsession with her. “I’m watching her give a speech on CNN, and she might very well be the most aggressively stupid person I have ever seen on the national stage,” one said recently. “And I’m old enough to remember Dan Quayle.” But I can’t help it, I’m transfixed. And because I don’t have cable (except for basic-basic and HBO, a combination apparently only available to Cablevision subscribers in the Brooklyn hinterlands), and Dana does, I invited myself over to her house for an evening of Palin and “Walking Dead” (or is that redundant?). Please note that these scenes may or may not be discussed in the order that they appeared. (Special thanks go out to three bottles of wine.)

Maud: I forgot about her voice.

Dana: Really? That’s the first thing I remember.

The theme song begins, an inoffensive hard rock ballad sung by a dude with an inoffensively raspy voice.

Dana: Who is this, Nickelback?

Maud: Creed maybe.

Dana: Aha, it’s a Christian band called Third Day. Remember, on the third day, God created Earth and Sea and fruit-bearing trees. No grizzlies though.

Maud: Also, on the third day, Jesus rose from the grave!

Dana: Aha, you’re right indeed.

Maud: Look, I know I’m a conspiracy whack-job when it comes to Palin and her allure for fundamentalist loons (of the kind I grew up with), but this song (“Follow Me There”) is all, “You need a place where you can find some shelter” (subtext: when the apocalypse comes).

Dana: I’m feeling it!

Maud: Alaska: it’s a place where “the lost can find salvation,” Dana, and “the lonely finds [sic] a friend”!

Dana: I finds a friend in Jesus. This is the first of what I expect will be one of the night’s many dog-whistle moments. Wait, are they really shooting off Roman candles on a speed boat? Is that what people do for fun in Alaska? (When they’re not murdering prostitutes and huffing glue?)

Maud: I reckon so. On her Facebook page, she says the purpose of the whole show is to let “the rest of America … see and experience our country’s young, independent, resource-rich Last Frontier.” Also: “the grandeur of God’s creation, the satisfaction of a good day’s hard work, the rugged pioneering spirit that carves a life out of the wilderness and makes a living on the waters, the wisdom and traditions of our Alaska Natives, and the wealth of our natural resources which allows us to support ourselves and contribute to America’s security.”

First scene: Keeps ya on yer heels.

The Palins are obsessed with their new neighbor who’s moved in because he’s “writing a hit piece” — errr, unauthorized biography. In retaliation, they have erected a 14-foot fence between his property and theirs.

Dana: That’s a campaign promise right there. Palin: Building a 14-foot fence around AMERICA.

Maud: Ha! Yeah, it’s pretty rich that they’re filming the guy on his porch and complaining that he’s invading their privacy. Wait, why is she wearing a football jersey that says “Palin 82” on it?

(In an odd synchronicity, 82% of Republicans have a favorable opinion of her. We can only hope she’s wearing a “Palin 22” jersey next week.)

They’re making muffins or cupcakes or something in the Palin kitchen. Piper Palin demonstrates all the utensils she can fit into her mouth. Sarah, noticing that the camera is rolling, halfheartedly rebukes her daughter for putting the salivated-on stirrer back in the batter, then checks her Blackberry.

Dana: Did they ever actually bake anything? Why does it feel like the entire kitchen is just a prop wall, like a McMansion in a Potemkin village?

Maud: Maybe FOX built the kitchen when they built her home TV studio?

Dana: Any time Palin says anything that sounds remotely factual about geography it’s obvious she’s been fed these lines. I challenge her to name the ten biggest cities in Alaska.

So she drags her daughter and her niece to go fishing by some bears. It’s clear that no one but the bush plane pilot has ever done this before, and they spend most of their time agonizing that no one’s caught any fish despite the fact that the boat is floating atop a giant school of salmon. Then bears show up and do a tepid demonstration of bear-like behavior.

Dana: I wouldn’t be surprised if they had just been let out of a cage moments before.

Sadly, Palin’s hope that a Mama Grizzly shows up is not realized.

Dana: I know that I’ve openly wished on many occasions that someone should meet their untimely death via a bear mauling, but at this point in the show (approx 15 minutes in) I’m prostrate on the floor, begging for this to happen.

Maud: Yeah, it’s hard not to wish the thing would morph into a National Geographic special with a “tragic” ending. Also, this is every bit as boring as Nancy Franklin said.

“If we had that in Wasilla, I would be outside 24/7 eating popcorn on a chair,” says Piper of a bear brawl scene that was probably filmed separately and inserted later.

Dana: What kid would say that? She was fed that line.

Maud: Clearly, these kids really love The Great Outdoors.

Maud: Seriously, what is the point of this show? Are we supposed to think that the Palin clan is always out in a float plane fishing with bears? Or are they tourists, and we’re along for the ride? Not that it isn’t thrilling to watch Palin continuously checking her email.

Dana: Blackberry must be a sponsor.

Maud: I think my favorite part so far is when she turns to the camera and just casually says, “Alaska leads the nation in float plane fatalities!” Or whatever it was.

Dana: …a message from the Alaskan Tourism Board.

Next scene: I Can See Russia From My Couch.

In the Palin household you’re required to wear short shorts and Bump-Its. Sarah sits in front of the computer, apparently searching for something on Bing (so that’s who uses it!) and averting another teen pregnancy in her household by announcing that the toddler gates for Trig are also meant to keep boys out of the upstairs.

Dana: That’s right: In Alaska, contraception = toddler gates

Maud: Yeah, who needs sex ed when you have toddler gates?

Maud: And who’s that changing the baby’s diaper?

Maud: And where is Bristol?

Dana: I just realized the chief appeal of this show: legs & scenery.

Called upon to stoke the ire of her Tea Party minions, Sarah rushes to her home TV studio, puts on some sort of red suit jacket and booties, and hits her talking points. Afterward, she confirms with Todd that letting Bush’s tax cuts expire will “affect how many guys you would hire.” They exchange Amens.

Dana: This is so boring.

Maud: To us, maybe, but a million fundamentalists just achieved simultaneous orgasm.

Next scene: Get in the van.

They all hop into something Sarah refers to as an RV but actually resembles Kenny Rogers’ tour bus. They go to a climbing school (and again, has Sarah ever actually done anything physical outdoors before?) and tease us with the possibility of Sarah getting swallowed up by a crevasse while she’s snow-shoeing it across the tundra. At some point, it’s implied that they’re going to climb Mt McKinley, but they have to turn back because of the weather.

Maud: One of the overarching themes in this show is the absence of any affection whatsoever between Sarah and Todd. They really don’t like each other at all! Not that you can blame them.

Dana: It’s painful to see the contrast of Sarah’s midwestern chit-chat vs. Todd’s silent, dead-eyed brooding. He’s a perfect example of Arendt’s concept of the banality of evil. They clearly hate each other. And Is it just me or does he have meth face?

Maud: OMG, now that you mention it, I’m pretty sure I saw his twin brother in that Faces of Meth lineup that was going around.

Next scene: Your guys’ safety is the key-most factor.

They go to a glacier. She straddles a crevasse, whinging all the way. We’re hoping she gets sucked down into it. The film crew forces us to watch ten minutes of footage of Sarah scaling a 15-foot rock face.

Dana: I remember doing Outward Bound in 8th grade and it was harder than that. Goddammit, is she wearing rented shoes?

Maud: This is even less exciting than all the footage of her checking email. Also, what’s with the whingeing? Christ. I mean, I hate heights, too, but I didn’t pitch an Alaskan wilderness-adventure show to every major network. Remember the part earlier where she was totally trying to emasculate her father because he hadn’t done the two-week climb up Mt. McKinley?

Dana: I genuinely believe that the creators of this show have vastly overestimated the American public’s interest in rock faces and glaciers. Absent the promise of death, of course.

Maud: I want to believe that even the short-shorts won’t boost ratings, but I dunno.

Dana: I’m also beginning to suspect that the Democrats have concocted this show as a secret means of killing Sarah Palin.

Maud: It figures they’d be about as successful at that as they are at passing legislation when they control both houses of Congress.

Dana: I know it’s cliche to say “I want that hour of my life back” but in this case I feel so passionate about it that I’m willing to take it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Maud: I’m sorry I made you watch it. You might want to skip the appeal to the Roberts Court, though.

Dana: Hey, it’s time to watch the other, better zombie show, where the protagonists are way better hunters than these assholes.

CONCLUSION: Truly a waste of an hour. Dana can’t imagine who would go back to watch a second episode unless Palin climbs up a rock face to discover the 20th Duggar baby. Maud will spend the day hitting reload on Palin’s Facebook page where, as of this moment, her most recent post about the show has 13,828 “likes” and 1,606 fawning comments like this one: “Sarah, after watching Alaska last night, i can’t believe how accomplished you are and how anyone could ever call you dumb!! their just jealous!”

D.E. Rasso is a writer and blogger who has spoken inexpertly on the topics of music criticism, the future of publishing, Internet impostors, and weird things from dollar stores. Her essay, “The Rules of Repulsion,” recently appeared in the critically acclaimed anthology, Love Is a Four-Letter Word.

Maud Newton has been writing about writing and reading at her blog since 2002.

Click on this link to see a pretty amazing picture of stallions fighting over who gets to do sex to the lady horses. Seriously, it’s good.

Fellow Tom Ford enthusiasts will of course need to read the Vogue piece regarding his latest women’s collection. But they should be warned, of course, that the story of How Tom Ford Keeps His Equity is a ludicrous one. (Spoiler: he expanded his stores recently by selling a Warhol. Why didn’t I think of that?) It’s a delightful read but it’s also just bad business journalism. The word “Zegna” does not crop up (Ford did a huge licensing deal with them) and neither does “Marcolin” (Ford recently extended his licensed sunglasses to them for another five years). That’s where the big money is. But at least they do talk about his Botox!

And you know, God bless him!

It is, of course, quite sobering when a person wakes up and has to dip into his own bank account rather than the fortunes of a giant corporation. But that independent responsibility is precisely what drives Ford now. In May, he made news by selling an Andy Warhol self-portrait for $32.6 million (more than double what it was expected to fetch), spending the profit on stores in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. He had met with — and rejected — outside investors. “What I want is the freedom to say, I really like fashion and I’m going to come back my way and never have some corporate person say, ‘But you can’t do it that way.’ My goal,” he enunciates with dead seriousness, “is to be like Armani and Chanel.”

“Zuckerberg tells an anecdote about his girlfriend’s sister — a high-schooler. Conversations with high-schoolers ‘make me feel old.’ High-schoolers say ‘we don’t use email. It’s too slow.’” So goes this morning’s press conference and so now there is Facebook… Something. Chat-Text-Mail. Cloud-communication. Robot packet talk! Wall-posting blammo Places check-in! Hi-ya! So what Facebook email actually is: it is one long endless chat history, basically. One long eternally-ongoing chain. It’s sure interesting to watch a company that started at Harvard now skewing towards servicing the junior high schools. And also, guess what, sooner or later the tweens and teens, who like to IM and Facebook chat and text all day, will get jobs. If they can. So the current mantra — “Seamless! Personal! Informal! Short!” — well, you know what it reminds me of? “You did me business ethics propsal for me I need propsal got approved pls can you will write me paper?”

by John R. Bohrer

I’m going to need a job, David, after 2013, you know? And so whether it’s going to be being governor of New Jersey or doing something else, I have four kids between 7 and 17 — I’m working the rest of my life anyway. So it’s going to be doing something, David, so maybe it’ll be that. Who knows? — Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), Meet The Press, 7 November 2010.

I love it when millionaires pretend they have Ordinary People problems. The implication is that Chris Christie is just another Jersey working stiff, sweating it out in the streets of a runaway American dream. The Kevin James of governors.

Now get this: in 2009, Chris Christie was technically unemployed — running for governor all year, he did not have “a job, David.” Yet that same year, his household income went up by almost $100,000.

That’s right: in this crash economy that Obama is supposedly strangling with the strength of ten Kenyan anti-colonialists, Mrs. Christie saw her Wall Street salary rebound, big time — oh? You didn’t know that Mary Pat Christie is a senior vice president in the high-yield corporate bond department of Cantor Fitzgerald? No? Gee, it’s strange that the in-depth Today Show profile less than a week after their tax returns went public made no mention of her profession, listing her only as “CHRIS CHRISTIE’S WIFE,” even though she is the family’s breadwinner.

And what a loaf it is. The Christies earned something around $596,000 in 2009. You remember 2009.

Unless Christie plans to send his kids to school the Meg Whitman way — “YOU get a ‘residential college’! And YOU get a ‘residential college’!” — I think he’s going to be able to retire with a decent modicum of comfort.

Because consider this: the governor of New Jersey makes $175,000 a year. Now, add that to 2010’s even-better Wall Street gains. If that’s the Jersey death trap suicide rap, baby, sign me up. I am born to run.

Christie, on the other hand, is not. At least not in 2012, anyway.

*****

Right now, Christie’s breaking a lot of hearts on the right by playing the ‘No way, no how’ card. Some admirers are so convinced that he is the person to beat Obama in 2012 that they think the administration is actively trying to take him out. As proof, they point to a new Justice Department report detailing his taste for the high life. Turns out Christie was the fairest U.S. Attorney of them all, regularly billing taxpayers for fancy hotel rooms way above his government allotment. Oh no! Run for your lives! Obama’s going to slaughter his Enemies List! With sternly-worded REPORTS!

What noobs. Before the Republican trendspotters had even laid their eyes on Scott Brown’s happy trail, Christie’s Pretty Woman habits were well documented, along with several other peccadilloes: circumstantial evidence that he conjured subpoenas to influence the 2006 U.S. Senate race; the nondisclosure of his financial relationship with an assistant U.S. Attorney who was delaying FOIA requests on… wait for it… his government travel expenses; turning the wrong way down a one-way street and sending a motorcyclist to the hospital — and not getting ticketed after he identified himself as the U.S. Attorney.

Look, what I’m saying is that no one is going to dig up any new dirt on Chris Christie. That opposition research file was done and done in 2009. Know why? Because the guy Jon Corzine hired to do his dirty work was a Pulitizer Prize-winning buyout fatality of the Star-Ledger, whose last beat just happened to be… ding! ding! ding! Chris Christie’s U.S. Attorney’s office in Newark!

Corzine’s guy did an ace job at tearing down Christie, and they probably would’ve won had their candidate been any other Democrat. But Corzine was just so unpopular, Jersey could’ve been bluer than a hypothermic choking victim and he still would’ve lost.

The point is that Christie’s closet has been cleared out. If anything damaging were to arise, it’s going to be related to his conduct as governor. Or his personality.

* * *

It’s the personality that’s turned him into a contender. See, the day Chris Christie was taking the oath of office, all of America’s Republican energy was in Massachusetts, rallying around another rich guy who went around in a barn jacket saying, “I drive a truck.” Scott Brown would have the Kevin James bit down, too, were it not for his Cosmo bod. And he was all set to bury Obamacare with Kennedy until, well, the GOP collectively realized he is kind of a flake. And did you hear about this other guy from New Jersey who yells at people?

It was about four months into his term when Christie scolded a columnist at a press conference for asking about his “confrontational tone.” And in doing so, he basically gave the gubernatorial equivalent of, Wha-wait, I’m the asshole? No, buddy, YOU’RE the asshole! (This is how we usually settle our disputes in Jersey.)

But then video of the encounter went viral, and then so did a bunch of other videos of him telling middle-aged women teachers that they’re garbage and, several Neil Cavuto appearances later, voila! Cult of personality complete. A Kevin James who moonlights as an insult comic.

In ways, the videos of Christie letting his Jersey run loose is a lot like the Jersey Shore. We grew up with people like Pauly D and Snooki. We went to high school with them when they were just beginning to discover the full extent of their guidocity. Sometimes they were cool and other times they were complete dicks. But there was nothing really exceptional about them. It was just how they were. And then all of a sudden, somebody puts some cameras on them and says to America, ‘Hey get a load of this,’ and blamo: they’re superstars.

Because believe it or not, Christie was getting short with people way before he was a viral video sensation. It sometimes made the news during the campaign, yet it was less celebrated. In fact, it was a liability, because his impatience was not taken as a sign of endearment. He was just another loudmouth pushy crank in a state full of loudmouth pushy cranks. A lot of us still see him that way — locally, at least. So he’d get testy with someone, and our mothers would roll their eyes, lean back in their chairs and exhale audibly as if to say, Here we go again.

The thing is, all of a sudden you want this, America. We’re still ashamed when our cousin Nicole heads for the Shore looking like a skank. (Sorry, Nicole.) Only now she might get a tanning salon endorsement out of it. And those temper tantrums we sigh at? They could be the foundations of the 45th American Presidency.

* * *

Christie clearly eats this attention up, and it’s all going straight to his head. And laugh all you want at the fat jokes, but he’s working with a personal trainer and has lost some serious pounds (the first 30 of which were negated by the 30 pounds he gained during the gubernatorial transition).

Besides the weight loss, he’s offering up other tell-tale signs that he’s considering a national run. What with his saying, ‘Thanks but no thanks to that tunnel to nowhere Manhattan.’ Or like last week, when he essentially said he’s not sure if he believes in pollution. I mean, why else does one go to Iowa and inflate his poll numbers by a good ten points?

That’s right: the AP’s Mike Glover reported that Christie was telling those people of the corn that he was elected with less than 50 percent of the vote and after yelling at people through a conservative megaphone, his approval rating was nearly 60 percent. Except that it wasn’t. Scott Rasmussen, perhaps the most biased and inaccurate pollster of 2010, found him at 57 percent on August 31, but every other poll has had his approval rating hovering in the mid-40s to low 50s. It’s like the guy who makes out with a girl and then tells everybody at school that they went all the way. It wasn’t even the latest poll before his trip: a Monmouth U/Gannett poll (which is a poll we actually pay attention to) had him at 45 percent two weeks before his Iowa stop.

I write about this because no one else has. After I read that AP story, I asked a friend of mine who works in Jersey Democratic politics if maybe I was imagining things (the questions we ask ourselves after days on end with minimal face-to-face human interaction). No, he said, he had noticed it. It had even happened before and he brought it to the attention of a reporter — one who shares that Pulitzer with Corzine’s opposition research guy. According to my friend, the reporter kind of brushed it off, saying that Christie didn’t deserve the presidential-level dodging-bullets-in-Bosnia scrutiny yet.

(Come to think of it, those guys won that Pulitzer for writing about how Jim McGreevey is gay after he came out of the closet.)

What I’m saying is that Christie has gotten through the door, and he’s sitting pretty. He’s a Republican rock star, his wife is racking up the bucks on Wall Street and he’s got the media totally bowed to him. No more ex-reporter oppo-research guys rifling through his files making him look bad — now they’re all frightened of getting stomped in a viral video.

Even the one who sits in the Russert chair — which is apparently no longer the toughest interview on TV — is getting rolled. David Gregory could barely stand up for himself when Christie accused him of “advocating” for tax increases. (Yes, Christie is so brazen that he can even assign tax-increasing motives to the moderator of Meet The Press.) Gregory tried to object but the Governor kept on telling him how to ask questions and claimed victory by saying, “Then we agree” two times in succession, which in Jersey translates to Oh, I’m sorry — sorry you’re too friggin’ STUPID to realize I’m right.

Here is a guy with such a short record in elected office, and yet Gregory could produce no skeptical questions, let alone Meet-style adversarial ones. Not like Christie didn’t leave himself wide open. He repeatedly invoked “shared sacrifice” and how when it was time to make cuts, “everyone came to the table and everybody had to contribute” — everyone except the millionaire set. They got tax cuts. (Because families like the Christies aren’t doing well enough to share in some sacrifice?) And then he brags that he offset it with spending cuts.

That is a LAUGH RIOT for anyone with a grasp of Christie’s record. OK, so to do away with millionaires’ sacrifice, Christie cut prescription drug funding for senior citizens. But then the socialist cabal in Washington passed Obamacare and sent federal aid to the state that allowed him to restore the seniors’ prescription program. And Christie took credit for it! So yeah, he offset the tax cut: with federal deficit spending. It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul only to steal some guy named Barry’s wallet to pay Peter back. The same old shell game New Jersey governors have been playing for years.

And seriously, come on, David Gregory, or any thinking person for that matter. By Christie’s own admission, New Jersey is “broke” and everything’s on the table, yet he’s giving tax cuts to millionaires? And if you say, Well, it’s to stimulate the economy, then isn’t that the same Keynesian deficit approach that Obama’s employing, only it’s from the supply side? Doesn’t make it any less of a deficit. If you want to see some reining in of government in action, check out Britain, where they’re cutting spending and raising taxes. Yeah, they’ve got riots right now, but that’s what happens when conservative government attempts to conserve fiscal order and doesn’t just rotate the pie tray toward its ever-fattening 1 percent. Until then, Christie is just Christine Whitman 1995 with balls.

(And if you’re an out-of-state Republican who doesn’t get that reference, then maybe learn a thing or two about Jersey before you take any time away from painting tin cans or whatever it is that you do to draft our governor as the next president. And don’t go telling me that you read the National Review cover story because all that guy did was stenograph Christie talking points and write about a Mercedes in the faculty parking lot of his old high school. It’s not my fault that he never stopped to consider that maybe it was leased or, you know, that maybe this teacher’s spouse was an employee of the high-yield corporate bond department of Cantor Fitzgerald?)

* * *

No, Chris Christie does not run for president in 2012, lest people start looking at how his well-regarded rhetoric matches up with his record. Christie celebrates himself as one who stands up to opponents, who is not afraid to take the tough questions, and yet on the other hand, he may be wise enough to know that he shouldn’t invite them either. He’s like Kimbo Slice, undisputed champion of the viral video street fight, mopping the floor with reporter chumps. Then he steps into the eight-sided cage with the pros, and all of a sudden, we find out he’s had a glass jaw all along.

Because Christie’s found the magical middle: in the big time, but without the tough questions. And face it: Will you seek the White House in 2012? is not a tough question. It’s nothing compared to what you’re asked once you’re a candidate, the level of scrutiny to which every word and sentence is subjected.

And then there’s the argument he’d have to win with the American people. The question he asks them. It’s the most important question of them all, and it’s asked every time someone has challenged an incumbent president since Jimmy Carter: Are you better off than you were four years ago?

Well, for Chris Christie, living large in the figurative (sometimes literal) penthouse of American politics, the answer to that question would have to be “yes.”

And for a potential presidential challenger, that’s the wrong answer.

John R. Bohrer is so Jersey, he thought ‘forward’ was spelled ‘foward’ until he was 18 and a half years old. True story.

The Worst Makeout Mixtape Ever is nearly an hour long and will probably put you off both music and making out for some time. Admit it, you’re curious.

I have mixed feelings about Will.I.Am protesting Sony’s release of Michael Jackson’s unfinished work. The new single came out this weekend, with a new album (the first of many, apparently) due in December. Will says:

“Whoever put it out and is profiting off of it, I want to see how cold they are. He just wasn’t any ordinary artist. He was a hands-on person. To me, it’s disrespectful. There’s no honoring. Michael Jackson songs are finished when Michael says they’re finished. Maybe if I never worked with him I wouldn’t have this perspective. He was very particular about how he wanted his vocals, the reverb he used … he was that hands-on.”

I mean, I agree with his point. It’s like what Joan Didion said about why it was wrong to publish any of Hemingway’s work posthumously: “You care about the ‘ands’ and the ‘buts’ or you don’t, and Hemingway did.” For this reason, I am generally against releasing any artist’s unfinished work after he or she has died. So much bad Tupac music has come out that never should have. (Though I’ve been listening to Elliot Smith’s New Moon and From a Basement On a Hill a lot recently, and they’re both great and I’m very thankful I have access to them. So… it’s difficult.)

But to hear Will.I.Am talk about the subject of “honoring” versus being “disrespectful” — especially while he works in the pukily self-congratulatory notion of how he worked with Michael and so therefore knows hims so much better than most everyone else — is incredibly hard to do! Though, I guess I have to accept it: what I consider to be the debasement of songs I love by Bob Dylan and The Who — well, I suppose those guys signed off on Will.I.Am’s interpolations. Why, I’ll never know. But they are still alive.

Anyway, here’s the new song. It’s very catchy, but very treacly to me on first listen. I’m not much of an Akon fan. But some people (some people who I like very much!) love it.