I am not sure how this scary little mechanized infant is supposed to increase the desire for a real child, but you’ve got to hand it to the Japanese: They can’t develop a technological product that isn’t, on some level, about fucking.

Via Ben Smith, word of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s next big payday: “Discovery Communications is expected to announce that it has won the Sarah Palin tourney. The cabler had been a front-runner to land the untitled Alaska-themed series, to be produced by Mark Burnett Prods…. Show is believed to have fetched more than $1 million an episode — a hefty pricetag for a freshman unscripted cable skein.” But what might the show really be about? Funny you should ask.

by Michael Brendan Dougherty

Good evening to you. And how you be? Steve Somers here and you there…. Those words probably saved my life. More than once even. Almost every Friday for two years, I left my little office in Arlington Virginia, and drove to suburban New York, to my fiancée. Each time, I had to chose: I-95 or Pennsylvania. On this dilemma, I quote no lesser authority than Keith Gessen’s All the Sad Young Literary Men.

It had been a point of great contention, between my father and my uncle Misha, whether it was faster to take I-95 all the way up, as my uncle and most other people would have it, or whether, as my father fervently believed, I-95 was so heavily trafficked, so miserable, so corrupt, especially in its Delaware portion, that one should take the long way-up to Harrisburg and the across the great state of Pennsylvania at top speed.

The father was right. From my pit on the edge of the federal city, it was better to take 270 to Harrisburg, from there to Scranton, and across I-84. A six-hour trip, almost guaranteed, if you could get beyond the initial jam-ups. I-95 could get you there in five hours, without having to stop for gas. But it could take nine. It also features approximately $30 in tolls. Stubbornly I chose I-95 anyway, hoping it would break my way.

The result: exhaustion, back problems and much cursing. Over 100,000 miles in just over two years. I’d like to brag that my pure devotion to my fiancée kept me from driving off the Delaware Memorial Bridge. In truth, I had Steve Somers, who is as crossed up with frustration and affection as I was.

“The Schmoozer” hosts the late evening hours on WFAN; he carries on until midnight after my Mets games. There is something about the show that is exciting and soothing at once. It’s irresistible, this combination of old-timey radio production, Mets-Rangers homerism and (an adopted) Jewish New York patois that seems to be going extinct, and thus more charming: “Alright already!”

He writes his opening monologue in longhand-often in the short time that broadcaster Wayne Hagin is recapping the latest Mets disappointment. He puns and spits with excitement. His WFAN daytime counterpart issues judgments in the mode of an aging Eastern Bloc officiocrat, reading half-legible notes out of a disorganized file. Authoritative but arbitrary. “You can’t take Posada’s bat out of the lineup, ya caaan’t,” he says through deli meat. But Somers changes from topic to topic like a twelve-year-old showing off his comic book collection in a treehouse. “And this!” he shouts, as he plays a highlight that delights him.

His habit of nicknaming players-”The Lighting Rod” for A-Rod, or “Barroid,” for Barry Bonds-seems facile at first. But, I swear, they grow on you with repetition. They invade the way you think of people, even when they are totally odd. I will never hear Jason Giambi’s name without thinking “the Sultan of Shot.”

“The Schmoozer” not only sat shotgun on my rides home, but also on trips to Nashua High school to see Barack Obama and all the way to Pittsburgh to see Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama. Wherever I run, WFAN chases me. Somers was a daily relief from the chatter in my own business about “clinging to guns and religion” and “Huckabee as natural Vice-Prez.”

Soon, he’s going to get me through a Mets season in which our opening day infield includes Daniel Murphy, Alex Cora, and Luis Castillo.

God love you: I’ll be communing with you soon, Steve. When the hangover of a “Bad Ollie” start is wearing off, around midnight. When I can travel sixty blocs up the West Side to the Henry Hudson Bridge. When the city is clear and cool, and mostly unburdened of the Westchestarians like me who are trying rosé this summer because the Times told us to: I’ll turn the dial to you.

Michael Brendan Dougherty is (still) a contributing editor to The American Conservative.

Move to Portland, Oregon for your business, suggests Fast Company! “In 2004, Jive Software, which makes social marketing tools, decided to move from pricier New York City to this laid back west coast city. Five years later, it posted annual revenue of $30 million.” Finally, an answer to that vexing middle step in the business plan. 1. Start Neato Company. 2. ??? Move to Portland. 3. PROFIT.

“The walls, floor and ceiling of O’s attic apartment were dismantled and the two units on the ground floor below were also carefully searched. Flour was strewn on the floor in the hopes of collecting tracks. Strong, double-sided tape was installed to perhaps trap the cobra baby. The fire department even brought in mini-cameras to search the tightest and most inaccessible corners. To no avail. On Sunday, the search was called off and the renters were told they would have to find alternate accommodation for eight weeks-by which time, it is assumed, the snake will have starved to death.”
–Bedbugs are bad. A cobra that escapes from a terrarium in your upstairs neighbor’s apartment, as Der Spiegel

reports, is worse.

It’s always worth checking out Houston’s Bun B. Here he is, joining Reflection Eternal’s Talib Kwelli and DJ Hi-Tek on a new song called “Strangers.”

The song starts with a southern-hospitality-style nod towards the honored guest, as Talib, from Brooklyn, and Hi-Tek, from Cincinnati, quote a Houston rap classic, the Geto Boys’ “My Mind’s Playing Tricks On Me.” Talib then borrows a flow from Lil Wayne’s 2006 “Georgia,” which stands, strangely, as one of rap’s great protest songs. (Strangely just because Lil Wayne is not often associated with political concerns. But I guess when your president smiles and strums a guitar while your hometown drowns, one could be so inspired.) Then Bun comes on and proves, as he so often does, why he belongs in best-MC-of-all-time discussions. Did you ever read Jon Caramanica’s interview with him in The Believer from a few years back? If not, you should. It’s an excellent look at the artistic process, very much with a capital A, that goes into writing rap lyrics.

“I have all I want.”
-Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman explains his decision to reject the $1 million prize for solving the Poincaré Conjecture, a mathematical theory that took a century to solve. Perelman “lives as a recluse in a bare cockroach-infested flat in St Petersburg,” and has apparently ceased practicing mathematics.

Bob Herbert usually bores the hell out of me, even though I generally agree with what he has to say. There’s a certain kind of writing about social injustice that makes social injustice seem like the most soporific subject in the world (see also: anything I write about social injustice). Today, however, his lifeless prose actually works to the benefit of his subject, which is the absolutely appalling behavior of the Republican party and its varied constituents. I’m not sure why this should be controversial, and I’m not sure when we decided that rather than castigating these poisonous actions we would just throw up our hands and say, “Well, you’re not going to win any converts by pointing it out,” but the very idea that half a century after he was nearly beaten to death for suggesting that every American deserved the same rights regardless of race John Lewis is still subject to what Herbert acknowledges as “epithets that The Times will not allow me to repeat here” is absolutely infuriating. But read the column; he expresses it a lot more clearly than I do.

So there’s been this new gay site, which just launched its official beta today, that got a very minor pantsload of startup funding (both private money and from the Washington Post Company) and they are starting up whatever it is that they will do. This could be fascinating! Their idea? “fabulis connects gay men with amazing experiences down the block and around the world.” (But wait, there’s already Manhunt, you’re exclaiming. Hush, class clown.) First I am positively disposed to any gays trying stuff on the Internet! So I have been suspending judgment for a while now. Second, I have acquaintances involved in it, and also I like to be supportive of other startups. Still, I cannot ignore some serious warning signs.

1. From their blog: “team fabulis are big believers in GLAAD’s mission and we encourage all our fans to learn more about the organization.” This is a huge whatever.

2. This video. (Which is actually funny too, as well?)

3. And now, this is what is pushing me away: they’re listing and rating gay dudes. Because, you know, gay dudes aren’t insanely competitive with and hostile to each other already? To their credit, staff members take up slots #1 and #3 on their list of greatest gays ever.

I guess my jury isn’t really still out? For now, I’m thinking: peace out, gays! Best of luck. I’m off to go find a lesbian separatist ashtanga commune that isn’t interested in reproducing tired social structures and supporting sad, bloated, useless gay fundraising organizations.

Steve McQueen is still trying to get the UK Royal Mail to print stamps of England’s Iraq war dead. His campaign has been ongoing for seven years. (via)