2007: The Semi-collected Works

Once you go synthetic, you never regret it.

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Chopping your head off is the new black.

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What was the Juice thinking when he decided to commit unilateral memorabilia exchange in the only city in the world that’s monitored more intimately than Jenna Jameson’s pleasure flue?

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Behold peach-firm breasts straining against organic spandex—have you ever seen nipples so serene and self-actualized?

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They were Jennifer Jason Leigh and Phoebe Cates, two actresses with higher adorability quotients than a litter of newborn Mormon kittens.

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Obviously, Miss South Carolina didn’t cannibalize pit bulls or go trolling for extramarital toilet love amongst crapping heterosexuals.

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Ryan Seacrest is not a comedian. He’s a test pattern with a haircut that makes John Edwards look like Grizzly Adams. He has to climb up on a fruit crate each day just to get tit-high to his E! News co-buoy, Giuliana DePandi. Having Seacrest host the Emmys is like having air host 10 gallons of monkey piss...

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Naming a child is an intimate, symbolic, arguably sacred act—and any so-called “nameologist” who charges less than five figures for her services is doing a grave disservice not just to her clients but also to humanity in general. After all, corporate naming consultants charge big bucks to invent appellations like Aldara and Gardasil—and don’t parents deserve the same opportunity as genital-warts scientists to prove how much they value their products?

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Thanks to the investigative efforts of USA Today, for example, we now know that Paris Hilton treats her 10 chihuahuas and two Yorkies almost exactly like one imagines Pamela Anderson once treated Tommy Lee. (“Hilton has them groomed every two days and has hired a beefy security guard to tote them to and from her various homes in individual cages.”)

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Technically, George W. Bush is fat.

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Sure, Lindsey Lohan has got a few more facial expressions than Jessica Simpson, but so does a clock. Sure, she can reel off dialogue with the urgent fluency of a Gilmore Girls sidekick, but so can, uh, every Gilmore Girls sidekick. The next Streep? Lohan hasn’t even proven she’s the next Ringwald yet.

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To prove he was truly “God’s eunuch,” Mahatma Gandhi didn’t chop off his peace wand; he bedded down with his naked, nubile human comforters each night to fully test his vow of chastity. Similarly, a tattoo that’s only as permanent as a single trip to the laser salon will challenge a person’s devotion much more than one that cannot be disposed of so easily.

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Phil Leotardi wore his hair like a suit of armor, but in the end it was no match for an SUV.

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On Entourage, Vince’s flunkies were his pals long before they became line items on his Schedule C form. On Hey Paula, one of Abdul’s minions is identified as “stylist and best friend”—and, really, is there any phrase in the English language more fraught with heart-crushing sadness than “stylist and best friend”?

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A column on postage-hike rates? I guess Lindsay Lohan didn't kill anyone that week.

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Cell phones have always been the Nicole Richies of high-tech devices—they started out chunky and one-dimensional and have been getting thinner, more stylish and increasingly ambitious ever since.

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Our present is too much with us. Our past is the houseguest that won’t leave. Antidepressant prescriptions have been rising in exact accordance to Google’s growing presence, and no one makes the connection. But how can we be happy when Google won’t let us forget our failures and mediocrity?

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Officially, the flavor that the X-13D chips simulate is a secret, and the gimmick is that you, the customer, are supposed to give this new product an appropriate name, but as you place a chip on your tongue and its magic flavor crystals parade across your taste buds, the intrigue quickly dissolves. Mustard, ketchup, the sour tang of day-old pickles? Salty, fried beef fat with a finish of molten synthetic cheese? These chips are obviously designed to taste like Michael Moore!

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Ironically, Paris Hilton was far more alluring blowing a hamburger than she was performing actual fellatio.

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If Deca Durabolin promised George W. Bush a stronger grasp of foreign policy, would he be brave enough to take a needle in the ass for world peace?

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While Bettie Page is often credited for normalizing kink, for showing how even sun-kissed girl-next-door types could have a secret taste for lesbian spanking action, what’s most notable about her oeuvre is how little sexual heat she radiates. Naked, fresh-scrubbed, practically incandescing with exuberance, she looks like she’s posing for vitamin ads.

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“My humps! My humps! My lovely lady-lumps!” chirps token lady-Pea Fergie, in a squeaky celebration of the ways that high-end, look-but-don’t-touch strippers exploit their exploiters. But while Fergie’s boasts are designed to convey sexy empowerment, the unfortunate combination of her helium-goosed voice and the least erotic euphemism for boobies ever makes it sounds like the Chipmunks doing a public service announcement for Breast Cancer Awareness Week.

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Outside the world of professional journalists and political bloggers, for example, few people want to fact-check Tony Snow's ass, or even know who Tony Snow is. But the number of people who'd like to humiliate their lying, cheating exes? The market for vengeance journalism has no limit.

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Why does Simon's viciousness, which clings to his persona the way his skimpy black T-shirts cling to his plumpish man-rack, come as such a shock to them?