the 941

What’s your vote worth to Hillary Clinton? How about as little as $27.16?

• Curious about the decision-making (or lack thereof) in the Bush White House prior to the invasion of Iraq? You (and future historians) are not going to read any of the 10 million e-mails that were supposed to be archived. Can anyone say cover up?

• Still hankering for the truth about the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal? Still want to see some of the decision-makers held accountable? Well, you are going to be disappointed by the new film “Standard Operating Procedure.” At least that what one Army intelligence officer had to say.

• Today’s first entry in the annals of “Abuse of Police Power.” Yes, this man was arrested for failing to use his turn signal.

• The second entry. Yes, this farmer was arrested for selling milk.

• One cheeky Australian fellow has been improving his nation’s roadsides, one new traffic sign at a time.

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Stanley Tucci is one busy thespian. We said it in last week’s Sarasota Film Fest-tastic issue, after chatting with the actor-director-writer-producer who’s in town to pick up an award and present his new film, Blind Date. And now we’re saying it again. Tucci is so busy, that we almost didn’t speak to him at all. After several white-knuckled moments of missed calls and messages left, we were kinda freaked out that we would never reach him.

Fortunately, the Tooch came through (we call him that — we’re close friends now, if only in our minds) and our interview went off without a hitch. But the possibility of having to revert to Plan B — a cover story without the participation of the in-demand gentleman himself — got us thinking:
 
Where in the world is Stanley Tucci?
 
Now that disaster has been averted, we find ourselves still wanting to know. So, we’d like your help in paying a very Loafy tribute to the one, the only, the Tucci. If you are so blessed to find yourself in the presence of his greatness and holding a digital camera, snap a few shots of your close encounter and send them to us. We’ll post our favorites. 
 
Just remember: Stalk respectfully and for the love of God, don’t touch the Tooch.

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It’s official, folks. The one, the only Joel Rozen  - beloved Creative Loafing Staff Writer, Christina Aguilera zealot, and lounge-singing titan - is departing these here regions to get his writer on in Cambodia. In case you don’t have a map handy, that’s a ridiculously long way away, so we want to send him off with countless memories and, if he’s fortunate, just a few regrets.

With that in mind, we hope you’ll join us for a rip-roaring karaoke hootenanny this evening at the Cabana Inn on the Trail, with festivities beginning in the 10-ish hour. And yes, the little brother I always wanted - and will miss dearly - and I have a duet in the works. Blonde bombshell new mommies are encouraged to drop by.

X-Tina, this means you.

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Feeling a little down this Friday morning? Fast forward to the 2:44 mark, sit back and revel in the glorious, glorious awkwardness of international diplomacy.

And if that doesn’t work, there’s apparently a little awkwardness involved in hanging street signs, too.

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riends, countrymen: Of feta and crosses I sing.
I sing of honor and religion, and a special, special blessing, and many long processions and too much Greek dancing, and of 15,000 people who gathered in Tarpon on a late Sunday morning.
In Tarpon they watched as 59 brothers all dove together, for that special blessing, from His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios, a coveted honor.
In Tarpon they watched as one man-child found the cross, the cross of wood and metal, cast into the Spring Bayou, for he was the Chosen, who deserved the Jesus blessing, and they knew he was a hero, because he found the cross faster, and declared him their victor.
And so I sing of victory, which looks something like this:

Dashing, ain’t he? Introducing 18-year-old Chris Kavouklis, senior at Tampa’s Jesuit High and retriever of the 2008 Epiphany cross.
I’ll spare you another round of dactylic epic verse — they’re as exhausting now as they were in high school Latin class! — to say in plain prose that this weekend, I hit the mother lode of quirky cultural events.

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You heard right: On Thanksgiving, I bid a solemn adieu to one of my nastiest (but longest-lived) habits of all time, and gave up smoking for good.

So far, I’ve made it past the horrible first three days of withdrawal and up to Day 12. It’s been a loooooooong 12 days. Still, frazzled as I am, I’ve been feeling quite proud of myself lately and remain determined to emerge from this whole, painful, meth-addict-on-Intervention-style experience a changed man.

So introducing a brand new Joel, y’all. A Joel who dances a little faster and laughs a little louder; a Joel who has no scruples talking in third-person or being just a wee bit smarter than you. A Joel who has no problem subjecting the masses to his newfound self-righteousness; a Joel willing to…

…Oh Jesus Christ I fucking need a cigarette.

Sound like a Joel you wanna meet? You can read more about my own, private war against nicotine in this week’s upcoming issue. Or you can simply sit back, take a load off, and enjoy the harmonious sounds of me lisping my way through a podcast interview with the formidable Brian Ries:

Download link

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So how was your day, kids?

 

+Start of a new school year for area youngsters: Added mandatory hours of PE, college-style majors for high schoolers, post-winter break exams. Best years of your life, we promise. [Herald-Tribune]

+”‘This was our Super Bowl,’ Disney Channel Worldwide Entertainment president Gary Marsh told Variety.” [Mercury News]

+Can anthropology, biochemistry and the length of your ring finger help predict your online dating success? (Not as perverted as it sounds.) [Salon.com]

+Curved claws have I,/But I have been sold like a fattened sheep. Gitmo poetry in analysis. [Slate]

+The Cruise curse? [AP movie wire]

+Them Serbs do the darnedest things: “‘There’s a good chance he was drunk or drugged. Only an idiot would jump into the bear cage,’ zoo director Vuk Bojovic told Reuters.” [cnn/Reuters]

+Beware the Boeing 737. [Forbes.com]

+Is he or isn’t he?  If Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell et al. follow through with phase two of the Tribune buyout tomorrow, it could mean more massive debt for the paper. But those plans could just as easily fizzle, some say. (Of course, you know who your friends are when the Trib hits the skids.) [NY Times]

+We can’t figure out what’s more awesome: 1) that Foxy Brown finally got called out for the “idiot” she is (and by a drugstore employee!), or 2) that the number of comments earned by Gawker’s post on the subject “passed the 2,500 mark” this morning. [Gawker]

+Giddyap! [sptimes]

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Recently, we’ve been reaping the rewards of quasi dog ownership. (That’s quasi ownership, not ownership of some sort of half-dog hybrid.) Anyway, we take this dog that’s not really ours on walks most days, and most days someone will stop us. Often, the person who stops us is attractive. Pretty, even. And pretty people tend not to stop us on the street to say hi.

Though our quasi-dog (there we go again) is actually owned by a friend, less-lucky folks now have the opportunity to experience the pleasures of dog ownership without the hassle of actually owning a dog. FlexPetz, a new dog-rental service, says its ideal clients travel a lot or live in dog-unfriendly apartments or are too old to provide care, but we’re pretty sure their main clientele are guys looking to meet pretty people on the sidewalk.

As of now, FlexPetz is only in the biggies, but who knows? If we can have a doggie masseuse, maybe Sarasota’s next on the list.

Unless, of course, somebody convinces these people that dogs aren’t DVDs. Then the proverbial jig may be up.

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Virtuoso drummer Max Roach died this morning. We’ll let others speak to his unparalleled career, and just offer this memory: Sophmore year of college, we saw Roach play a two-man show with avant garde saxaphonist Anthony Braxton. We’ve never seen anyone enjoy something as much as Max Roach enjoyed playing drums that night.

He was 83.

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photo by nullO.

This gentleman is Dr. Nick Bostrom, the director of Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute, which may just be the most ambitious name in thinktank history. Best we can tell, this guy is the either most normal crazy person we’ve ever encountered, a God to stoned high schoolers everywhere, or both. Either way, we adore him.

Dr. Bostrom, you see, thinks we’re living in The Matrix. Well, not The Matrix exactly, but something pretty damn close. Assuming that future humans, or “posthumans” as he calls them, will invent a supercomputer more powerful than the collective intelligence of the entire planet, the good doctor believes it’s quite likely these folks will develop incredibly intricate video games. It’s like Sims, or Second Life — except, you know, us.

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