Pun For Your Life
O, the miracle of the internet. Its blessings first became apparent to me back in 1993. That's when I was impressed by how fans of a crappy college-rock band could mobilize themselves from all over America to write outraged hate mail over a regional review. That bold tradition continues today, as a certain Americana drama queen recently took exception to my calling him "un-American"-followed up by proudly going off the record while bragging of his internet band of merry douchebags who'd be organizing to get me fired from New York Press.
Sometimes the tortures are more discreet. I'm at the airport while reading a femme rock critic's mass e-mail promoting her website. I'm innocently looking around her online home when I remember that the note stressed the importance of checking out her updated Links section. This allows me to innocently stumble upon an unsmiling description of myself as a "psycho misogynist freak."
With an unrelated court case pending, I would like to plainly state that any reference to this defendant as "psycho" is both inaccurate and not funny. "Freak" is admittedly valid in a Rick Jamesian sense. And "misogynist" just cuts me to my skinsitive core.
I say "skinsitive," of course, in my role as a true lover of women. It's an unfortunate side effect of praising women every day through that same miracle of the skinternet. I seem to have also developed a compulsive sense of punnery through my work for MrSkin.com. That, however, should offend people of all genders.
Regular listeners to Howard Stern should have no problem recognizing MrSkin.com as the clear leader in the compulsive chronicling of mainstream nude female celebrities. In fact, I've only come across this woman's horrific skinsult while killing time before heading off to Chicago for the book release party for The Mr. Skin Skincyclopedia. That's the debut print edition of the skinvaluable website, as newly published by St. Martin's Griffin. There aren't very many pictures, so it's okay that it needs to be read with two hands.
I'm very grateful for Mr. Skin, since the site gives me an outlet to interview people like Bond girl Lana Wood instead of, say, bong guys like Green Day. I'm also proud that Jim McBride-who serves as the one true Mr. Skin, as heard regularly on Stern and lesser radio shows across the land-is a handsome and articulate man.
The site wouldn't be nearly as popular if McBride was some grotesque guy living in a dark room while surrounded by empty pizza boxes and bootleg videos of the unrated Princess Diaries. So it's all the more obliging that Mr. Skin's henchmen are being let out of the basement for the big book release party. The Skincyclopedia came out at the very start of the year, and it's already proven to be a major asset to the skinpire. Or the skindeavor, if you will. Honestly, I've got a million of them. And a lot of that success can be attributed to how the book doesn't seem to have been written by me.
I'm certainly proud of my own entries, but the guide remains exceptionally readable due to a nice mix of work by ogling obsessives. In that sense, the party at the Level nightclub is kind of a tribute to fanzine geeks made good. New Yorkers who can't suppress the memories will remember Happyland's Mike McPadden, who's finally found a true home with a staff position in the Skin offices-and a new sex site in SexWrecks.com. It's also nice to see former NYC sleaze veteran Peter Landau, who hasn't let the sunny Los Angeles lifestyle keep him from still ruining my evenings by casually throwing out disturbing personal information.
In this case, I inquire if the father of two has a nanny-which Peter mishears and uses as an opportunity to tell me that, no, he isn't married, but he'd be pleased if the mother of his children would join him in matrimony. That'll teach me to make silly assumptions about couples who raise children together and send out Christmas cards of the whole family.
I suppose this remains an improvement over when Peter used to meet me at parties and show me his ex-wife's nude layouts. There's also some fine 90s nostalgia with the presence of my former bosses at Playboy. Aaron Lee also shows up as another former fanzine-loser-made-good. He isn't a Skin contributor because he's too busy enjoying a fabulous career in showbiz, currently in preproduction for his new MTV series that's "a top-secret hybrid comedy mash-up that's way too brilliant and boring to describe."
It'll probably be pretty funny, but not as hilarious as when Aaron looks back on his days printing up Blue Persuasion at Kinko's and says, "I'd like to think I was a winner even then." He's also got plenty of great gossip, most of which I can't report because he's already leaked it to Defamer.com. I like the story about how Jesse Jackson called him a "fucking asshole" at the Playboy mansion, though.
Everyone does a fine job of socializing, especially considering the large screens showing a continual loop of the 50 Greatest Nude Scenes of All Time. Maybe people have become desensitized to the No.1-ranked Phoebe Cates from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but I sure can't converse whenever the action gets around to the all-nude femme football team from H.O.T.S. There's also the slight distraction of two gorgeous gals strolling the club in body painting that does new justice to the Mr. Skin logo.
They have to compete with another force of nature, as the weekend's big snowstorm begins outside of Level's glassed walls. It's surprising that I eventually make it back to the hotel alive. To my surprise, I return to a phone call from the only local Skinema star who I know in Chicago. She's checking in to apologize for not making the party, and politely notes that the snowstorm saved her from giving Skin an implicit endorsement by her presence. She's a typical Skin fave in that regard, having always been a classy screen presence during a short career making films both great and schlocky.
The former actress continues to have fine timing, too. The last time we spoke was immediately after my having another unsettling encounter with a woman from my past-who, come to think of it, I also can't remember even having sex with in a truly technical sense.
"That happens to you a lot, doesn't it?" she asks. "I've learned that not all people look back on things and laugh. Some will always treat things as far more upsetting than the original events warrant. They need to thrive on drama even where it never existed. I'm saying this without really knowing you or anything about your past, but you seem like a nice enough person."
Let the record show that I am clearly a nice enough person. I'll even go slightly further by publicly dissenting on the Skincyclopedia entry for Kathy Bates. The actual bio is appreciative enough, but the write-up of Bates' skinfining moment in About Schmidt is unnecessarily insulting. Never forget that this large lady was really sexy in Men Don't Leave and White Palace. Go rent them and see for yourself. Those misogynists from Playboy didn't believe me, either.