This just in from the Dept. of the Horrible — the Highlands Middle School Show Choir Orlando Trip of 1995 (HMSSCOT1995) is now living and breathing fresh new viruses onto the Internet. And not even the impressive part of the trip (when we festered in the Days Inn swimming pool for three straight hours and did not die), but rather the one song and dance number for which they let Kara and me take over the front row. WHY would you allow me to be in the front row of ANYTHING? I can’t remember if we bullied the director into that or she just felt sorry for us always being stuck in the back.

Gross.

Watch my new shiz, and if you’re out of your mind and really into American Idol, you should go ahead and watch the entire EW.com Idolatry series. It takes less than six hours and Michael Slezak is a total fox!

‘DWTS Talk’ — Season 6 Awards!
Field-testing the Wii Fit
‘Idolatry’ — Final 3 recap
‘Idolatry’ — David vs. David

Check out these “sizzling” behind-the-scenes videos of Conan O’Brien’s EW cover shoot.

Part 1: Conan’s Strike Tips
Part 2: Conan vs. Chimp
Part 3: Conan’s beard is so hot right now

I went to interview Conan O’Brien (and a chimp) two weeks ago on the set of his Entertainment Weekly photo shoot. It took place at what he called a “seedy warehouse” but was in reality a studio in Chelsea. I played with a chimp named Louie, watched Conan “show me fierce” (rest assured he is still in the running towards becoming America’s Next Top Model), and interviewed him — mostly about his gorgeous strike facial hair. It was by far the most awesome thing I’ve done for work… no, actually, in general. It’s all downhill from here, Purple Shirt!

The chimp, honestly, I could give or take. I was astonished to see myself kiss the chimp on the mouth (ewwwww.com) in Part 2 because I don’t remember doing that. I must have blacked out due to my irrational fear of animals.

Bearded wonder Conan O’Brien, though, I absolutely loved. He was so friendly, laid-back, and just effortlessly funny the whole time. I didn’t even want to talk during the interview because I knew everything he said would be funny and was afraid of cutting him off.

Before the cameras rolled he was jokingly complaining that his parents consider his brother the successful one because his brother’s a lawyer, while Conan just has this joke job in “entertainment.” I was like “Yeah, look at what you do…despicable.”

Conan O’Brien! I’m sitting next to him! What the hay-ul?

‘Cause that happened last night, and I’ve been sneezing all day. That’s probably not how allergies work, huh.

More on this later. It involved Conan O’Brien.

New video: NYC “Bee Movie” premiere (feat. Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock!)

“Why are bees funny?”

Good question.

Nice face.

If you were ever going to indulge me and watch just one EW.com video, watch this one because it’s only a minute long, and I buy a baked good.

Lately I’ve been “taking care of some paperwork,” i.e. sorting through 100s of generally worthless digital photos I’ve taken in 2007. A lot are from the subway. Most are outdated. But the above ad for Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), which has bugged me for at least six months now, is still up there in many subway cars. So I’d like to point out how COMPLETELY FAKE (I’m pretty sure) it is.

Right? No way were those four peeps in the same original shot. MAYBE two of them knew each other. The rest is total Photoshop, and by the way thanks Photoshop for making me wonder if this particular school regularly rewards its graduates/fake friends by flinging them into a blurrily distorted pit of flames. (I know metaphorically that’s what all colleges do, but this ad is quite a literal interp of “Welcome to the real world, bitches!”) Too literal, I say. Throw a tree in there or something.

The girl on the left’s in an entirely different LAYER. Who the F was she laughing at in her original photograph? That dude got gypped.

Until about 2005 I used to write that word as “jipped.” I like to think it’s because I’m so inherently not racist against gypsies, but really it’s because I just didn’t know any better. I tend to float along in my own realm, pausing only to point out all the pretty head scarves and giant gumdrops in the ether (they’re there!), so I’ve ended up missing the boat on so many words/phrases that people with merely average IQs all know. “Youth in Asia,” anyone? Ugh. It’s not even funny. I should compose an official list.

At least I know Photoshop terms like “layer.”

My workerbuddy Samantha “Get Your Harm On” Harmon and I encountered this Statue of Liberty impersonator outside the Paramount builidng at 50th and Broadway. I’m not sure which corporation put him up to this — it had to be something, because why would a human decide on his own to don a rubber suit plus crown in 99-degree heat? It could have been that stupid restaurant behind/under him, Mars 2112, because they’re always up to something idiotic on the sidewalk. Would that mean the Statue of Liberty can now be classified as an alien creature? I say yes.

Anyway, the guy waves to us as we stagger by, hardly able to breathe despite our adorable, barely there summer outfits, and I chirp out a hearty Heidi Klum-esque “HELL-O!” I thought that’d be it. But then, inexplicably, Sam whirls around, post-pass, to make the nonchalant comment, “You must be really hot.” He nods. Awkward silence, and then she whips out: “Sorry!” and keeps walking.

This was one of Sam’s finer moments and the first pictorial evidence of her on DR. It was a big day for both of us.

What? It’s 99 degrees. I can barely bring myself to drag my finger to the “Publish” button.

OHHHHH SNAP I just did.

UPDATE: The longer I stare at that guy the more I think he just does this every day on different corners, because unless that big blue bucket is filled with ice water, it’s his change cup. Look at the size of that thing. How much change does he think he’s gonna get?

Same with clothes.

This is DR’s “colleague” Michael Slezak, trying to ignore the somewhat jarring Bolton’s window display at his right. I wouldn’t use this photo, but I’m positive he’ll never see it, so it doesn’t matter. Consider this a test to see if he knows I have a blog.

He is perhaps reaching for a gun?

I’m wondering if anyone has ever been inside a Bolton’s. This is a store I know I’ve seen 100s of times and in different NYC locations, but never once have I acknowledged it as a store I might enter. Why? It’s not this window display’s fault — I find the warped attempt at a sweeping social statement bizarrely endearing. I think it’s that the fancy script in the logo reminds me of Lord & Taylor, and judging by the shit in the window or lack thereof, Bolton’s is nowhere near L&T. Why am I suddenly pro-L&T? I haven’t been there in seven years. I bought earrings that I lost the next night.

This font is so much kookier!
“Heeeeeeeeey girlie girl, I’m Lord & Taylor, shop me up, holla!”

The “W” in the Bolton’s photo is part of “LATE SHOW.”

PERSPECTIVE, what up?

—

UPDATE: In honor of my surprising triumph with this post (thanks to Slezak having a google alert for his OWN NAME), DR proudly presents its first installment of Listen2This:

Calling All Boys — The Flirts

This one’s a bopper!

Check out these two episodes of Idolatry — live from Central Park! — on EW.com.

Part 1: “She had a lot of guttural, you know… errrrnh!” Please don’t speak.
Part 2: Dancin’ Dawnie, M-Sleaze, and I attempt to Blakedance.

Bonus: Hot dogs are involved. All right!

I’ve been gazing at this Special K ad, across the street from my office, all winter. I’ve had it. Get this through your numbskulls, snowmen: You look so much better fat! You’re not SNOWMEN if you’re not fat. I pick Snowman #2 as the one who looks Just Right. The emaciated tools on the far right, thankfully out of focus, shouldn’t even exist in someone’s mind, let alone ON THE SIDE OF A BUILDING.

Phooey!

Happy spring.

I honestly almost bent down and did it for them. But then they would have gotten all AFRAID and flown away, and I’d be the girl pawing at a stranger’s abanonded lunch on the sidewalk. Plus, those filthy animals are probably carrying diseases. Not to mention the diseases of the original pizza-eater / sinner. And the fact that I’d be diverting my usually slow and lazy strolling path to cross the street and interact with pigeons. What would the other humans have thought?! They’d pass by giving me dirty looks, to which I’d snarl “They were missing the best part!”

This is totally something I’d have done if I was walking with a companion. I’d make it this big to-do, like “Just watch me go help out those pigeons” and she’d say “Okay…” while thinking “You’re disgusting and I’m never leaving the building in your company again.”

It also appears that during that moment of weakness, I forgot about how much I hate pigeons and they hate me.

Just went to the Tower Records at Lincoln Center and bought the biggest crack pile of CDs to ever exist. This is quite unlike me, as I download most of my music or get it in “zip”-like packets from my roommate over the IM. I used to own lots of CDs, but I dumped them all into my computer and that was that. They’re all stowed away in my childhood room in Illinois, probably under the bed, next to the terrifying Ouija Board I refused to remove when I was 11 because that would mean I’d be acknowledging it, and I couldn’t bring myself to even do that.

Plus, this way, no one has to see Even More Dazed and Confused or every single Jock Jams compilation of the late ’90s on my bookshelves. They’d need to scan through my iPod to find gems like those. And some do.

After thumbing through my friend TG’s even bigger pile of garbage from Tower (which is going out of business in four days) the other night, I suddenly ached for the return of useless but incredibly amusing compilation CDs to my “collection” and made the big trek uptown to the store. Keep in mind there are ZERO good CDs with more than one song by the same artist left at Tower. (Fine, there probably are, but I had like 20 minutes. I made it to the mid-Cs and had to give up.)

But the compilations aisle? Totally different story. If you can manage to ignore the jutting greasy-jacketed elbows of guys who cannot thumb through row upon row of, alternatingly, Punk-Rock of ‘94 and The Emo Diaries: Chapters 4 and 7 fast enough (at one point I feigned interest in Freestyle Hits 1 just to dangle my hair in one guy’s line of sight, thereby completely annihilating his flow), I highly recommend it.

Among the gems I picked out:

SMOKIN BEATS: 40 Phat Joints and Smooth Rolling Beats (pictured, above). Subtitle? “A funky mix of laid-back grooves.” But what are they trying to say? What should I do while I listen to this music?

Spirit of Ecstasy: 20 Pumpin’ Club Hits. What?! Who am I and what have I done with Annie?

Fresh Dance 93: 18 of the most juicy hand picked hits. Another essential collection. Way to copy edit that title, too! Turns out they were indeed referring to the year 1993, which in no way explains the inclusion of “Long Train Runnin’” by the Doobie Brothers.

Fresh Hits Volume 1. That’s it. That’s the whole title. It could honestly be anything. That’s the thing with this aisle — you really need to give everything a flip and check it out. This is a 2-CD (most of them are!) collection of songs in the late ’90s by people like O.D.B., Pink, Christina Aguilera, and S Club 7, i.e. songs I should be cynically aware of now that I work at an entertainment magazine, but was too far submerged in a quicksand-like Electric Light Orchestra obsession to even register. There’s also a Moloko song on there, which is weird, but that’s 50% of why I bought it.

The Sound of Europe. They got it all onto one CD. Amazing!

The 70s: Hits From the Underground. I have no idea why. I’m sorry. It has Jefferson Airplane and something called “Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band.” I had to.

Anyway, seriously, if you have a deep-rooted affinity for compilation CDs that absolutely never needed to be produced but were, check out Tower Records in the next few days. Even if it’s labeled $34.99, it’s probably $3.

Who does this?

I wanted to cry.

And it wasn’t even mine.

If your breakfast sandwich goes splat and you can’t bear to touch it again, the least you can do is kick it onto the tracks. Then other commuters don’t have to look at it and get even hungrier. Plus, rats just love bacon.egg.and.cheese.

Despite there being 20,000 other places for me to stand and wait for the train, I ended up leaning against the column nearest the breakfast sandwich (BS). Each minute was sadder and sadder. Out of anything to show up in my life at that moment, why did it have to be a destroyed BS? I mourned the wasted food, the pain the BS must have suffered from the shock, and the fact that I wasn’t currently eating it. I could even smell the bacon. That bacon looks crunchy.

I even played a challenging mind game wherein I counted out how long I could look away from the BS until my eyes darted back again. (19 seconds.) That was fun, especially the self-loathing periods right after I caved.

Wait, is that shredded lettuce? What kind of BS is this? I call bullshit.

The new Crocodile Lounge on 14th Street (a spinoff of Williamsburg’s Alligator Lounge) serves a crappy personal pizza with every beer ordered.

No way.

Way.

Having been brought along by in-the-know pals, I sat there refusing to believe that I’d landed myself in such a perfect situation until I had proof of pizza. Maybe my friends had gotten lucky on a one-night-special. Or maybe, since it was after 2:30 am, the oven would have shut down. But no: minutes after ordering beers… we each got a pizza accompanied by a wicker basket of sprinklings.

The quality of the pizza was exceedingly low. It tasted like something you’d buy at the concession stand of a high school gym or suburban ice rink, when you’re depressed that life has led you to this lame event and so you try to make things better with a pizza even you know is going to be truly awful.

The “crust” was maybe a few milimeters thin, a measurement which decreased with every second because the grease on top of it eventually just seeped right the F on through. When I picked up a “slice,” the triangular end automatically drooped at a 90-degree angle towards the floor, as if to say “Look, I’m not really pizza.”

This is not something anyone should eat. And yet, because it was right in front of me and available, I found the entire situation miraculous.

…but I’ll never get out of the kitchen. That’s where the food is!

I’m going to see Madonna’s “Confessions Tour” tonight, on the hottest day of the summer. Wait for the awesome part: Madonna won’t allow air conditioning at Madison Square Garden because it affects her singing voice. She’s just not havin’ it with the ventilation. Apparently people at her last concert here were removed on stretchers. That sounds like so much fun.

I’m personally going to the show more for the spectacle than Madonna’s singing voice, but props to her for being a bad enough bitch to have the power to do this. “This” meaning possibly killing thousands of her adoring fans. I don’t function in heat, so even if there are only a few fatalities at the show, you better believe I’ll be one of them.

Other possible tombstone taglines:

“Come on, Get Together for your last photo with Annie”
“Sorry”
“In the evidence of her brilliance” (HA!)
“She Loved New York”
“Forbidden Love: Were Annie and Cheetos supposed to be together?”
“There’s only so much you can learn in one place”
“How High? High as hell.”
“Heart Failed (in the Back of a Concert)”

—

That was totally fun.

If you’re not rolling on the floor laughing your ass off at my tombstone taglines, rest assured: it’s because all but one of them are references to “Confessions on a Dance Floor.” It’s cool if you didn’t know that. We can’t all die at a Madonna concert, you know. People need to choose their own battles and just go for the gold. Just DIE already!

Anyway, a final farewell to all. I love you.

(Anyone else digging this centered text?)

I’m melting… just watch me burn.

Behold my sandwich from Bagel Hole in Park Slope. Mmm… mayo.

Since it took seemingly forever to make, I busied myself by reading the obligatory PR wall. Every bagel store in New York seems to have a wall like this, featuring articles in all sorts of NYC papers about why their particular style of bagel is the tastiest or most authentic. What’s hilarious is that even though each store makes a different bagel, there’s always at least one posted article claiming that this store’s specimen is the best. Which consequently means there have been, like, thousands of articles written about bagels. Which is funny. Bagel journalism is certainly one of the more democratic sub-fields. I should go into chips journalism. I’d be a hit.

Anyway, I learned all about how and why Bagel Hole’s bagels were harder, denser, and smaller than other NYC bagels-come-lately. Good to know, I guess, but mostly I just wanted to avoid eye contact with the three bored employees behind the counter staring at me like they’d never seen a giant girl wearing a bandana before. Dudes. It’s called refusing to shower just to go to the bagel store/hole. Get used to it.

So I was intrigued by what I assumed would be a tiny little bagel sandwich. I unwrapped it and thought was plenty big. Right? But the issue here is that lettuce. Would you look at that beautifully shredded lettuce? You could lose yourself in a delighted counting exercise of those shreds. I did.

What a glorious surprise. I love lettuce like this. It makes you supremely aware that you’re eating lettuce. That someone took the time to grate teeeeny strips of lettuce for your sandwich. That you’re a genius for ordering it in the first place. Clean and crisp. LETTUCE!

Or maybe that’s just me.

For fun, try singing “1-800 L-E-T-T-U-C-E” like those women from Jersey (I’m assuming) who sing “1-800 M-A-T-T-R-E-S” in the mattress commercial.

I didn’t really need to specify “in the mattress commercial.” It was just to prove to you that I know how to spell mattress, even if the jingle doesn’t.

(The runner-up title for this post was “DR hits an all-time low.”)

Note to bakers: Any dessert product more than an inch thick and consisting largely of yellow cake… is not a cookie. It can’t be, because it has already committed itself to being cake. No take-backs! You can’t be a cookie once you are a cake. I’m sorry.

I understand that it’s fun for people to write, sell, order, or just say out loud the name “black and white cookie,” because the dessert is a longstanding New York City/Seinfeld fetish object and, in theory, delicious. Like any other hack, I started ordering them in every deli I entered as soon as I moved here three years ago. They never tasted as good as Jerry made them sound, but I thought if I got different ones from better places, the problem would work itself out. I never found a perfect one — in fact, since I started eating them again a few weeks ago, I’ve been mostly shocked and disappointed.

My main problem is the thickness. The B&W C is different at most delis/bakeries, so you never know how thick yours will come out. You usually have to order it having only seen it lying face-up behind glass. That thing could be anything! ANYTHING! Usually it’s a black and white cake. Once I got a black and white cake and a spider. (This did not deter me from returning, because I really liked, and still like, that place’s bagel sandwiches.)

In college, my friend Kate used to lower her voice whenever she ordered the Boston Beef panini sandwich, one of the finer offerings at our esteemed “Hillside Cafe” dining hall. She confided in me (which turned out to be a not-so-hot idea, as I’m in the process of outing her) that she’d always start the order off in her usual boisterous, upbeat voice and then self-consciously taper off when she got to the part about the meat: “I’LL HAVE A boston beef.” This delighted me to no end, and I’d constantly ask her to repeat it for me. Sometimes she’d even type it out like that over IM, which wasn’t as awesome but still pretty funny. What a good friend.

Likewise, in the delis, I’ve taken to saying “I’LL HAVE A BLACK AND WHITE cookie,” not really wanting to say the word “cookie” but knowing that the person will be confused or think I’m a smartass if I call it anything else. I’d love to, but I’d probably not have the energy to request “that thing that everyone calls a cookie but is totally a cake… I mean, do you know what I mean? Don’t you ever just want to scream at customers that it’s actually cake? DON’T YOU?” I never say this — because I’m guessing they really don’t.

I just think if they’re going to sell black and white cake, they should call it that. And they should also make a real black and white cookie that’s half an inch thick or less and chewy instead of crumbly and flaky. Cookies are chewy. I don’t know if you guys got the memo.

Right? If they sold both, everyone would be satisfied, and people like me who are thrilled by the black and white dessert’s general existence would be in heaven. We’d get to choose! Because maybe you’re in the mood for cake. I don’t know, and I don’t judge. You can have your cake, and I can eat my cookie, too.

Just so you don’t think this post is unfounded and completely pointless (too late for that), here is pictorial evidence of a different and deeper B&W C than the one at the top. This one had to be at least three inches thick. Its physical properties were approaching the spherical. I kept thinking that if I wanted a black and white cake shaped like a mini-basketball, I would have asked for that. I was so annoyed by the cake’s depth that I ended up just eating the part I wanted (the icing) and not much else. This wouldn’t have happened if it had truly been a cookie. Think about it!

This dessert should know that I only criticize it because I love it so much and think it has so much potential, but…

I Call Bullshit on the black and white cookie!

P.S. I’ve already read the scads of Web pages about the history of the B&W C. I’m well aware that the cookie-as-cake phenomenon is common knowledge and that its original form is beloved by many just as it is. I’m simply suggesting that history be rewritten and improved upon according to my whimsy. It’s no big deal.

This might be the greatest thing I’ve ever composed. And it doesn’t even involve writing. I am foraying into different mediums. I’m a MEDIUM HOPPER! The project involves the “Dance Friday” segment on the CBS Morning News in NYC. If you’re as ridiculous as me, it should keep you entertained for at least a few hours. Or maybe 3:57. This is an educated guess.

PLEASE be patient while it loads. I promise it’s worth it!

Apologies in advance for horrible digital-camera image quality.