A Little of the Old In and Out


Above: Fucking disgusting. Burt, a cigarillo and a bear skin rug. This image has been scientifically proven to curb the appetite better than crack cocaine.

In: Burt Reynolds Sues Ex. The Corsair is not going to lie to you, folks: this is ugly. As ugly as you might expect a Burt Reynolds-in-his-twilight-years preemptive palimony-type lawsuit filed in something called Jupiter, Florida might be. The man chews bubblegum in his televised interviews, ferchrissakes. (The Corsair rolls up his sleeves, wipes brow, sips iced tea and "straight shoots") This is the man who openly bragged in his lamentable autobiography that he cheated on Sally Field with Candace Bergen! More information than we need to know is shared in this landmark precedent setting case of "Trailer versus Trailer". No, there are no actual trailer parks specifically involved, but this whole escapade has about it whiffs of chewing tobacco.

Let us say this at the outset -- Nothing about Burt Reynolds suggests glamor, lets just get that out of the way. Burt Reynolds is the caliber of man that would cut a sonorous fart at a Bar Mitzvah, just to get some conversation going. He's old school like that. According to Ananova:

"Burt Reynolds is suing his former girlfriend (ed note: eew), alleging she threatened to falsely accuse him of abuse if he didn't pay her millions of dollars.

"The lawsuit claims Pamela Seals lied when she said Reynolds shouted at her and stomped on her toes reports IMDb.com"

The rest of the poop is here.

Out: Julia Roberts. One of my closest friends, Gabriel, and a younger incarnation of myself both competed for the attentions of this red headed lady several years ago. In the end, the old boy won her heart -- no hard feelings -- and proceeded, in the course of a single summer, to have one of the most heated relationships and intense breakups known to man.

One season later, in the autumn, my heartbroken buddy and I shared a whiskey in a lower east side dive bar roughly 4 years ago to this day, and I asked him, hugely buzzed, what he got out of the relationship in the end, and he replied, equally plastered, "never fall in love with a copper top."

Sage advice. Julia Roberts, at the final trimester of her pregnancy, is reverting to the copper top prototype -- hot tempered, surly, full of beans -- according to that significant cultural artifact, The National Enquirer:

"Stressed-out Julia Roberts, confined to her hospital bed because of life-threatening problems with her pregnancy, had a meltdown after she missed her baby shower and was told she wouldn't get out to celebrate her birthday, say sources.

"'I'll be damned if I'm not home for my birthday,' she hissed."

The Corsair leaps back, trembling.

"Sources tell The ENQUIRER exclusively that the angry outburst came just days after the superstar was rushed to the hospital in early labor on October 22 to save her unborn twins. The life or death drama was broken exclusively by The ENQUIRER, the only publication to reveal ALL the details of what happened.

"While Julia was in the hospital her tantrum was triggered when her cameraman husband left her side to work on the Showtime show, 'Pryor Offenses."'"

"'Julia was fuming as Danny went off,' said a source close to the actress.

"'Then her mother Betty flew home to Atlanta and her sister Lisa went back to New York. She was left with just the hospital staff to care for her. She was furious.'"

The Corsair shudders.

In: Howard Dean to head the DNC? According to the AP:

"Former presidential candidate Howard Dean is considering a bid to become chairman of the national Democratic Party.

"Steve Grossman, himself a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Dean had told him he was thinking about it.

"Dean was traveling today in New York and unavailable for comment. His spokeswoman, Laura Gross, said `it was far too early to be speculating on that.'"

No it's not. Brilliant idea, by the way. One of Kerry's major blunders -- will he get a chance to make more? -- is that he kept Bill Clinton's monkeyboy Terry MCauliffe on instead of firing his incompetent ass.

Out: Halo 2. Blockbusters do not make $100 million in their first day. But then we are an attention deficit disorder culture, so video games are the new art form, more dominant than film, as they require less attention to master:

"First-day sales of Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT - news) new video game Halo 2 will reach $100 million, a senior Microsoft games executive said on Tuesday.

"'I'm calling a $100 million day on Halo today,' Peter Moore, a corporate vice president in Microsoft's games division, said at a Harris Nesbitt investment conference in New York."

The Corsair is calling it the decline of the West.

In: Truffles. Let's end with something refined and elegant, like the highly poetic french masking the iron logic of Descartes La Geometrie -- but what could compete? The Corsair has to go with nature's noblest culinary creation, namely-- truffles:

"New York restaurateur Francesco Giambelli dished out a record $41,000 for a 2.4-pound prize Italian white truffle, auction organizers said Monday.

"The 85-year-old, who owns Giambelli 50th on New York's East Side, beat off an unnamed opponent in Moscow to claim the largest truffle ever to be sold at an auction, auction director Davide Paolini said.

"'It was very aggressive,' he said. 'No one has ever paid this much for a truffle.'
"Considered a delicacy since Roman times, truffles are a fungus that forms in symbiosis with tree roots. Italy's white truffles sell for around 10 times the price of France's black variety.

"The auction was held Sunday evening in a castle in northwestern Italy and restaurants in New York and Moscow, all connected by a satellite link."

How suave is that?