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Actress Laura Harring vs Jeffrey Wells vs Razor Magazine

Actress Laura Harring (Miss World 1985) got journalist Jeff Wells bounced from writing a profile of her in Craig Vasiloff's Razor Magazine.

Wells has written three pieces in Razor -- one on Stanley Kubrick, one on the Wachowski brothers (who directed the Matrix movies) and one on Tara Reid.

Editor Craig Vasiloff assigned the piece to Jeffrey through his assistant, managing editor Allison Young.

Razor's editorial operation is out of Toronto while its head office is in Scottsdale, Arizona, the home of the money behind the magazine, Richard Botto, a former pornographer (KarasXXX.com and Maxcash.com).

I worked for Craig from January 1999 to March 2000 and we've had cordial relations since. I used to chat on the phone with Allison and I met her in Las Vegas in January 2000. We all stayed at the Bellagio.

For years, Craig had an idea for a men's magazine like Razor and once he met Richard Botto, he finally got to make it a reality.

I had a run-in with the Bottos in late 2000.

Jeff Wells met with Laura at a Coffee Bean on Friday, December 5.

Wells ran into Chris McGurk of MGM at a breakfast Wednesday. Chris said she was a hot tamale. She's a pistol. Call up Jules Haimowitz, president of Dick Clark Productions. He used to date Laura on-and-off for 18 months though they never slept together.

Jeff calls Haimowitz. This is standard for any movie star profile. You call people who know your subject to round out the profile.

Wells interviewed director Jonathan Hensleigh of 2004's The Punisher, in which Laura appears.

Jeff showed her his notes from his interviews.

Laura dances beautifully (salsa and tango).

She tried to use her little actress tricks. She claimed her birthday was in 1967 when IMDB has it as 1964.

Wells turned in a piece typical of his moviepoopshoot.com column with an extra emphasis on frat boy randiness as Razor is a frat boy magazine. Razor wanted something drier and more complimentary, like Esquire's "women we love" pieces but at 1500 words.

Razor told Wells to take out all judgment, all colloquialisms, all frat boy attitude. Just make it a nice polite complimentary piece, which Jeff believes he did.

Jeff didn't write the nasty truth about her -- that her career is not going to go anywhere. She had that one flare-up with Mulholland Drive and the cool lesbian scene.

Laura got her manager Evans to call up Razor and get Wells booted from the piece with only a $150 kill fee (for a $1500 piece). Wells spent four days on the piece and thinks a fairer kill fee would be 50% of the original fee of $1500.

Wells told Evans, the manager, that this is par for the course for a manager to manipulate the editorial direction of a piece. We all know publicists and managers choose writers, veto writers...

Jeff feels that Razor should've told him that the fix was in on this piece and all they wanted was a sweetheart piece. Wells doesn't need a Razor magazine piece on Laura Harring as a vehicle for personal expression.

Jeff sent Evans the piece.

"Razor has never even edited me before and now they suddenly say I can't write," says Jeff.

Harring was alarmed that Jeff called her purported boyfriend Jules Haimowitz. Well, it was this boyfriend who planted the idea that Harring was a reincarnation of Rita Hayworth.

Rolling Stone hasn't used Jeffrey Wells for over a year after he published a piece in the magazine based on the highly-guarded script of the future edition of The Matrix (at RS's request). Matrix producer Joel Silver got angry and called RS. Its publisher Jann Wenner has since blackballed Jeffrey.

Craig Vasiloff, editor of Razor Magazine responds:

Hey Luke...

Have to say that Jeff seems to want to throw a lot of mud around as indicated below but the facts just aren't true.

I assigned the interview to Wells and asked that he profile Laura in a complimentary and informative piece -- she is our cover model. What was turned in was an angry and defamatory piece that was written in 'frat-boy' style with an emphasis on sex. I simply was not interested in its tone or in its execution.

Jeff did write some good stuff for us - his Kubrick piece was very well done but we have had to edit him and ask for multiple rewrites on other pieces such as our Tara Reid profile.

That said I debated over this submission before finally deciding yesterday that is was just not up to Well's abilities nor the quality of the magazine.

I never received a call from Laura's manager but had I - I would have to agree that the piece was not a very good one.

That said - Laura will grace our February cover in a story I am writing myself. It is our Then & Now issue and we look back at Fear in America, fashion, music and more!

You really have to read the fantastic music piece Levon Helm wrote about his days in The Band!

Even The Nights Are Better

I gave a long elaborate speech to the two ladies checking me in at Mishna and Martinis this week at the University of Judaism.

My punchline? "And now, even the nights are better."

Pause. I look in their eyes for signs of recognition. Nothing.

Time for a final hint. "That sounds like a song."

Girl: "Air Supply."

Ahh, you smiled and I reached out to you. I could tell you were lonely too. One look, then it all began for you and me. The moment that we touched, I knew that there would be two less lonely people in the world and it's going to be fine. Out of all the people in the world, I just can't believe you're mine. In my life where everything went wrong, now something finally went right.

Just to think, what I might have missed. Looking back, how did I exist? I dreamed but still I never thought I'd come this far.

Judaism -- My Best Instrument For Measuring My Depravity

"I'm concerned that the word might get back to the rabbis that I'm a man of dubious morals."

Joseph Joyrides writes:

Luke--you ARE a man of dubious morals. Don't hide it from the rabbis, or they won't trust you at all. So are we all who practice a religion with fervor.

Adhering to a religion as best you can does not make you a riteous man at all--it only means that you are honest enough to be acquainted with your own turpitude.

I practice Catholicism for the same reason Graham Greene did--it's the best instrument I can find against which I can measure my own depravity. Good luck with your instrument of choice.

You mean religion is not primarily a vehicle for helping me love myself a little more?

XXX-Communicated

Luke, I finished the book--all of it--and I can say this much: you are one self-destructive ---. You remind me (more or less) of the title character from Philip Roth's "Sabbath's Theatre."

What follows are a number of comments (off the top of my head) about what I think you need to do if you want to get this thing published.

Put all the personal material in one brief introductory chapter. Just enough to tell people who you are and what you've been doing since you got involved with ----. Go easy on the Jewish stuff. A little goes a long way. And all the stuff about your relationships, etc. detracts from the main story, which should be about the industry, not you. (I'm not saying this material isn't interesting. Much of it was--to me. I just can't imagine a mainstream editor buying it.)

Don't undercut your credibility by saying that you've published lies, or unconfirmed rumors, or that people tell you that you can't write, that you have mental health problems, or that nobody wants to talk to you, etc. Take it all out. Concentrate on telling The Story of ----.

The best part of the book is the transcripts of interviews, phone calls, radio shows, etc. (I'm sure you have a lot more than what I've seen.) You have to figure out how best to organize it--by topic or chronologically. And the only way to do that is play around with material and let it speak for itself. Some commentary is needed for context, to fill in the blanks, etc. But keep it to a minimum and--I repeat--keep yourself out of it as much as possible.

Your strong points are your ability to get publicity; that you're a recognized expert on the industry; and that you already have a book out on the subject. You need to work all this into a proposal and an outline of the whole book. And you need to put together a writing sample: your strongest 25 pages of interviews, etc., with minimal commentary. Double-space it and number consecutively from beginning to end. Take a look at Legs McNeil's book "Please Kill Me." It's an oral history of punk.

Shocked, Shocked

I was having lunch with a journalist today. A Conservative rabbi and an Orthodox rabbi who'd just dined together looked at me as they walked out. The Conservative rabbi beamed. The Orthodox rabbi had disgust battling with courtesy crossing his features.

Journalist: "Are you shocked that such a patrician figure as attorney Bert Fields is caught up in this Anthony Pellicano-wiretapping story?"

I laugh uproariously. "I'm as shocked as I was over dinner this week when I found out from a secular Jewish girl that Orthodox guys have tried to put their meat dishes in her dairy cabinet."

But What Blessing Did He Intone?

Cathy Seipp writes: "Cecile and I spent a nice long late afternoon yesterday talking to one of our new correspondents, a very fine man and Orthodox Jew we met through Levi -- or Luke, as he's known when masquerading as the Bruce Wayne-ish, dissolute playboy millionaire and "Industry" expert. Will he go to heaven or the place below? That strange, conflicted Aussie schmo. Afterwards, our new friend said a barucha over Cecile's head, right there in the Beverly Connection Starbucks. I wonder how often that happens."

'Get You Over A Table'

I had dinner with a lady at a nice kosher restaurant last night.

I'm concerned. The place is owned by people I know. And every time I've frequented the establishment, it has been with a different woman. I'm concerned that the word might get back to the rabbis that I'm a man of dubious morals.

Within five minutes of meeting last night, I was telling my new friend that I'd "long wanted to get her over a table." To my shock and awe, she interpreted this as a lewd remark, when all I meant was dinner and polite conversation about this week's Torah portion.

Jackie writes:

I was walking through Tottenham (an area of north London that is heavily populated with Jews) last night, and spotted an Orthodox family waiting to cross the road. The father, who looked to be in his early 50s, looked particularly harassed and annoyed by the gulf of goyim football fans who were swarming his community on a cold winter's night.

I have to say, I didn't look at him and think, "Well, I guess that'll be Luke in another decade." I did think of you, though, and wondered whether single men of a certain age get unsavoury reputations in Orthodox circles. More unsavoury than yours already is, I mean. Do you think the people of your shul think you're not just choosy or unable to commit, but perhaps homosexual? If they did, how would you prove them wrong?

You are right all round. All I can do is pray, observe the Torah, and bring as many women as possible to my shul. How can I help it that my soul is so in love with the Torah that it is hard for me to settle down with a woman?

Jackie, if only you would get with me, it would raise my social standing.

Jackie replies: "I like that line! I think it would work on girls with very low self-esteem. Have you tried trolling beauty pageants? Beautiful girls with no sense of self-worth, and the losers all need "comforting" afterward..."

Rabbi Rabi writes Luke: "Sarcasm won't get you anywhere. You are pushing 40, have never married, and never will - unless you get serious about life, stop blogging, put an end to your mockery of Torah, and marry the next woman who will have you."

Selective Religious Observance

I've been talking to women who are not Orthodox Jews about their experiences dating Orthodox Jews and I've found out things that appall me. It seems that these putatively observant men, who would throw a fit if their date put a milk dish in the cupboard with the meat dishes, are putting their things inappropriately in certain non-observant places. It makes me want to puke.

I gave Cathy Seipp and her 14 yo daughter Cecile 95 theses about how to behave around my Orthodox friend. I particularly stressed that he doesn't touch foreign women. So what's the first thing Cathy does when I introduce her? She sticks out her hand to shake that which has only touched his wife and kids.

Cathy explains to Cecile: "I was forgetting things all day. My head was stuck up--in the clouds. I was tired, I believe. I partied too late last night."

Cecile writes: "The film crew also forgot to capture Luke Ford in his easy Rider look. He did not drown his hair in le mousse ABBA gelle. He seemed to have plenty of Air Supply on his head though. If you enjoy Luke's sentimentality, perhaps you would like to spend many an hour with him, laying down and talking about your emotions in the background of those weepy ABBA songs."

Earlier in the evening, I hear Cathy say to Cecile as they walk into Starbucks behind me, "Where's Luke?"

I told Cathy she reminded me of the character "Miss. Havisham" in Great Expectations. I'm Pip and Cecile is Estella.

Pinchus Ford writes Cathy Seipp: "The Torah man does not covet his neighbor's possessions. He instead looks at them as a reflection of the glory of God that might yet be his if he were to live a more ethical and hard-working life."

Lee writes Cathy: "What if the man you know as "Luke Ford" really were nothing more than an invention of still another man, a man who hired some pretty-boy (well, he was a few years back) beachbum off the sands of Malibu to do his bidding in a distant land and within a hostile social setting? Yes, it is all true. Luke Ford is another man's Gollum."

A story:

Old man Willy Blumenfeld was getting on in years. His son, Harold, had done well financially in ladies' underwear. He asked his father if he'd like to go down to Miami Beach. He thought it would be good for the old man to have companionship and balmy weather in his declining years.

The old man was pleased but consented to go only if he could be at a kosher hotel. And so Harold made reservations at the Sterling Hotel and put his father on a plane for Miami Beach.

His son phoned him once a week and every-one seemed happy. Some weeks later, Harold had to make a business trip south and decided to drop in on pop unannounced as a surprise. When he got to the Sterling Hotel, there was no sign of old man Blumenfeld. He asked the desk clerk if he had any idea where his father might be and he was told he might try room 402 at the Sans Souci.

Harold was nonplused, but hopped into a cab and headed for the Sans Souci. He learned at the deskthat room 402 was occupied by a Miss Peggy Murphy. Harold rushed up to room 402, knocked at the door which was opened by a tall, sparsely dressed redhead. And there was papa in a bathrobe!

Harold was furious! Unable to contain himself, he screamed, "Papa, I'm so shocked I don't know what to say! An old religious man like you! And you insisted yet you must stay at a Kosher hotel!"

The old man looked at him as if crazy and said, "So, why are you getting so excited? I don't eat here !!!"

From The Luke Ford Fan Blog:

You'll Never Have To Write Again

JMT writes Cathy Seipp about Chaim Amalek: "Never mind who he is. Play your cards right, Seipp, and he'll switch over to your blog full-time from Luke's, and after that, you'll hardly ever have to actually write anything yourself."

Cryptic writes Cathy: "Do you know why so many people are migrating over here from the Luke Ford web site? Because we heard that some shvartzes were moving in to the Pico-Robertson area. At least that's what my neighbors told me."

When The Revolution Comes

After saying my morning prayers, I set out from my hovel, Sony Walkman in hand to listen to Dennis Prager declaim against The New York Times and same-sex marriage.

I find myself walking behind young women in pants. The Talmud forbids women from wearing pants and a man from walking behind a woman (it can create lust).

I thought I was stronger than this but there was something about the way the jeans would grip and release each woman as she walked that intrigued me.

Women shouldn't be able to wear pants and tempt me so. Things are going to change around here when the Islamic revolution comes. Long skirts down to the ankles will be de rigeur. No more bare arms and plunging necklines and silky see-through blouses.

As I cross a street, I walk by a tall cool mixed-race woman, wearing glasses, sitting in her sports car. She looks at me without emotion. When I reach the other side, she turns right against the red light and I see the way her seatbelt cleaves her magnificent chest in two. A blast of heterosexual pride seizes me.

It's a good thing I'm not listening to Air Supply or I'd turned into a fool for love and write down her license plate.

Mishna And Martinis

Praise God, there was a wonderful turnout of the fairer sex at the University of Judaism Thursday night.

Khunrum writes: "Bring up the soundtrack...."My Yidisha Ma Ma""

Most of the attendees got sloshed on the martinis and then partook in an energetic discussion of blessings with Adat Ariel Conservative Rabbi Johnathan Bernhard.

It's rare to see people dying to participate in a serious discussion of blessing God for the good and evil in our lives.

I carried around with me Akiva Tatz's book, The Thinking Jewish Teenager's Guide To Life, a gift for Cecile du Bois tomorrow. I ran into a girl, a freshman at the University of Judaism wearing jeans, who sat through three Rabbi Tatz lectures in person this weekend.

Most of the girls I talked to tonight wanted to look at my book. It's a real chick magnet.

Khunrum writes: "This is the kind of stuff that got Michael Jackson in trouble."

Afterward, the coordinator Stephanie said this was the quietest she has ever seen me at any event. That's because I was chatting much of the time with my friend Jessica who'd downed two martinis. "I didn't know you were such a closet perv," she said. "I like it."

Khunrum writes: "Come On Awready....She doesn't read the column?"

I get into an argument with two girls over a blessing. They claim there is one before sex. We consult the rabbi. He says he's never said one before sex and there is no specific one for sex but there are several that could be used if necessary. For instance, the shma (Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one) might be appropriate because it is about merging.

I don't know if it was the alcohol, but I walked out with the following name tags on my pants -- Debbie, Stephanie, Jessica, Linda, and Danielle.

There's a spiritual lesson here. I only came to this event to study the Oral Law but I walked out meditating on other things.

I'm going to incorporate communism into my pitch when I hit on girls -- "Darling, let's move from each according to his ability to each according to his need. Honey, my needs are deep and many."

I might get invited to a girls night to show my 60 Minutes video and talk about my area of expertise.

I'm listening to my third Somerset Maugham novel in the past six months -- The Moon and Sixpence.

Sarah writes Luke:

From a comic called Grand Avenue in the paper today:

1st Panel: "Silver Bells...Silver Bells" (Music coming from a stereo)
Granddaughter (Holding her ears): "Isn't it too early for Christmas music?"

2nd Panel: Grandmother: "Well, let's see what else we've got. Ooh...I haven't listened to this in awhile..."

3rd Panel: Grandmother (reading CD label): "The Best of Air Supply."
Granddaughter: "Put the Christmas music back on...PLEASE!"

I kid you not.

Glad I'm able to contribute content to your blog...I guess.

And to continue my analysis of your (which feeds your ego perfectly), all your actions indicate that you're most happy pursuing lots and lots of women. That's what gets you out of bed in the morning. Most people actually despise attending single events. It makes them feel desperate. But I think you love the process -- getting ready to go, arriving and scoping out the room, deciding which women merit your attention. That's your thrill. Whereas getting married and starting a family (which you say you want), or even having a committed longterm relationship, is akin to digging your own grave. Because then the hunt is over. So, while you say you don't want to be single for the rest of your life, if you really delve into what makes your heart race, it's the IDEA of meeting the perfect woman, not the reality. Because after this many years of dating, you've probably already met her.

Luke says: I have met women I wanted to marry but they did not want to marry me. And women who wanted to marry me, I did not want to marry.

The Simple Life - Luke Ford Style

I should be a fluffer, work at the LA Times or one of the Hollywood trades. I could teach at some community college -- a course on "self invention via the internet."

Daniel Liebeskins says: I wonder what the Hollywood Juden are up to tonight.

LF: I'm going to a class - Mishna and Martinis. But why? Jewish women and I don't mix.

Daniel Liebeskins says: I'm celibate. I don't have sex with live women. The Simple Life -- that's where it is at. The meek shall inherit the earth.

Someday I'll have sex with a woman and it will be special in a way you cannot understand. Laugh all you want. Dirty Jew.

You need to watch "The Simple Life." It's really good. It should give you ideas, like a show where a secular Jewish American Princess is forced to live the Luke Ford life in the Luke Ford hovel. For this to work, you will have to dig a mikvah in the crawl space beneath my hovel. Maybe Cathy Seipp could oversee all.

Rudolf Slansky writes Cathy Seipp:

What people ought to care about is that you, Cathy Seipp, be willing to chaperone Luke and his human female dates during the taping of my new reality show "The Luke Ford Life." Already he is hard at work digging a mikvah in the crawl space beheath his hovel to collect the rain water and thus both better drain his hovel and provide space for a mitzvah pit. But the rabbenim will not give this project their blessing without proper matronly supervision (not that you are a matronly woman, but you know what I mean). And since you are the only woman I know who might do this for me, it falls to you to bless my project and help make me the wealthy famous man I know Hashem (God) meant for me to be. I promise that once I do become famous, I will live in a very nice house up on the hills (no water bugs!) and invite your mishpacha and haverim (family and friends, for the goyim and Jewishly illiterate Hollywood Juden reading this) over very frequently for catere.

From Shalhevet To Bais Yaakov

Mark, a tenth grader at Shalhevet (Modern Orthodox Los Angeles day school), wants me to play Air Supply's Every Woman in the World for Rachel, a twelth grader at Bais Yaakov (fervently Orthodox day school).

Invoking Eugene Volokh's Name In Vain

I've been exchanging email with one of Eugene Volokh's best students at UCLA. I told her that 'Gene and I would stay up all night discussing the First Amendment and that he liked to read to me the US Constitution by the light of the moon.

I'll keep you posted on how this works.

Next up -- how Mickey Kaus taught me to love Orthodox Judaism.

Eugene Volokh writes Luke: "Well, I'm glad that you seem to have been making a favorable impression on her! Please give her my regards."

Mr. and Mrs. Hollywood: Edie and Lew Wasserman and Their Entertainment Empire

Most anything would be an improvement on Connie Bruck's snoozer.

Liz Smith writes:

A BOOK sure to be as eagerly gobbled up as turkey during the holiday season is Kathleen Sharp's "Mr. and Mrs. Hollywood: Edie and Lew Wasserman and Their Entertainment Empire."

Lew, who died last year, was the legendary super-agent to legendary movie stars and directors - a pioneering TV producer, Universal Studios mogul, labor boss and mob confidant. (He also is the forgotten father of today's DVD industry. Lew spent 10 years and $100 million on the invention only to stop production two years before it caught on!) Wasserman paved the way for groundbreaking films of the early 1970s, representing Milos Forman, John Cassavetes, George Lucas, Dennis Hopper and Steven Spielberg.

Edie was not just the "little woman" married to "the man," she was a force in her own right - the originator of the Hollywood Wives Club, Lew's "secret agent" and a major player in her husband's career. She also had a keen political instinct, with early backing of future Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. And she cultivated Ronald and Nancy Reagan when Lew neglected them. (Edie was the daughter of a front man for the Cleveland syndicate and the "goddaughter" of mobster Moe Dalitz, the creator of modern-day Las Vegas.)

This juicy book details how Edie and Lew worked the boardrooms and the bedrooms during their decades as the industry's top power couple. It claims that Lew was a skirt chaser well into his 70s, even though the highly regarded producer David Brown is quoted as saying, "I always thought of Lew as asexual." Evidently not - it seems he had a mistress and developed crushes on movie stars such as Barbara Stanwyck. He also, according to this book, acted as a "beard" for President John F. Kennedy's trysts with various MCA starlets.

As for Edie, her romances with stars such as Frank Sinatra and Errol Flynn were much talked about in their day, and she even inspired one of her favorites, director Nicholas Ray, to make his masterpiece "Rebel Without a Cause."

See also: Dennis McDougal

Does He Kiss You Like I Did?

The first time I had a French kiss was in 11th grade. I was sitting in the newspaper room of my high school eating the cheese sandwich my mom prepared for me.

I use the passive verb because I was a passive partner to this event. Alice was sitting near me. She told me to put down my sandwich. She said it was gross.

I swallowed. She got close to me. She leaned towards me, engaged my lips with her lips, and stuck her tongue down my throat.

When I recovered my surprise, and managed to unfreeze myself from fear, I started grabbing at her groin, figuring that any girl who's willing to kiss me so boldly must have no morals.

Alice pushed my hand away. She was wonderfully endowed but I never got to touch those either. In fact, I don't think we ever did anything again.

I was so taken aback that I barely spoke to her for the rest of high school, even though she served as the feature editor in my senior year, when I was editor. My sports editor was Rob Stutzman, now a spokesman for California's governor.

A couple of weeks after this traumatic first kiss, I met a girl on a Saturday night at a friend's place. We went up to a loft and she taught me how to kiss. She didn't just jam her tongue down my throat. She grazed my lips with her lips. She massaged me and sucked me. She had wonderfully slick lip gloss. And over the next couple of hours, she educated me in the arts of love (not past second base).

Perhaps one reason kissing was so exciting in my teens was that I never went any further.

I've been told I'm good. I have thick lips like a black man, not cold narrow Caucasian lips (said my first lover). I'm a jungle bunny in bed, so don't ever call me a racist.

They don't call me "60 Minutes Man" for nothing. I play offense and defense, both sides of the field, for the full game. I'm the Deon Sanders of lovers.

I like kissing a thick pair of warm embracing female lips. I don't enjoy any rush to penetrate with the tongue. I like it when you open up your lips to the soft fleshy insides and glide them against your partner.

I don't like kissing so hard that you draw blood. I'm not into rough. I don't like kissing that place. I like my kissing, like my pop music, gentle and straight.

I remember this chick in Orlando. She told me she was 23. I later find out she was no woman. She was a girl in high school and an unwed mother. Anyway, she had a woman's body and she knew what to do with it.

When we were kissing, she'd rake my back with her nails until she drew blood.

Through another singles ad in Orlando, I met this Jewish biker slut. Her family belonged to my synagogue. Her sister was in my Torah class. She said I talked too much and disrupted things.

I went back to the slut's home. She put me on the phone with what sounded like a sexy women who described in minute detail what she'd like to do to me. I got very excited until I found out the woman was a homosexual man adept at voices.

I haven't kissed anyone for almost three months. I'm going through withdrawals. I can't help that I'm an affectionate guy with a lot of love to give.

How can I be a lout when I write so sensitively about love? You'll never find this amount of self-disclosure on Kaus Files, Instapundit and Volokh.com, the darlings of the chattering class.

The shortest time I've spent between meeting a woman and getting to know her? Three hours.

Average length: Five dates.

"Does he kiss like I used to kiss you? Does it feel the same when he calls your name? Somewhere deep inside you must know I miss you. But what can I say? Rules must be obeyed. The judges will decide. The likes of me abide. The game is on again. The winner takes it all." (ABBA)

A Slut For Jesus

Amy writes Luke: "Hey, which of us chose to walk with God and which of us chose to walk with "a girl"? The vagueness of your answer doesn't surprise me. God created sex for us to enjoy, and if enjoying it makes me a slut, then I'm a slut for Jesus."

American Journalism Review Fluffs LA Times Coverage Of Arnold Groping Stories

On LA Observed, Kevin Roderick headlines this: "Dissecting the groping stories."

But there's no dissecting going on here, only genuflecting to the powerful LAT.

Rachel Smolkin undertakes no investigation of the criticisms of the LAT's coverage of Arnold beyond reciting LAT defenses. She just issues congratulations to the hard-working award winning team of reporters and editors.

How can anyone take her article seriously when she lays out about 100 specific compliments to the Times and its staffers but levels only one mild criticism ("In one instance, an imprecise description was given of the women's accusations")? How is that dissecting?

I don't have a position on the Times publishing the groping stories. And I even assisted one LAT reporter on a sex scandal story about Arnold that didn't pan out. I made a dozen calls for the LAT reporter.

But this AJR Rachel Smolkin story is pathetic -- just establishment media patting each other on the back about how wonderful they are. It reads like a publicity release prepared by the Times.

Smokin writes: "AJR conducted extensive interviews with more than a dozen reporters, editors and other staff members at the Times, including Carroll and Baquet, the three principal reporters and their direct editor on the investigation."

Why then does she never uncover an instance of them contradicting themselves or each other? Smolkin's article completely lacks the ring of truth. Rather it reads like it is written by someone who wants work from the Times.

I don't think I've read a more nauseating media criticism article in months.

Here are the sections that particularly made me want to gag (because they portray the Timesers as one-dimensional selfless servants of the truth rather than as humans):

The reporters, sacrificing nights and weekends for a story all agreed might never coalesce, had persisted despite phone calls not returned and tips that led nowhere. They searched for people they couldn't find. They visited women's homes and were greeted with fear and sometimes anger. They coaxed reluctant women to allow their stories and names to appear in print, only to watch near-agreements unravel.

Even before Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy, senior editors had hoped to team Cohn and Welkos on a story. This one seemed a natural for that partnership.

But targeting calls didn't make them more pleasant, and Welkos says "plenty of people" hung up on him.

The enormity of their task, particularly given the time constraints, quickly became apparent.

Hall says her strength as a reporter lies in persuading people to talk about themselves--an assessment her editors and colleagues share.

"Those reporters bled over trying to get people to talk to them," Sappell says.

60 Minutes

Tony Pierce writes:

LA blogger Luke Ford was on 60 minutes a few days ago, and as you know i'm a big fan of mr. ford. But when i saw what he was saying on 60 minutes it was hard for me to think that he wasnt completely full of ----. The most glaring load he hurled at me as I sat in my den this past Sunday was when he ripped this one: "It's become popular, cool, acceptable in this 18-to-25 age group. My age group, I'm 37, my age group and up, we think porn is something that's shameful. But for kids half my age, they think it's cool."

Adult film is a billion dollar business. Billion with a B as in boo-yah. And it's been popular since the first caveman chiseled the first titty on a wall. Of all people Luke Ford, formerly of lukeford.com, knows this. He also knows that once you turn 26 you dont suddenly consider it "shameful." 60 Minutes showed many people standing in line at an Adult Film convention looking middle class, happy, and well beyond the prized 18-25 demo. I saw a couple who looked 50+. And then the narrator told us that there's even porn for "the '60 Minutes' set."

and not to get into someones religious business, but why is it in the handful of events that i saw my buddy Luke at he was always wearing his yarmulke, and yet as soon as 60 minutes shows up hes just a good-looking aussie, as opposed to a good-looking aussie jew? tell you this my friends, if you ever see my ass on 60 minutes, i wont spread generalizations about 110 year olds, and i will be sporting my cubs hat.

Hey Tony, I was referring to the people who make ----. The new generation, the 18-25 year old, have far less shame and far fewer compunctions about the type of acts they will perform than those who are older. ---- stars who are 30 tend to look down on the 18 year olds as gross and decadent. ---- company owners who are over 40 generally keep their occupation to themselves when they mix socially.

Relevant writes Tony: "There is no "old Luke" to bring back, Tony. You're simply seeing him for who he is for the first time. (The hypnotizing power of physical beauty is simply amazing.) Why it's taking the blogosphere so long to see him for the unstable train wreck that he is is beyond me."

Luke says: "I'm a terrible narcissist because I found that comment ("hypnotizing power of physical beauty") flattering."

Will writes:

There is no question that the 18-25 demographic feel differently about ---- than we do. There is also no question that these kids are more open and adventurous with their sexuality - in spite of being more monogamous than we were at that age (probably due to the threat of AIDS). The critic who charges your views might do well to silence himself. Indeed there are 50+ and 100+ year-old people who enjoy ----, but that does not make your statements false.

Your assertion of guilt associated with ---- for our age group is also basically correct. My experience in the ---- shop was that the men came to get it while the women stayed home. Today you will see young women in selecting almost as often as the men.

Straight Advice for Women from a Straight Man

I'm launching an advice column on this website for women confused about life. Feel free to email Luke.

Women, why limit yourself to advice from other women when you've got man trouble? Wouldn't you benefit from hearing things from the straight, hetero male perspective as well? Sure you would! That's why this space is for you.

From a sensitive liberal upper west sider living in New York City who shops at Zabars and gets his knishes at Yonah Shimmels:

I know what most of my answers will be before I get my first letter:

1. because you are not hot enough

2. you are too picky

3. that's not what the Bible says

4. George Bush does not WANT to be a substitute husband for you. Deal with it.

5. There is something really wrong with lesbians. Namely, they don't have a man in their lives. NEXT!

6. Well, who told you to get your hair cut?

7. You waited too long. Sorry, honey.

8. Ever tried dating a man who was poor? I'll bet you could snag one.

9. Well then don't eat so much.

10. Just accept your man as he is and be happy you have one.

That about covers 98% of all female troubles.

Chaim Amalek writes: "How about asking that Steve Kroft if he would let me do some commentary on 60 Minutes? Seriously, do you have his email address? Tell him Amalek wants to replace that really old guy on the show. I live in NY, and I work for lots less. If he declines, tell him I know it is because I'm Jewish and he hates Jews. I also suspect that he is a homophone."

Here's the first question:

Should women ask men out? Men always say, "Oh, I'd love it if a woman made the first move and asked me out! It would take so much pressure off me!"

I think they're either lying or deluded. I believe it was the late Tupac Shakur (RIP) who put it so eloquently: "Hate to sound sleazy, but tease me -- I don't want it if it's that easy." Men like the chase, don't they?

Signed, Loquacious in London

Luke says: Usually women should let men do the asking out but this is not a universal rule. There are plenty of intermediate options such as asking if the guy is going to a particular event. Usually it is a bad idea for a woman to ask a guy out but sometimes it is a good idea, depending on the dynamics of the personalities involved and their relationship.

Loquacious writes: "I read an article in the Sunday Times (London) this weekend, about how ever person is either an adorer or an adoree, and that when two adorers or two adorees get together, their relationship will never work. Although I think I like being an adoree, I am dissatisfied unless I'm in the role of adorer. But asking a guy out would be a step too far."

Luke says: "I'm a narcissist. I'd suck you dry of adoration and we'd have to proceed from there."

Amy writes: "No! He was the most vanilla guy I've ever, ever been with -- a posh multimillionaire doctor and entrepreneur. We never even talked about s*x, we just had lots of the very boring variety. Also: I have no desire to f--- a guy up the --- with a -------. If he wanted it, I would, but I love being a girl and don't get off pretending to be a man."

Luke says: "Did he kiss you like I would?"

Amy replies: "With the taste of 600 other women on him? No, I can't say he did.

"How come I always end up blushing when I read your site? Next time I see you, you're getting a good slap!"

Luke says: "If we were married, you could bathe yourself in my DNA."

Jackie replies on Cathy Seipp's blog: "Hæmatolagnia doesn't do much for me, and I'd be surprised if it is a practice endorsed by the Torah, Luke. Considering your strong feelings on the niddah status and the importance of the mikveh, I'm surprised you possess such a paraphilia."

When Religion Makes People Worse

Dennis Prager says he has brought people to Christianity and Judaism who became worse human beings after becoming religious. I've experienced the same thing. It's a painful topic.

I had a roommate who went from secular to Orthodox, in part because of me. He borrowed money from me to participate more fully in the Kaballah Center and he never paid me back. He became obnoxious. He spoke ill of me to his rabbi.

I've brought people to Orthodox Judaism who became nastier after they became more observant of Jewish Law. They use their religion as a tool to bludgeon others.

DP: "I remember a kind nonjudgmental young man, about 20 years old. He studied under me. He then became Orthodox. After that, nobody was quite pure enough or good enough or religious enough, including me. I regretted that I ever influenced this young man because he was nicer before he became religious. Now he was sanctimonious about his religion and everyone else was a bunch of sinners.

"I'm thinking of a man who thanked me as a catalyst for his taking Christianity seriously. He became Mr Righteous and everyone else was impure.

"The trait that characterizes these people is self-righteousness, like the longtime smoker who quits and preaches to others against smoking.

"If you don't have emotional balance, becoming religious is not going to fix you."

Luke, Butch Up

Dave Deutsch writes: "I'll write more about a variety of things later, but for now, suffice it to say that, until your taste in music moves beyond Air Supply, the Bee Gees, and Barry Manilow, you really are in no place to denigrate the sexual proclivities of gays. Honestly, Luke... Air Supply? I understand they are your homeboys, but honestly, that's so gay, even gays are embarrassed to listen to it. NAMBLA can get a float at the Gay Pride parade, but they wouldn't give one to Air Supply fans for fear that it would reflect poorly on the gay community. You know that I am a pillar of tolerance, but honestly, Luke, butch up."

Luke asks: Is it OK to love the Carpenters?

Jackie writes: "I dated a guy who REALLY liked ABBA. A man can only be emasculated in a woman's eyes when she discovers such dirty little secrets."

Brian writes: "I tooled around on your site a little, first noticing that you attend a shul with a mechitza, then to your bio, at which time I noted that your father is an Australian missionary, then back to the website to see that you actually chose to be Jewish. Dude. Why? Anyway, since you probably get asked this a lot and probably get even more people trying to score empathy points by noting that you probably get asked this a lot and probably, etc. And actually, I'm not really that interested. But I just wanted to tell you how glad I am to have been skipping along Gawker when I stumbled into your website. Your vast array of insightful profiles will provide me with fascination and enjoyment for a long time."

The Kinky Kike

I saw my shrink. He showed me the results of my latest tests. I LOVE TOO MUCH! He doesn't think there's a cure.

Doctor, doctor, can't you see I'm burning, burning?

After dark, Farmers Market.

"This reminds me of the shuk."

"When I was in the shuk, this Arab grabbed me and he tried to buy me from my friends with hashish.

"I don't know you well enough. If somebody tried to buy me now, you'd probably let them."

"For some nice mangoes. Ooh, look at those firm nectarines."

Mood music: Carpenter's Greatest Hits (1969-74).

Cinammon tea.

"When I listened to these songs in third grade, I believed that life could turn out good.

"It's good to know I've matured from the songs of my childhood.

"Why do you only talk about your memoir but you don't want to talk about your life? Why are you writing a memoir?"

"I feel compelled. My story compells me. Many people have asked me to write it.

"I respond to obligation. I feel obliged to tell this story.

"It's not so much that I pursue stories but that they pursue me.

"I want to enlighten people. I'm doing it for the children. I can see their innocent upright faces staring at me, looking for moral guidance."

The Partridge Family's Greatest Hits.

"Do you write your blog to record the most important moments of your life?"

"No. I don't usually write about the most important moments of my life because they are sacred and private, involving intense relationships. Some of the most important people in my life never appear in my writing. I write out of an inner compulsion that I quell when it relates to certain friends."

"You've had so many relationships. A girl in every port. Why do you think things can turn out differently now?"

"Because I am different. I'm older and wiser. I get more mature every day.

"The problem is - the older I get, the younger I like 'em.

"Not below 18 years though. I hold a strict moral limit there."

"Good night."

Khunrum writes: "No, Michael Jackson's Greatest Hits. Did you hear that Kobe Bryant was so happy that Jackson bumped him off the front page that he sent him another kid?"

I saw Michael Jackson at K-Mart. He heard that boys' pants were half off.

So what's the difference between Michael Jackson and a grocery bag? One of them is made of plastic and dangerous for kids to play with, and the other is used to carry groceries.

Three's Company

Jackie writes Cathy Seipp: "Forget what I said about you and Luke needing a TV show: you and your sister [Michelle] are the real stars. Ditch the rebbe."

Nancy Rommelman writes Cathy: "You need Luke, too, for a sort updated "Three's Company," with Luke playing a randy Torah-spouting handyman, who looks up your skirt while he's fixing your sink."

They are at it again: First George Soros, Now the Rest of the Hollywood Kehilla

A Not-So-Learned Elder of Zion writes Luke:

Almost everyone who has been invited to this is Jewish. People think I am one as well, but I am not (yeah, I'm a closet case). I work for one of those who was invited, and likely will get to tag along. I'll report to you on what goes down at the meeting. Call me "Esther-Rogue."

From Matt Drudge:

Top Hollywood activists and intellectuals are planning to gather this week in Beverly Hills for an event billed as 'Hate Bush,' the DRUDGE REPORT has learned!

Laurie David [wife of SEINFELD creator Larry David] has sent out invites to the planned Tuesday evening meeting at the Hilton with the bold heading: 'Hate Bush 12/2 - Event'

The message reads: "This is the most important meeting you can attend to prevent the advancement of the current extremist right wing agenda. Do not miss this meeting. This will be a high-level briefing to discuss the strategies... to affect what happens next November."

Political heavies Harold Ickes, Former Deputy White House Chief of Staff and Campaign Manager for the ¹96 Clinton/Gore re-elect, and Ellen Malcolm, Founder of Emily¹s List, a political action committee that elects pro-choice, Democratic women, will chair the gathering.

Harvey Weinstein's Miramax

Brian Shuman writes:

Dear Luke,

I temped at Miramax for over two years and worked in every department there, including Harvey's office. I was filling in for one of his (at the time) three assistants when Harvey was vacationing in St. Bart's in December 1999. We got the call that he was deathly ill and arranged for the two-flight trip that rushed him back to Teeterborough Airport and then to the hospital. We were fraught with worry and I had to take a limo to Banana Republic to buy warmer clothes for some of Harvey's vacation mates who were on Harvey's plane into New York in late December wearing nothing but their St. Bart's beachware.

Enjoying the professional promiscuity of temping in New York, I have been exposed to over 100 office environments to which I can compare working at Miramax. And from this perspective, I can say that Miramax is indeed a shitty place to work where the only satisfaction that the overworked, underpaid staff derives is from sniffing out acceptable targets for abuse and then passing along what somebody else dumped on them. Also, surprisingly (or maybe not), most people there are cinematically illiterate and are very imposing of their lousy taste in movies on anyone within earshot. With a handful of exceptions, noone at Miramax will ever fulfill whatever goals they had when they signed up to make the sacrifices working there requires you to make and even fewer will ever make a positive contribution to cinema. Their proudest achievements seem to be the number of hours they work and how directly they absorb the odiousness that trickles down from Harvey's office.

BUT, I must take offense to your implication that Harvey was stricken with something other than the bacterial infection that Meryl Poster was dumb enough to inform a member of the press that he had. He was very sick and those of us who knew about it were very worried and, whatever else he might be guilty of, I am very glad that he recovered.

Luke's Memoir

Jane says: "You've got to boil down the transcripts to a paragraph or two. You need to explain and develop the characters. Executive Chick and Peppy are not developed. They are cardboard characters. They need a personality. Kendra is the only girl with any humanity. You don't see why you don't end up with her. Eliminate Nice Jewish Girl. Remove those extraneous comments. You're brave to put this book out there. It's not a turn-on to women. It's the opposite.

"Thanks for using the "bang" word. How romantic! It makes me want to print out these emails and doodle hearts and flowers all over them."

Chaim Amalek writes: "So once again, AMALEK fails to get the credit he deserves from the Jews."

Is Air Supply the greatest analyst of love or what?

Famed music critic J.D. Considine replies: "I much prefer [Burt] Bacharach/[Hal] David. You'd do well to include "This Guy's In Love with You" or "A House Is Not a Home" in your karaoke repertoire. Wounded, sensitive, but hip. And far better chord changes.

"Hal David was Bacharach's lyricist for many years."

America's Greatest Living Hero

Heeb magazine humor editor Dave Deutsch writes: "Sorry I've been incommunicado, but the apartment renovations and so on, have left my life rather hectic. Also, I wanted to get final word on the essay--you've made it into the May issue. You should feel proud that you've overcome your disabil--excuse me, different ability, and written an actual essay. Today, Luke Ford, you are America's greatest living hero."

Why Does Boy Lose Girl?

From Raymond Obstfeld's book Crafting Scenes: "When a couple comes together, each must give up some aspect of his self to form a "couple." It's difficult for selfish individuals to understand that the whole (couple) can be greater than the sum of its parts (lovers).

"The marriage symbolizes the ability of individuals to overcome their selfishness to form a selfless relationship. And if these two individuals can do it, so can the world..."

A Sentimental Education

I've just finished my second book by Gustav Flaubert (the first one was Madame Bovary, even more depressing). All his characters are morally weak and so reminiscent of people I know, even some of my friends (but God forbid, not myself). At the end of Sentimental, the two male friends look back on an aborted visit to a whorehouse as the "best time" of their lives.

I try to go to shul every day so that I do not behave like one of Flaubert's characters. Unfortunately, the morals are handed out with five parts of tedium.

I guess I haven't matured to the point where I understand that doing the right thing means putting up with a lot of tedium, putting your own wishes on hold for higher values.

Malcom Muggeridge says: "Good taste and humor are a contradiction in terms, like a chaste whore."

In America - Best Film Of 2003

David "Hot Button" Poland's right again.

I had lunch Sunday with Cathy Seipp at the Farmer's Market on Third Street and Fairfax. Then we went to the pictures at the Grove.

Cathy selected a cramped seat. I've got long legs and felt uncomfortable. Luckily the nice girl near us moved her stuff, so I could stretch out.

I explained to Cathy that men do not like to sit next to each other. If you can, you like to have a spare seat between you and the next fella in case you accidentally touch and get the creeps. Cathy pointed out a bunch of men in the theater sitting next to each other. I explained they were gay.

Cathy says I'll never marry as long as I have my van. She thinks making out in the back of my van is disrespectful to women. What about my hovel? She thinks that's only a slight improvement.

Good thing I'm a poor pious Jew and I don't make-out with chicks.

I've seen endless previews for In America for about a year and I've had no desire to see the film until Poland told me over Thanksgiving that it was the best film of the year.

There was hardly a dry eye in the theater at the end. The most compelling moment came in the dedication.

I argued with Cathy about the virtues of pleasing a mate vs being cool. I say if a mate wants you to wear something dorky or do something silly, and you're committed to the relationship, you do it even if it does not appeal to you. Cathy says it is more important to keep your dignity.

For instance, birthdays and Valentine's Days and the like are meaningless to me. But if I want to stay in the good graces of my girlfriend, I observe these silly rituals. Same thing with flowers.

I think I disagree with Cathy about almost everything non-political, if only to goad her. I look to put on my sweet fakely sincere voice and say the thing most opposite to my real beliefs and see if she will catch me.

This, however, I truly believe (to Cathy's chagrin): Real men do not remember the birthdays of anyone they are not sleeping with.

I have great wisdom on relationships because I've had so many (none lasting more than a year) before I took my vow of chastity.

Lucky for you, dear reader, I've been unable to form stable relationships, else I would not be able to discourse so eloquently about the solitary man, left with nothing but his Bee Gees and his A Sentimental Education.

My sources for inspiration on these matters include Air Supply, Barry Manilow and the Torah. Remarkably, they tend to agree on the important questions.

Now that we've eaten Greek food together and seen a tearjerker, Cathy and I have done everything a man and woman can do (it took our friendship almost two years before I had the courage to call her on the phone), aside from IM.

Jack writes: "Men not sitting together in movie theaters is just another example of why they don't show movies over urinals in the men's room -- gotta leave a space.

"When are you moving out of your hovel and in with Cathy?"

As soon as she lives within walking distance of my Orthodox shul.

Stop Sniffling In Shul

It was bad enough that a Conservative visitor (with a gorgeous woman just on the other side of the mehitza) took my seat this morning, before 9AM, but when I sat next to him, he was not only lousy conversation, he sniffled the entire time. He kept snorting his cold fluids back into his brain so they wouldn't drip on his prayer book.

I wouldn't complain only this happens all the time in shul. Men with colds sniffle the whole way through the prayers. Sheesh, don't come to shul if you have a cold. If you must come and you feel the need to sniffle, go outside, blow your nose, and then come back in.

And don't get sharp with your elbows at kiddish.

And if you go to an OBGYN, don't write on your blog about how you got it in both holes without noticing.

I feel like a Christian missionary among Jewish savages.

I spend much of my time in shul outside chatting with the wholesome Gentile security guards.

A Sentimental Education

I've been reading this Gustave Flaubert novel about a young man of middling talents who wastes his young adulthood dreaming about romance. It reminds me of myself. I sit at home listening to Air Supply and try to write a book about myself.

J.D. Considine writes: "Then by all means, don't read Dreiser's American Tragedy. You need to be careful about which young men of middling talents you identify with..."

Or I'll watch a movie, like Shattered Glass or Sunset Boulevard, and again I see myself as the protagonist.

Sometimes I think I think too often about myself and I should rather devote my talents to fundraising for needy Jews in Argentina.

Jane writes: "Well you've also had fatigue problems anyway, so it's not surprising you don't like to stay up late. Imagine when you have a family! I've been staying with friends and waking up to feed their baby at 5 and again at 8 every morning. Then again, your fertile Jewish bride will be the kind who will never expect her man to soil his hands with women's work and childrearing..."

From The Luke Ford Fan Blog:

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Bad For The Jews

Skippy McButter, confirmed bachelor and Log Cabin Republican living on Sutton Place in Manhattan, writes:

This is bad for the Jews. It makes the Jews seem overly prosperous and juvenile. Goyim must struggle while Jews lavish luxury upon their 13 year olds. Smart Jews know what I'm talking about. It is vulgar.

Also bad for the Jews: the movie "24 Grams." Again, we have an example of a magnificent work of cinematic art in which Jews contibuted nothing of artistic importance. This might lead the goyim to believe that there can exist an entertainment industry in which Jews play no role that also can more honestly speak to the human condition. Not good. When's the next Spielberg flick coming out?

Why Can't Orthodox Jews Hold Abstinence Rallies?

Why do Christians have all the fun? Let's get down with Torah and hold within our sinful urges until we're blessed by holy matrimony.

Yaakov writes: "Levi: Don't forget to deliver the gifts or I will instruct Miss Cathy to cut off your greasy hair while you sleep. And you know what happens to mildly potent blokes after that. Gut'n Shabbos."

If He's Not - Who Is?

Moxie writes:

I spotted a Silver Lake hipster whose Caesar style haircut and vintage t-shirt was accessorized with a “he’s not MY president” pin on the lapel of his jacket. He looked up and smiled so I asked him about his button.

Moxie: I couldn’t help but notice your button.

Hipster: Yeah, I can’t stand that guy.

Moxie: If Bush isn’t your President who is?

Hipster: What do you mean?

Moxie: Well, I haven’t heard a thing about what YOUR President’s administration has been doing so I thought I’d ask.

Who Won The Power Struggle? The President

Dennis Prager remembers how the late Los Angeles Herald Examiner wouldn't run his column criticizing LA Times cartoonist Conrad because it had a policy of not attacking its rivals. American newspapers don't like to criticize each other.

The vast majority of the press establishment is bored by reporting news. They wish to shape your understanding of the news. The presidential surprise trip to Iraq on Thanksgiving robbed their opportunity to shape the news.

Why wasn't 13 reporters enough for Bush to take along? Because it didn't give the NY Times weeks to report in advance that the president was seeking a photo-op in Iraq, that he was trying to "bolster his image." That's what the press wanted to do and the president, with his surprise trip, robbed them of that opportunity.

Reporters no longer want to report, they want to shape your attitudes. They see themselves as an alternative to political power. They see themselves as more powerful than simply reporting. On this occasion, they feel beaten by the president. Who won the power struggle? The president did and we are pissed.

From media critic Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post:

But Philip Taubman, Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, said that "in this day and age, there should have been a way to take more reporters. People are perfectly capable of maintaining a confidence for security reasons. It's a bad precedent." Once White House officials "decided to do a stealth trip, they bought into a whole series of things that are questionable."

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, criticized the White House correspondents who made the trip without spilling the secret. "That's just not kosher," he said. "Reporters are in the business of telling the truth. They can't decide it's okay to lie sometimes because it serves a larger truth or good cause."

Because talk radio is a dynamic medium, there is criticism in real time. You call up and have your say. You can't call CBS News and get on and say why Dan Rather's report was slanted.

In his happiness hour, Dennis Prager asked what was it you most wanted from your spouse to feel love. Not one man would call up and say sex. Society has feminized men. It's not a kind word and a soft touch that men most want from their woman. They want sex. But they won't say that out of shame and fear.

More To Femininity Than Fecundity

Marcus Wolf writes Cathy Seipp's blog: "...[B]ut fecundity is the core of being a woman. Without it (and the traditional values and behaviors that support it), humanity would vanish in a generation. Smart-ass remarks, ball-busting, and professional success are no substitute for being a good supportive mate and mother to a man's children. American Islam understands this. The modern secular Jewess of America does not, which is why her genes are rapidly vanishing from the scene."

From The Luke Ford Fan Blog:

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Must Love Play Politics?

Robert McKee writes in his book Story:

Love relationships are political. An old Gypsy expression goes: "He who confesses first loses." The first person to say "I love you" has lost because the other, upon hearing it, immediately smiles a knowing smile, realizing that he's the one loved, so he now controls the relationship.

How Does The US Postal Office Resemble Payless Shoe Stores?

It's become a tradition for me to celebrate Thanksgiving at David Poland's. He's a gracious host and does not lord it over me that his favorite football team, the Miami Dolphins, pasted my Dallas Cowboys 40-21.

David also hosted a genial Haitian family who told wonderfully racist jokes. And there's nobody who appreciates a good racist joke more than me. I find that nothing clears the air and puts everyone in a mood of friendliness than telling a racist joke about your own kind.

I get away with a lot of bad behavior because I'm able to laugh at myself. It's almost a get-out-jail card.

I don't like dead baby jokes or anything too vulgar. Just sophisticated humor with various racial groups as the target.

I think David Poland looks Haitian. Maybe this family was a blood relation he wasn't admitting. My father never liked admitting we were part Chinese.

The father of the family (the only one born in Haiti) asked the question in my headline. Answer: Both have 10,000 black loafers.

I went into hysterics over that because I hate stepping into a post office because the service is so slipshod. Typically only one or two windows are open while the rest of the crew shoots the breeze, watches the baseball game and generally loafs. Once you get to the window, the service is surly.

I also learned from the kids a nifty joke told with your fingers. Some girls sit like this. Good girls sit like this. Girls who sit like this, get this like this (snap your fingers).

The son asked, "When do you smile and wink at a Haitian?" We were stumped until he cocked his pretend gun.

Then another boy came out with two Playboy magazines and haltingly read jokes from the back of the centerfold.

Joke: Why are blacks so fast? Because all the slow ones are in jail.

Now you can never call me a racist because:

* All these jokes were told by black people

* I marched with Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama, so blacks could have the right to vote

* I once watched the movie The Color Purple

* I pray every day that God helps me to watch my lips so I never say anything needlessly hurtful

Other entertainments included watching me on 60 Minutes and watching a woman in the house on a Phoenix TV program talking about perfume.

A good time was had by all.

At 9PM, I asked David what I could do to clean up. He said nothing. Relieved, I shook hands with everybody, left behind a pile of dirty dishes, and drove home to write up the racist jokes while they were still fresh in my mind.

'This Is England'

The last I saw of Cathy Seipp Wednesday night, 10:20, she was staggering away in pain, clutching her stomach, disappearing into the night.

I wouldn't have left her behind if I didn't know that her loving ex-husband was nearby ready to take good care of her and give her a port to rest in overnight if need be.

I first saw Cathy (she's getting littler every time) Wednesday at 5:20PM as I was driving into the Grove parking. She was running across the street. She had free parking at her ex's, so to save the $4 she's willing to walk a ways.

I wasn't sure it was Cathy. She had black eyes and stitches. I didn't honk or wave or yell because I figured I'd see her in 40 minutes anyway so why act out?

We met at 6PM, had dinner at La Pizza in the Grove. I had these potato dumplings. I had little appetite. Cathy got a bowl of soup. I should've done just that.

Cathy thought I was looking away more than normal.

She pops a Vicodan and orders a glass of red wine. It takes her an hour to consume three-quarters of it.

She has a new email friend - Rebecca Schoenkopf.

When she teases me, I threaten to do a "Rabbi Seidler-Feller" on her (meaning to kick her).

She wishes that we'd run into people we know so they can look in shock at her black eyes when she quavers in front of me, "I promise never to mock you on LAObserved, Luke."

Master and Commander. I wanted to love the film. I ended up liking and respecting it.

It's like talking to a girl on the telephone and imagining you want to marry her and be with her forever. Then you meet her and you like and respect her, but aside from a cuddle in the backseat, you know that's going to be the end of the romance.

Nobody rose from their seats during the movie to applaud.

I cowered in my seat, with my hands over my eyes, during such graphic scenes as the surgery. By contrast, they did not bother Cathy at all.

Cathy suffered from severe stomach cramps as we climbed five flights to my van.

"No matter how many times I see it," said Cathy, "it doesn't get any more attractive."

As we got in, I borrowed a line from the movie, "This is England." I tried to interest Cathy in taking over another van of similar size, which she'd then captain to Portsmouth, where we'd meet up.

I forgot to bring a gift for Cathy and her daughter Cecile - two CDs of pious Yeshiva lads and lasses lifting their voices to the Lord.

11:10PM update. Cathy's feeling much better. I believe her ex Jerry must've laid his healing hands upon her and suddenly everything was OK.

"I am a divorced parent of two terrific school-age children. My teenage daughter is in high school and my son is in second grade. Personal experiences & observations in family-law courtrooms inspired me to focus my energies on parenting education, and helping to create successful parenting plans & find peaceful solutions to family problems."

Chaim Amalek writes:

Master and Commander needed more blood and guts. Maybe the ship should've been attacked by a giant squid. And some really hot chicks.

In fact, what I'd have done is make the crew of that French ship all female with a lesbian Captain. Their true mission would've been to capture a bunch of men to be their sex slaves. This is why I belong in Hollywood.

If there are any agents out there smart enough to be reading this site, AMALEK needs an agent for a special project. Please make yourselves known to him through his servant Luke Ford.

Sexy Redhaired OC Weekly Journalist Rebecca Schoenkopf

Stunning picture of Rebecca

Chaim Amalek writes:

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

Luke, you know this woman is plain nuts. When/if you talk to her, tell her the sins of Lenin, Stalin and Mao are upon her flesh, and that millions of their dead chant her name (and the names of all of communism's stooges and apologists) in their mass graves.

"Commie Girl." I wonder how'd she'd take to someone calling himself "Nazi Boy."

Stop dating Jewish women like her and go young while you can. Mike is right - you'd do much better to find yourself one of those ho's who've made only one flick and been repulsed by the experience. Get yourself a nice young (under 24) natural blonde from the farm belt and save her, marry her, have kids, and put an end to this nonsense. Trust me, it does not age well. You are looking very middle aged of late, and the only way that will change is when you start looking old.

Khunrum writes:

Let's not forget Uncle Ho from Vietnam. Did you guys know he was a cook on a cargo vessel for years? That he worked as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant in Boston.? One thing these fellows had in common was they were all poor students. Pol Pot had an appalling academic record. My take is they were unemployable and decided to go into the revolution business as an easy way to make a living. Have some stupid idiots charge the machine gun nest while you relax back at base camp.

I agree with Chaim. You seem to date the same woman (different names) over and over. When will you get wise and find yourself a nice Philippina housemaid to court?

Little Old Lady Frightens Levi Out Of Line At Nagillas Pizza

A friend of mine has come into town from New York. We went to lunch at Nagillas Pizza on Pico Blvd. We stand in line in front of a gorgeous Persian woman I know from the community and behind two little old ladies.

One lady wanders off. The help asks me what I want. I start to order the combination platter. The potatoes, hot.

The old lady returns and starts in on me. "Just because I walk off, they think they can ignore me. I was before you."

"Fine," I say. "Go ahead."

"No, no. You go ahead. It's just the service around here is terrible."

She goes on and on. My friend reports that my face turns all shades of red. I back away, my hands up in a signal that I don't want to fight. Yet she insists on fighting with me. I should step back in line, she says.

No way. She ain't going to order me what to do. It's not until I'm almost out of the restaurant that she finally leaves me alone. One of the help comes over and tells to not make a fight.

I'm upset but I am not going to say a word. No matter how angry I get, when I want to, I can control my tongue. I'm not going to yell at a little old Jewish lady.

I see my rabbi's wife walk by. She waves at me.

I slowly take my place at the end of the line. Eventually, I get to order my combination platter. At the cash register, I run into the little old Jewish lady again.

She starts in on me anew. "I wasn't mad at you. I was mad at the help."

I use my hands and arms to signal I want no part of her. I'm not going to listen to her. She doesn't exist to me.

I pay for my lunch and rush away.

I hate it when women yell at me. I hate it when men yell at me. I hate it when people tell me what to do and where I should stand in line.

When I'm about to cross a street and a driver waves me across, I will often stand there and fight with him that he should cross first. Neither of us wants to be told what to do by the other.

Reaching Out At The University Of Judaism

For the past month, I've been taking an improvisation class at the University of Judaism Tuesday nights. As is my bent, last night I arrived two hours early for my class to leave me with plenty of time to proselytize Orthodox Judaism.

When my wrist got tired from passing out tracts, I took a break in the student lounge and ate a complete well-balanced meal from the snack machines - candy bar, bag of chocolate chip cookies and a cup of hot chocolate.

I looked up on the bulletin board and saw an ad for tutoring: "All levels - elementry thru college. Academic Advancement." Why would anyone use a service that can't spell correctly?

Also on the board, an ad for a film screening by the UJ Hillel and the UCLA Hillel: Yossi & Jagger. "Romance blooms between two [male] soldiers (Knoller, Levi) stationed in an Israeli outpost on the Lebanese border."

Ellie writes on Imdb.com: "It's a movie based on homosexuality in a very macho environment, and yet, there is nothing expressly queer about Yossi and Jagger's relationship--this is a love story and a human story more than a gay story. The worst part of all is that it's also a true story."

Yankees writes: "I am a 41 year old Jewish, gay, man from NYC. I have rarely been as profoundly moved by anything whether it has been on TV or film as I am by "Yossi and Jagger." From the opening scene until the extremely powerful ending, I was riveted. The film is barely over an hour, yet, the characters and situations have such depth. I believe it gives tremendous insight into the struggles Israelis and Gay people face to lead normal, peaceful lives."

Jason writes: "One of the best love stories this year; gripping, touching and warm at the same time. A light look into the difficulties and hardships faced by Israeli soldiers everyday. Inclusive of women, very honest and realistic, this story is symbolic of how many gay men and women feel, without really dealing with 'gay' issues on the surface."

Chaim Amalek, whose life was the basis for this extraordinary Israeli movie, writes:

It disgusts me to see Bush granting "clemency" to some attractive turkey when all that means is that some other turkey, not quite the pretty thing that the former doubtlessly is, now faces the chopping block. If I were President, I'd pick out a turkey and slaughter it on national television before feeding it to homeless undocumented workers from Mexico. Then I'd deport the homeless undocumented workers back to Mexico where they belong on account of their heartlessness.

In my improv class, we're asked to give a relationship to two people that is not sexual. "Husband and wife," I yell out to laughter.

Cathy's Feeling Cranky

Cathy Seipp writes on her blog:

Then there's my dad. I think that when you get come out of surgery an appropriate response is what Debbie said when she saw me: "You look great!" So what if it was a lie? Yelling "Oh, no! Does the doctor even have a license?!?" when you walk in the door, like my father did, is not really so appropriate.

Last night he started complaining about "all the interracial kids" at Cecile's Sunday school -- "interracial" in this case means kids who look sort of Irish -- and I lost what little patience I had left. I pointed out that if it weren't for converts like Debbie and Luke there'd be even less Jews than there are so he should shut up and appreciate their dedication.

"I like Debbie," he said. "But Luke...all that jumping up and down watching football. He's not really Jewish. Now back in Winnipeg when I was growing up, those were real Jews." Pretty big talk from a man who used to regularly pass for Icelandic when he actually lived there. But of course, Winnipeg exists in his mind as an eternal lost Eden, what with all the beautiful grain elevators and helpful Hudson's Bay clerks and such.

"Just because someone wasn't brought up to think that his own colon is an appropriate topic for dinner table conversation doesn't mean he's not really Jewish," I said.

Silence. Crickets.

I remembered when I first went back to Winnipeg with my father and visited some of his wonderful "real" Jewish friends. One was an old law school classmate who decided to entertain us after dinner by telling an extremely long, extremely dirty and extremely boring joke. To break the silence that followed, I asked where he learned it.

"My father heard it one day when he went duck-hunting."

More silence. Which was eventually broken by the reedy voice of my grandfather. "Since when," he wanted to know, "does a Jew go duck-hunting?"  

My 60 Minutes Interview

Robin writes:

Dear Luke Ford, I never knew you until tonight while watching the show. And what you said about the porn industry and the upcoming generation thinking porn is cool is true. Every-thing you said resonates with me, so much so I had to search your web site and write (a lengthily e-mail).

I've been trying to bring this issue to the main stream since I wrote my memoirs over 3 years ago. You see I was a teenage prostitute for 7 years from the ages of 14 - 21. I worked the streets of Boston, NY, DC and Florida for a black pimp 20 years my senior. Six of those years being abused by him--physically and psychologically.

I am 43 now and am still struggling with the emotional and psychological rape on my Soul during those years. I have tried to send essays to the national woman's maga-zines and colleges, even Oprah about the recent fascina-tion with the sex trade, lap dancing and pimp daddy's. But it goes ignored. Even the language from "The Life" has infiltrated sub-urbia, (hoe and bitch) and looked upon as cool. I am horrif-ied that "Girls Gone Wild" and the reality dating shows pro-mote the exploitation of young girls. No matter if it's promiscuity or prostitution the end result is the same. It chips away at your self-esteem. You will eventually find yourself shrouded in a shame so toxic it embeds itself deep down into every corner of your being. Affecting each relationship forevermore. There is nothing cool about that.

The exploitation of young women and girls needs to be brought to the unknowledgeable masses by those with awareness of the consequences. In order to prevent the seduction of vulnerable girls by those seeking impressionable prey, self empowerment needs to start at home. But no one seems to understand that---they think they are untouchable. As long as the girl has a golden pussy between her legs---she will always be considered a money maker. And if she can be manipulated and brain-washed into believing she wants it too---the cycle will con-tinue until our wombs are bleeding raw. So I think your community casting a frown upon your work is misguided and ignorant to the bigger picture.

Lastly, from what I read on your web site though your families rendition on who you are and how you've changed since the accident. I'd like to say one thing. I understand you hit your head in between the eye brows. In the etheric body it is the 3rd chakra - the third eye area (were psychic information and dream stuff are perceived). I believe you have activated that chakra by the blow to your head. Also I must add that in the spirit world there is something known as a "walk-in." It can happen when one is in a vulnerable unconscious state. It is believed that an entity can step into your body to do unfinished work on the earth plane without going through the rebirthing process. Using your body to do so. Usually it is against the humans will, be-cause the Laws of the Universe only permit such a spiritual violation with those humans in agreement with the entity. To do work of GOODNESS not of Dark intent. But the dark forces do as they will, and enter without your permission. Reeking havoc on your body, mind and spirit, by indulging in every physical/earthly desire they were addicted to be-fore death. They are unable to accept they have died, therefore exploiting the unaware human to any of the 7 deadly sins.

When your mother mentioned your sudden obsession with working out, and lack of food. The more run down you are---the more they can do. Causing a definite personality change. The only professionals in the medi-cal community I've found who can assist someone with this is a Psychotherapist / White Witch. One in Boston I found years ago helped me with certain techniques and put me on a path to a spiritual awakening. I too began hugging trees. I still do sometimes. I used to go to Central Park in NYC and just close my eyes and soak in the peace-fulness. There is a strength and comfort in natures grandest beauties---it can bring me to tears. It is unmatched by anything a human being can produce.

Also the serpent dreams and hallucinations are repre-sentative of: in ancient times visions if the head of the ser-pent is up, ready to strike, it denoted EVIL. If the head is down it denotes protection. There is also serpent power in esoteric thinking. Relating to the Kundalini: the fire / life's electricity lays dormant at the base of our spine, travels up the spine towards the top of the head as one grows in Higher Intelligence / God head. I experienced it once years ago spontaneously while in a meditative group chant at an ashram. It felt like fire traveling up my spine--cover-ing my entire back. I kept looking behind me because I was convinced someone was holding a heater against me. I sat cross legged on the floor sweating with this peculiar sensation over my entire back. In meditation a lot of it comes back---but these days trying to pursue a writing career---it is difficult to be still. I am temporarily living in my sister's house, moving here to care for my mother who recently died---so I am searching for a new identity---a new life without her.

Well, Luke I hope I didn't overwhelm you. But instead, given you some insight into your own spiritual rebirthing. I haven't looked at your old web site---but from your new one I see you've caused quite a stir. I don't know if you're moving to Israel---but if you do, SHALOM.

From Luke Ford Fan Blog: