rivercityvibe   “Puerile, smutty, schoolboy nonsense” – My Mom

The Jax blogosphere (hateful word) is alive with reports of a team of loonies from the river city who have entered the 2009 BABE Rally, a rally of eighty beaters between New York and New Orleans with only one rule – all competing cars must have been bought for under $500. The team is imaginatively named “Team Preteen Spirit” and though two of the team are from Jacksonville, the third is, somewhat randomly, from Abu Dhabi. Here is their car:

It's name is Bloody Nora, apparently.

Now it has not escaped my notice that this whole deal has been set-up by a Public Relations agency. I got the press release (and very funny it was too). I’d usually be all over this, but, frankly I am impressed that these flacks have the awareness to treat bloggers seriously and actively court  this kind of coverage. Our buddies at Urbancore and Jacksonville Confidential are also running the story.

Is it true that a reporter from Vanity Fair will be embedded for part of the journey? Big rumor.

One of the stock conversations that men have over a few beers is what “type” of female companion you favor. The gays talk about other, equally banal things, but I guess I am referring to straight males, here.

My line on this has always been the same. I favor “conventionally beautiful” with a sub-preference for blondes. None of those other caegories appeal – the elfin look, for example, is one I cannot abide (this has its genesis in a period when I think I rather overdid it. You know, with the elfin ones).

This is one of the reasons that I have always been a fan of Jessica Simpson. She is conventionally beautiful (did you SEE The Dukes of Hazzard?). There has been a lot of coverage of her fatness lately. She has been roundly criticized for effecting a Kirstie Allie-like body transformation, presumably brought on by smoking pot near a cake shop.

Well with this week’s Vanity Fair photoshoot, I think we can safely declare this unfortunate period OVER:

Welcome home, Jessica. You’re back on the Bedside List.

I used to admire Graydon Carter. I admired him for founding Spy, a magazine that had a profound influence on my life at an impressionable age. I admired him for having the guts to mock everyone (though mainly Donald Trump), and I admired him for having the style to enjoy himself while he was doing it. But I confess, during his years as Editor-in-Chief at Vanity Fair, the bloom rather left the rose for me.

You see, to my mind, the mocking of celebrity all too rapidly became a fawning over it. The Vanity Fair party at the Oscars, over which Carter presides like an Ottoman prince, became the thing he was “known for”. And high-profile gossip from folks like Toby Young made him look like a bit of a prick.

With today’s publication in the Daily Beast of an interview with actor Rupert Everett, I may just have been granted the permission I need to admire Graydon again…… When interviewer Kevin Sessums (irritatingly mannered-style….) points out that Everett is listed as a contributing editor on the masthead of Vanity Fair, Everett replies:

I know. Who does one have to fuck to get OFF that masthead? He’s such a weird character, that [Vanity Fair Editor in Chief] Graydon [Carter]. He’s certainly not the buffoon he looks like. This is the most amazing thing I found out about him. I was once staying at a hotel and I was in the room directly under his. He is an amazing fuck. And you can quote me on this. The screams coming from the woman were some of the purest sounds of pleasure I’d ever heard. And there I was sitting alone in my room unfucked. Suddenly it all made sense. That messy hair of his that I always thought was buffoon hair was buffoon hair hiding a monster cock. The next day I went down to breakfast and Graydon came in and I thought to myself, well, now I understand why you are always acting so entitled and walking on air even though you’re rather fat. It’s because grazing the grass between your legs is this appendage of yours. I did rather politely tell him that morning that I thought he was a very good fuck.

Priceless material. I like it when he says “And you can quote me on this”. I am going to show it to my mom, who I hope will then forgive then-model Rupert Everett for influencing a young Joe Bones to tear fashionable holes in a brand new pair of Levi 501s she had just bought for me……