Coffee, Tea, or What in God's Name?

Whether you're flying Continental or Malev Express, it's nice to know what the bill of fare will be. Check out airlinemeals.net before you log on to expedia.com.

SAUDI ARABIAN AIRLINES

Photo taken by: Rwy31R Flying from: Riyadh to Manila, 15 June 2003 Aircraft type and class: 747-400, First class Duration: 9hr 30min Meal type: Dinner - It began with a pre take off welcoming arabian coffe and dates which were no photo graphed. After take off a pre-dinner drink of fresh orange juice and mixed nuts was offered. The meal is presented as an ala cart menu from which you ask the FA of your selctions. The appitizer was smoked salmon, hommous and magdos. Fresh seasonal salad with choice of dressing (oil and viniger). Entree was a choice of prawn kapsa, fillet steak forestiere, chicken madini and fish hammour Bilkhaqdour (pictured). Accompaniments included white rice, vegetable bouquetiere (pictured), potato & pea stew and cheese noodles (pictured) as well as a selection of breads (white, brown, garlic and arabian). Lastly in mid flight, a cup of hot chocolate. Drink: Water, sparkiling lemon and orange juice Rating: for first class I'd rate this meal 7.5/10

JETBLUE

Photo taken by: Karthik Balakrishnan Flying from: Washington Dulles to Oakland California, 22 June 2002 Class: Standard Meal type: Snack - Crackers, Tootsie Roll, Chewy oatmeal bar, weird cheese dip Drink: We were constantly watered/ caffinated/ etc... I drank alot of Sprite;-) Comments: "Very good service throughout. While they didn't serve full meals ... a professional, yet funny crew made the flight enjoyable... leather seats and DirectTV helped as well." Rating 1-10 (worst-best):7.5

Would There Still Be Panty Raids?

The American Civil Liberties Union has sued to keep the state of Virginia from shutting down a weeklong nudist sleep-away camp for 11- to 18-year-olds in the town of Ivor, says cnn.com. The lawsuit is a challenge to a new state law that bans nude summer camps for teenagers. The ACLU says the law violates the constitutional right to privacy. Hilariously, the camp is called White Tail Park.

"Legislators overreacted and in the process they substantially interfered with the right of families to make lifestyle choices," Virginia ACLU executive director Kent Willis said. "Using the overall logic of this law, legislators are now free to prevent children from swimming, playing baseball or riding a bus."

People Are Strange

Cheri Woods, death-row madame turned real-estate broker, is the proud owner of Cheri Amour, the last US residence of Jim Morrison before he left to die in Paris. She's in the process of getting the apartment building landmarked and she's done a bit of renovating, recently excavating dirt to make way for a new patio and meditation garden. Now she's opened up the West Hollywood property for walking tours, and this Saturday, July 3, from two till six o'clock there'll be a dedication ceremony for the official grand re-opening of the building, which is located at 8214 W. Norton Avenue, West Hollywood, between Fountain and Santa Monica Boulevard. And she'll be auctioning off that dirt she excavated.

The highest bidder will win a 6 1/2" x 5 7/8" ziplock baggie filled with dirt (earth, soil) that Jim may have walked on, sat on, but definitely passed by & looked at! Locations of dirt were the building's front yard & the courtyard area (below Jim's apartment.) I only have a limited supply, so when it's gone, it's GONE FOREVER! No 2 bags are alike. Weights & contents vary. Bid NOW on this RARE OPPORTUNITY of a lifetime to own a PERSONAL MEMORABILIA ITEM of Jim Morrison!!! Makes a great GIFT for a Doors fan or a shrewd MEMORABILIA INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY

There's more. On Cheri's website, she hawks her book, Death Row Madame, in which she details the story of her life, including her days on death row with the Manson family and her sex life with pop star husband Stevie Woods.

I will reveal the inside drug-dealing taking place by prison guards, which resulted in unsolved murders of my co-inmates, who had threatened to blow the whistle. Having successfully smuggled my manuscript out of the prison with assistance from someone on the inside, and following my 1989 release back into society, I was only met with more obstacles - the kidnapping of my "fugitive" baby at the hands of my own mother, with whom I had also entrusted my entire life savings.

Alternative Reading

Judging by the appearance of some of the children in Mrs. Daniels' second-grade class that day (and Mrs. Daniels herself), perhaps Bush should have been reading from My Pet Fat instead. It's the pet rock of the oughts.

Take a Letter – to Hell!

We mention this 23-minute comedy film, Secretary's Day, because WOW researcher Mary Ann Heagerty produced it. It was written and directed by Michael Zara, a 24-year-old, six-foot cutie who has just returned from the desert where he was starring in The Pumpkin Carver, a slasher pic. His Secretary's Day is a tiny slasher too, sort of, using the last available calendar day even vaguely suitable for filmmakers wanting to scare people. OK, there's still Flag Day. Anyway, while Zara was working on his next script, about Southwest models, he found time to get his photo in issue #1 of Sweet Action magazine, touted as "porn for girls." (The word "girls" here might be optimistic.)

(Secretary's Day website)
(Secretary's Day clip)

The Goatherd Round the World

God knows why, but the book that George W. Bush is reading with a class of second-graders at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, on the fateful morning of 9/11/01– as seen in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 – has caught the country's fancy, the veracity of the "book" My Pet Goat becoming a locus of inquiry. Forget the scores of other fabulous stretches in the film – it seems the world had to know if My Pet Goat really existed, since its title was never seen, identified only in Moore's sarcastic voiceover. Extensive Googling turned up nothing on the book – nothing on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, rare and out-of-print-book sites. Nothing. Was it really the name of the book, or did Moore make it up?

Well, neither. The mystery was solved this morning, by a persistent blogger named Peter Smith at his ledgeofliberty. (Yesterday he had nothing.) "The Pet Goat," turns out, is actually a story contained in a Scientific Research Associates textbook called Reading Mastery 2, storybook #1 by Siegfried Engelmann & Elaine C. Bruner.

Reading Mastery is a technique of “Direct Instruction” - a teaching technique developed by Siegfried Engelmann in the 1960’s which makes the claim, "Kids taught in a fully implemented Direct Instruction program read by the end of kindergarten. . . That's all kids, even disadvantaged kids, ghetto kids, and special-ed kids." As it turns out, Siegfried Engelmann is also the co-author of the “The Pet Goat,” a story found on page 153 of SRA’s “Reading Mastery 2” storybook #1.

So, from nothing at all yesterday to more than we really need to know about the goat today. Ledge of Liberty is the go-to site for comprehensive info on the book, and eBay the place to buy it should you want to own something that might become a cinematic curiosity. Or learntoreadreallyfast.

Bed Bad & Beyond

For those of you who loved the Hartwig Gobbler, this site's for you. It's Eurobad '74, an exhibition of Europe's worst interiors of 1974.

The Pube Tube

If it's not one thing with scientists, it's another. Now they're saying that children who are exposed to extensive television viewing, regardless of content, are likely to experience a premature onset of puberty, reports the Guardian. Which is a bad thing, apparently. Of course, the scientific study was carried out in Italy, where the onset of puberty is typically around age nine. Conducted last month in the town of Cavriglia, the study showed a huge increase in production of melatonin in children deprived of TV, computers, and video. Melatonin slows down sexual maturation. The experiment had something to do with light and radiation. Seventy-four children between six and 12 who normally watch television for an average of three hours a day were required to watch a few more hours. After being observed, they were deprived of TV, computers and, video games for a week. (more)

Some of the younger children were reported to have cried when their TV was removed, but the mayor of Cavriglia, Enzo Brogi, presented each child with a book and board game, which seems to have helped. Parents organised card games, ball games and fishing expeditions. They encouraged their children to listen more to the radio and arranged a collective reading of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince. The experiment ended on May 16 with a midnight ceremony in which the mayor symbolically smashed a television set in the town square.

9/11 in the Shade

Fahrenheit 9/11 is a film that everyone should see, no question. When dorky Richard Roeper said it on that show he has with the other guy, Miramax wanted to slap the quote on the ads for the film. But the almighty MPAA banned the quote because Michael Moore's documentary is rated R and not, in fact, for everyone to see. (Frankly, though, a positive recommendation from Roeper – or the other guy – usually translates as negative to me.)

But Moore's creative fact-disseminating is illustrated nicely by a statement he gave recently. According to today's "Page Six," Moore bragged to the NY Times that his film "sold out in Fayetteville, home of Fort Bragg." What he left out, says the NY Post column, was that the picture played at Fayetteville's Cameo Art Theater, which has only 125 seats.

Unpretty

CBS has won the bidding for a new reality show to air in 2005, produced by Survivor's Mark Burnett, in which 12 aspiring rockers will live in a Hollywood Hills house together and vie to become the replacement for dead INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence, who killed himself in 1997. The search is on in the US, Canada, London, Tokyo, and Sydney, reports UPI. But, guys, unless you use shovels, you'll never find Hutchence.

As macabre as that reality show sounds and is, it's not the only one in the works with a replaceable dead-artist theme. The LA Times says the remaining T and C of the original trio TLC are talking to Fox execs about putting a show together that would find a new girl to replace Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, who died in a car accident in 2002.

Burnett was not amused by what he sees as Fox's copycat ways. "If I decide to produce a show called 'Dog Shit,' I'll get a call saying there's a new show someone's doing" with the same concept, he told the Times.

It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Receiving an Honorary Degree from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland)

The Steal World

MTV is stealing, er, make that borrowing Fox's The OC concept and making its own series based in Orange County, reports infobeat. OK, but, like, Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County will be unscripted, with real teens, but will look like a drama rather than a scripted show like the real The OC, which is scripted and also looks like a drama, because it is. Follow? The MTV show will observe the lives of seven teens, being called "glamorous" (because, God knows, Mischa Barton and Benjamin McKenzie, are drab) who will apparently not all live in a house together and "confess" directly to the camera, because that would be The Real World: Laguna Beach, wouldn't it?

The stars of the show will be high-schoolers Stephen, Kristen, Lauren (LC), Lo, Christina, Trey and Morgan, who've been friends since grade-school. The five girls and two boys will be followed to the prom, on dates and on college visits as their real lives serve as the show's drama. The show will forgo confessionals and interviews, which have become a staple of reality shows. Instead, the teens will be oblivious to the digital cameras monitoring their every move, and editors will create a narrative story out of the footage. (filmstew)

Musto Gives Good Head

If you think you see Michael Musto on television as a talking head so often (and often in the same outfit) the shows must be repeats of ones you've already seen, you'd be wrong. Shockingly, they're not repeats: It really is Musto every time. "I can barely summon the energy to speak anymore unless there's a big ol' camera pointed at my face," he says in his La Dolce Musto column today. "I won't even talk to my mother because she's almost never accompanied by a crew." He confesses he's a soundbite whore, albeit one who's not paid. He lists the eight points of TV talk-show slutdom. Here are two:

4. Don't think your volunteer status makes you an independent agent. One channel recently bristled when I turned up on a vaguely similar show on another channel, so they're vengefully freezing me out! I wonder if the same policy applies to the real charity world. ("Sorry, we can't use you anymore here at God's Love We Deliver. We hear you were sneaking food to the homeless over the weekend!")

7. Unlearn all the TV sexuality training of the last several decades and carry on as if you've got a gerbil up your ass and a KYLIE album waiting at home. Gay is cool now. Queers are the new Latins. You can be a flaming fag—in fact, for the next five minutes they'd love you to be one, even if you're not gay. So flail those wrists and say "hel-leaux." You're a star, girl!

Blossom in Bloom

While Bruce Willis is trying to grow hair, former child star Mayim Bialik – TV's Blossom and Bette Midler as a child in Beaches (genius casting!) – is getting her Ph.D in neuroscience at UCLA.

Try Hard

Bruce Willis is considering a new treatment to grow hair on his head, according to Sky News. The so-called hair-cloning treatment, which is not yet approved by the FDA, has been tested only on rodents so far. The expensive procedure involves injecting hair follicles with booster cells that stimulate growth and reverse the thinning process. Sure. OK. So far, the rats seem to like the way they look. Willis, who's known as Bruno to his friends, is looking to attract the chicks now that he's no longer hooked up with Baywatch alumnus Brooke Burns. I hear the ladies like a man with a recent hit movie.

Of Interest

Not exactly the hammer of the gods, the Electras were a high school garage band formed in 1961 that have become somewhat of a curiosity now that bass player John Kerry may be – we hope – the next president of the United States. The band had one album, on RCA, which is being rereleased now on CD in light of this new information, though it's hard to believe they were ever signed in the first place. Here are some samples:

"You Can't Sit Down"
"Shanghaied"
"Yellow Jacket"

Results May Vary

Back, for a moment, to that Peter Bart story in today's Variety. He says that movies like The Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11 owe their popularity to their protesters, the very people who would like to see the films run out of town. Instead of shutting the films down, the hubbub only heightens interest in them. It's not news. It's exactly what happened way back in 1972 when the X-rated Deep Throat was released. In Inside Deep Throat, the fierce new documentary from Imagine Films in association with World of Wonder Productions that both Bart and I have had the dirty pleasure of previewing, the dynamics of that process are shown in, um, graphic detail.

A forthcoming documentary produced by Brian Grazer further illuminates this phenomenon. Grazer's film skillfully delineates the events surrounding the opening of an obscure, ineptly made porn movie that triggered the righteous indignation of anti-porn crusaders across the nation. Their crusade transformed "Deep Throat" into a "must-see" pop-culture experience; you just weren't cool until you had witnessed Linda Lovelace's arcane skills. In city after city, "Deep Throat" opened to tepid business until the local crusaders closed in. Even in liberal New York, the city fathers were intent on shutting it down, thus prompting lines around the block.

Justin Time

On Saturday night, Aric Laferriere, a segment producer here at WOW, went with friends to XES – the SEX-spelled-backwards nightclub with several poles for creative dancing – and got his dance on with a celebrity.

Against our better judgment, some friends and I ventured out to XES, one of those "Hollywood-type" nightclubs. Usually, the people I roll with prefer the local dive bars where not only do you not have to worry about getting in and expensive drinks, but girls think a '97 Honda Accord is a "pimp" enough ride. But this night we had a plan: We'd go to the club posing as casting directors scouting fresh faces for our latest reality show (we had credentials to support this). Believe it or not, this worked like a charm; but although we skipped the line outside, we were still required to pay 15 bucks cover. Ouch.

Once inside, we went directly to the bar, still excited about avoiding the hour wait outside. Just as our first beverages went down the hatch, I saw a familiar face walk past – a friend of Justin Timberlake's I'd seen on TV, on Punk'd, I think. I wondered if JT himself was there but, to be honest, I was more focused on getting the bartender's attention. The heat rising from the nearby dance floor was making me thirsty.

Much later in the evening, as we were about to order our last couple of drinks, two of my friends raced over to me laughing, saying they had just seen Justin – yes JT – having a dance-off in the middle of the dance floor. I had to see this in person, not as some adoring fan, but as someone who couldn't believe this dance-off stuff actually happens in these places. Sure enough, as I made my way to the circle of people in the middle of the dance floor, there was what appeared to be a dance-off happening right in front of me. But I couldn't see Timberlake. I leaned forward to look for him, using the shoulder of the guy in front of me for support, and began to nod my head to the music. Then I realized the shoulder I was resting my hand on and the guy I was nodding in unison with was Justin.

Filipino 9/11

It's not often, if ever, that you meet someone named Ramona, so when I found that I was sitting next to Ramona Diaz at last Friday's screening of Fahrenheit 9/11, I kept singing to myself, "Ramona, come closer, shut softy your watery eyes" – Bob Dylan's "To Ramona" being my only real link to that name. Ramona Diaz, of course, is the New York filmmaker whose documentary, Imelda, is currently being blocked from release in the Philippines by its subject, Imelda Marcos.

Is Ramona Diaz related to Cameron Diaz? "As you can see, I am," said the short, brunette Filipino, apparently kidding. "But thanks to her I no longer have to spell my last name for people." After the film, the witty, feisty Diaz was leaving for Manila, just in case the court there ruled that her film could have its premiere after all. Marcos is not a popular figure in the country she once co-ruled with her dictator husband, said Diaz, and Filipinos are eager to see her devastated by the award-winning doc. In her petition to block the film, Marcos said the film would cause her "extreme and irreparable injury and injustice" and violate her right to privacy. Diaz thinks it's funny that Marcos fears the film will mar her good name and reputation. Diaz said she'll be pissed, as will the public, if the film isn't released there.

Fenton Bailey thinks that Marcos has petitioned the injunction as a shrewd move to generate publicity for the film (which he says is virtually a love poem to the woman), much the way controversy spurred ticket sales for Gibson's Passion film to a whopping $370 million. And the way the pro-Bush protesters have made Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 a must-see. As Peter Bart says in todays Variety (via Yahoo!), "The noisier the opposition, the bigger the box office. It's worked time and again. And it surely will propel "Fahrenheit 9/11" into history's highest-grossing documentary."

But, meanwhile, we got our hands on the injunction filed by Imelda Marcos. (Click to enlarge pages.)

Tiny Bobbles

Tired of that Athlete of the Year mug, sport? Be your own bobblehead. You know you want to.

1 Choose your bobblehead's body.

2 Customize the body and attach photos.
    
3 Choose quantity.

Poetry

I've turned Alicia Gargaro's dream account into a poem. I was once forced to attend an all-female, vegetarian, no-smoking poetry conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, so I know what I'm doing.

Bill Clinton was in my dream last night

Bill Clinton was in my dream last night
He stayed with us
most of the night at the WOW Slumber Party
It was pot luck
and he was very tall
I kept saying, "You are really tall"
His legs in his black trousers went high into the sky
He was very nice,
most congenial
and laughed
a lot
There was a moment
where he thought he had stayed too long,
but in the end
a good time
was had
by all

– Alicia Gargaro

Yeast Affection

Oh, those crazy French. This summer, Paris designer Jean-Paul Gaultier has turned the edgy Foundation Cartier arthouse into a giant bakery, creating an entire collection of clothes out of dough. Couture is so very expensive, you know, but if you invest in this collection, at least you'll never go hungry. (expatica.com)

It is a show with a difference, probably the French capital's most-titillating must-see exhibition of the summer. "Pain couture" (Bread couture) by the 52-year-old Gaultier combines his childhood dream of one day becoming a baker with his current status as fashion icon. "Baking and fashion have a lot in common," Gaultier told the press. There are thongs, boots, bags, brollies and even high-heeled shoes sculpted in dough, wicker worked as bustiers or the conical bras he made for Madonna.

Come!

Dog Toy or Marital Aid?

Britney Baby One More Time

Now that she's officially engaged to professional chorus boy (You Got Served) Kevin Federline, Britney Spears is going to become stepmom to his soon-to-be two children by ex-Moesha actress, Shar Jackson. The kid that's already born is two years old – median age of Brit's fannage. It will be Britney's second marriage (oops, she did it before) and, oddly, Kevin's first. Brit and Kev have been and will be a continuing story, so don't forget to pick up next week's People magazine, which will have the "exclusive" cover interview with the lovebirds.

Big Baby

One wonders if they destroyed all the labs in Germany after the war. A baby, a product of genetic mutation, was born in Berlin five years ago and now, though he appears to be a normal boy, is able to perform circus-quality feats of strength. His doctor Markus Schuelke, began studying the abnormally muscled child after he was brought to Berlin's Charite Hospital shortly after birth because he was twitching. Though the spasms turned out to be of no concern, Schuelke eventually discovered the boy had a genetic mutation that boosts muscle growth. (canada.com, NY Times)

The boy, whose name Schuelke has promised not to divulge, has muscles twice the size of other children his age and half their body fat. He was born to a muscular mother, a former sprinter. Her brother and three other relatives were also very strong – one a construction worker with a talent for hefting curbstones. Schuelke said scientists have no way to tell how common the boy's ability is, or if a legion of super-strong tykes will be discovered now that researchers have learned what to look for.

Recently Dead

Claudia "Sue" Powers, widow of the U-2 pilot and spy who was famously shot down over Russia, died of respiratory failure last week at 68, in Las Vegas, reports the LA Times. Her husband was the hottest news back in 1960, when he parachuted out of his plane and was captured, convicted of espionage, and sentenced to 10 years in a Russian prison. He was freed two years later in exchange for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.

Sue Powers, a CIA psychometrist who tested agents coming back from abroad, met Powers in '62 after his release from the Soviet Union. They married and moved to Los Angeles, where he became a Lockheed test pilot and flew helicopters for TV news. He died in 1977, when his KNBC-TV Channel 4 chopper crashed in Encino. With their son, Francis, the widow Powers obtained several posthumous distinguished medals for her husband and established the Cold War Museum, a traveling exhibit that honors him. The Los Vegas resident was a longtime volunteer at the Atomic Testing Museum.

[Ed. note: Psychometrics, since you were wondering, is the branch of psychology that deals with the design, administration, and interpretation of quantitative tests for the measurement of psychological variables such as intelligence, aptitude, and personality traits.]

The guy who added the escape key and the backslash to computer language died Thursday of cancer, at age 84, in Possum Kingdom Lake, Texas, miles and miles and miles from Dallas, reports reuters. In the '50s and '60s Bob Bemer worked for IBM Corp. and helped develop the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (you know, ASCII), a format code that allows most computers to read text as a binary number.

He won the Computer Pioneer Award in 2002 from the IEEE Computer Society for his work in making it easier for people to move text and images on a computer screen. "Computer power is work power, but it is also knowledge power, of the kind that has been used throughout history for aggrandizement as well as the good of the people," Bemer wrote on his Web site.

Dream Date

WOW producer Alicia Gargaro had a dream last night. Let her tell it:

Bill Clinton was in my dream last night. He stayed with us most of the night at the WOW Slumber Party. It was pot luck and he was very tall. I kept saying, "You are really tall." His legs in his black trousers went high into the sky. He was very nice, most congenial and laughed a lot. There was a moment where he thought he had stayed too long, but in the end a good time was had by all.

Alicia has a habit of emailing the WOW Report. In the past:

Today I have a big crush on Robert Fuller. I think Jake Gyllenhaal looks like a young Robert Fuller. When was the last time you thought about Robert Fuller? I believe that he was in a Quentin movie. But who isn't?

Today my crush is on Pierce Brosnan. Let me tell you, I saw "Laws of Attraction" last night and it was a simply lovely picture. Like watching a Myrna Loy William Powell delight. And we got to go to NYC and Ireland in just two hours!! He is 51 and a Taurus.

Imelda No Shoe-in

Imelda, Ramona Diaz's documentary that won kudos and a cinematography prize at Sundance and was described in the NY Times as "a devastating portrait of how power begets self delusion,” is having a hard time getting screened in the Philippines. The well-heeled onetime first lady of the land and the subject of the doc, Imelda Marcos, posted a $1,780 bond to stop an advance screening and the public release of the film while a court deliberates on whether to ban it altogether. In her petition, Marcos said the film, which documents her rise from beauty queen to dictator's power wife, would cause her "extreme and irreparable injury and injustice" and violate her right to privacy. (reuters, latimes)

Despite earlier claims that she had cooperated with the filmmakers, she now states the film’s interviews were inaccurate and had been conducted under false pretences. [Her] lawyer, Vic Alvaro, said Marcos had not given permission for the film producer, New York-based Filipino Ramona Diaz, to make a movie out of the interviews she gave 10 years ago.

So Nine Years Ago

After six years as a cult favorite on Channel 4 in England (and three years of repeats here on BBC America), starring as titular host of an hilariously risqué sort of audience-participation chat show (talking to the likes of Joan Collins and Sophia Loren) called So Graham Norton, the rude, matter-of-factly gay, fast-talking, overdressed, double-entendre-prone Norton finally has his own stateside show. The Graham Norton Effect premiers tonight on Comedy Central. It promises to be just like his British show, only, um, different, thanks to Janet Jackson.

We like to think – no, we know – that Norton got his start in 1995 on a World of Wonder show on Channel 4 called Takeover TV, in which talented unknown Brits submitted tapes hoping to get them aired on the clip show and eventually "take over TV." Norton was one of them; his clip aired, and he took. As you can see from the video below, his humor has remained consistent over the years. Urine for a treat.

Smaller (7 MB) | Large (11.5 MB)

Just Say Notes

An almost-fullpage ad in Daily Variety today is headlined HOW TO PACE YOUR CHARACTER'S DIVE DOWN THE K-HOLE, followed by some copy:

A cool bottle of springwater laced with puppy tranquilizer – Special K, as it's known on the dance floor – sends you spiraling down the "K-Hole." You can't move because your arms and legs are imbedded in cement. Your teeth are pushing through your skull and into your brain. Before your eyes, you see children flattened and pulled apart like soggy bread. This hallucinated hell lasts 24 hours, and so the next morning, the victim has no recollection of the ride, the rave or how they were raped.

The curiously provocative ad is for drugstory.com, the straight story on drug use, a site for screenwriters to "Write It Real." Because, actually, it's movies like The Salton Sea, Wonderland, and Spun that make you feel as if your teeth are being pushed into your brain. For 24 hours.

Gossip Grab Bag

Unlike Madonna and Britney, David Bowie didn't postpone or cancel his concert, he ended it prematurely. During a performance in Prague yesterday, Bowie was stricken with a painful pinched nerve in his shoulder, so he took a 10-minute break from the grueling stagework. (The Thin White Duke is 57, after all, and nerve discomfort in the shoulder is just the beginning.) He returned to perform two songs, while seated. Then, after an apology, it was exit stage right. No word on whether the nerve was his last one, after being hit in the eye with a lollipop last week in Oslo.

Meanwhile, Britney is losing $900,000 every week she doesn't tour with Onyx Hotel. It's predicted she could end up $9 million in the hole.

Now, this item from today's "Page Six" I have to repeat here in its entirety because it's one of those Bijou Phillips items involving famous sons and daughters of the famous intermingling and swapping partners that just confound me. See if you can make sense of it. It might be important.

June 24, 2004 -- A BROKEN heart may be behind Bijou Phillips' drunken rampage that resulted in her and pal Nicky Hilton being banned from L.A. restaurant Il Sole last weekend. We're told that Hollywood hellcat Bijou is heartsick her former flame Max LeRoy is getting married to Courtney Wagner. Bijou's four-year relationship with Sean Lennon ended after Lennon's best friend LeRoy admitted that he and Bijou were having an affair — which provoked Lennon to admit he had dallied with Wagner, among others. "Bijou has been flipping out," says a pal. "She's been calling and e-mailing everybody saying, 'My life is over,' and 'Courtney is such a 'ho! She dates everyone I date!' She's really upset."

New York's Daily News keeps Colin Farrell's forbidden area alive with fresh info. Seems the actor's penis, which a studio spokesman said was not responsible for certain scenes being cut from A Home at the End of the World, was too cumbersome to cooperate on the set of Alexander.

Insiders on the set of Farrell's next movie, in which he plays Alexander the Great, claimed Farrell didn't fit into the skimpy underwear made for him by costume designers – and so wore nothing beneath his tunic. (Word is he treated the crew to glimpses of what the rest of us will now be missing.)

Here comes the judge. Thesmokinggun reports that an Oklahoma judge kept his untethered genitalia shaved and oiled under his robes and masturbated during court proceedings, including murder trials. Hot.

Donald D. Thompson, 57, was caught in the act by a clerk, trial witnesses, and his longtime court reporter. Visitors to Thompson's Creek County courtroom reported hearing a "swooshing" sound coming from the bench, a noise the court reporter said "sounded like a blood pressure cuff being pumped up."

Wart Treatment, Thy Name Is Woman!

The New England Journal of Medicine has recently published details of a cream containing breast milk that, so far, has proven to be an effective treatment for warts. The preparation, created by scientists in Sweden, is called Hamlet (Hamlet, Sweden, get it? But wasn't Hamlet Danish?) and has shown to dramatically reduce and often completely vanish the stubborn viruses. No mention in the report, reported in webindia, about the process of milk-gathering or whether Pam Anderson's or Lindsay Lohan's handlers have signed on their clients to shill for the product once it hits the market.

A-Courting We Will Go

Every so often I have to go to court. And I'm not a lawyer or a juror. And the only judging I do is on The WOW Report. Yet all this morning I was in court. Again. (Heaves sigh.) I'll explain later; of course, there've been clues in some of the posts here at the Report, where I work. The poor guy at this site doesn't have a job at all. Cheer him up.

The Click Clique

There's a chic new place to go where the air's electric, or rather, electronic. A Small World is an invitation-only, Internet-based "social network" where the right sort of people cyberchat about parties to attend, real estate to buy, and places to summer without the wrong sort of, say, Friendster people horning in on their plans. The site, founded by Erik Wachmeister, is based somewhere in Europe and is currently soliciting American members to join the likes of Prince Michael de Yugoslavie, Alex von Furstenberg, Vanessa von Bismarck, Lady Forester de Rothschild, and, oh jeez, Naomi Campbell. Recent postings, says NY Post's Elisa Lipsky-Karasz, have suggested which Hamptons broker rules, how to find vacation houses in Marrakech and St. Tropez, and a listing for a $50,000-a-month apartment on New York's Upper East Side. Which – sorry, lads – I just rented.

Twin Piques

It's not official that stick figure Mary-Kate Olsen's recent outbreak of anorexia was brought on by the critical and popular drubbing of the twins' latest product, New York Minute. But it is official that the brunette half of the tiny, barely legal megamultimillionaires was admitted into an unidentfied treatment facility. Msnbc says the Olsen publicist announced yesterday that M-KO was seeking “professional help for a health-related issue” but clammed up when asked if the issue was the eating disorder anorexia as US Weekly and People have claimed. So if Mary-Kate isn't anorexic, does that make Ashley the fat twin?

Colin Farrell's Biggest Part

"It’s official," reports The Sun, "the Irish badboy is very, very well hung." In Colin Farrell's latest movie, A Home at the End of the World, costarring Sissy Spacek and Robin Wright Penn, he appears in some full-frontal nude scenes. I know. Calm down. Before you get out your credit cards to call moviefone, know this: After the audience at a recent test screening was visibly and audibly shocked by Farrell's prodigious member – shocked! – the filmmakers decided to excise the scenes. A source said, "All you could hear were gasps. . . . The women were over-excited and the men looked really uncomfortable. It was such a sight it made it difficult to concentrate on the plot." Even director Michael Mayer found Farrell's penis distracting. Farrell, who plays a bisexual in the movie written by The Hours author, Michael Cunningham, is fuming over having his member chopped off and insists the scenes be returned to the film for the DVD release. So you'll have to wait. Meanwhile, you can visit Fleshbot for a taste of the Irish beefcake.

Iraq's Head Start Program

The little girls in Iraq are dressing up like Britney Spears and mooning over men with pregnant girlfriends, and the little Muslim boys are playacting events from world news. Kids. They're so cute.

Close But No Sitar

This is fun and it just might have been something like this that made little Norah Jones want to grow up to be a musician. I'm not telling you anything you don't know when I say her dad is Ravi Shankar.

Hadn't He Heard of Finger Sandwiches?

We weren't aware that the side effect of sniffing butane gas was a powerful hunger, but one lives and learns. After getting high from the gas, a man in Austria sliced off his toes, fried them in a pan, and ate them between slices of bread, reports ananova.

The man's sister called the police when she walked into the kitchen and saw him making the toe sandwich. When ambulance men arrived he offered to share his meal with them, passing over a toe and saying: "It tastes like chicken, do you want some, there's a few still left over."

D.B. Strikes Again

In "Page Six" today, you read about Dessarae Bradford's humiliating S&M sex experience with Alec Baldwin, the details of which she's managed to fill a self-published book with (but the title of which the column couldn't print). The event occurred during "a hot, sweaty, nasty sex romp," she says – but a whole book about it? Now who's a bloviator?

Grab the scoop before my story gets into the hands of the media, and they attemp to censor it. I had Alec Baldwin on all four's for me, and S/M was involved. Read the real story.

Midday Hump

I can't help you with this: There are no instructions, and where are the onions? But with this one I can be of some assistance: Play with the guy a while by clicking on him arbitrarily, watching him dance his arm off. Next go to upper left hand corner and click on the white circle (INTERFACE), then click the A (ARCHIVES). Now enjoy the animation by clicking on the boxes and experimenting with what ensues. (Don't forget to SCROLL down for more.) It's all very Pina Bausch to me. If you find that you enjoy the disturbingly delightful, jauntily macabre fun, you can enter the Hotel.

Grab Bag o' Gossip

Vince Vaughn, Wyclef Jean, and Lauren Bush were among celebs at Entertainment Weekly's "Must List" party the other night who went home with swag bags worth $35,000 each. (P6)

Colin Reavley, the photograper Lynne Spears ran down with her Toyota Scion, was taken by his father to the hospital, where no broken bones were discerned. (NYDN)

They just moments ago became legal, set free to be she and she, and now half of the Smurfish Olsen twins has become imprisoned by an eating disorder and an institution that treats it – and an eating disorder is not what you want in newly legal hottage. Let's see, it's, um, Mary hyphen Kate who's afflicted. I put my trust in Us Weekly via usatoday.

Monica Lewinsky was invited to take a preview tour of the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas. She declined. (P6)

When the 700-seater Buddha Bar opens in New York's Meatpacking District (which, surprisingly, has not yet been shortened to MeDi), it will be the second-largest restaurant in Manhattan after Tavern on the Green. (P6)

Sex and the City author, Candace Bushnell, just signed a financially heat-seeking deal to write two more books (gak). We can only pray Darren Starr goes blind before they're published. (NYDN)

Court documents were released yesterday (and are posted on thesmokinggun) detailing the details of Star Trek: Voyager and Boston Public hottie Jeri Ryan's child-custody proceedings against ex-husband Jack Ryan, the Illinois Republican Senate candidate. Seems he liked to have sex in S&M clubs while others watched--on two continents.

One club I refused to go in. It had mattresses in cubicles. The other club he insisted I go to. . . . It was a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling. Respondent wanted me to have sex with him there, with another couple watching. I refused. Respondent asked me to perform a sexual activity upon him, and he specifically asked other people to watch. I was very upset.

Jesus Loves You. . . After the Break

In October, The Trinity Broadcasting Network, which enters 70 million homes without knocking, will debut Gifted, a Christian version of American Idol. Apparently, American Idol wasn't righteous enough. To create the talent-search show, the California-based Network teamed with Florida-based Wright Entertainment Group, which represents Britney Spears and 'N Sync, to form a venture called Wright Generation. The Generation's mission statement reads: ''It is our goal to wrap God's message – his love – in acceptance, and in a way that blends seamlessly into 'pop' culture while still upholding the values we, as Christians, value most.'' Good luck.

Over the summer, a bus will travel to 11 Trinity stations across the country, where auditions will be held for singers age 18-24. Two finalists will be chosen at each stop; 24 finalists will wind up in Hollywood, where they'll perform in front of a studio audience and be evaluated by celebrity judges (Kathie Lee? Kirk Cameron?). Eight will move to the finals, where television viewers will choose a winner, whose career will be managed by Wright and Matt Crouch, son of Trinity Broadcasting's founders. We can only hope that Christ, who is our lord and host, will host.

If you ask me, all this idol worship and choosing one performer to reign supreme over all the others seems unChristian. Christ out.

(BTW: Secular American Idol judge Paula Abdul is 42 today.)

Tales from the Coop

KFC may do chicken right, but it doesn't do right by chickens. The Lady Bunny is the latest celebrity to hook up with PETA to protest the Colonel's long-hidden cruelty to the feathered fryers. The New York drag icon joins the mixed ranks of Pamela Anderson, Richard Pryor, Chrissie Hynde, Dick Gregory, and others in urging KFC ("Kentucky Fried Cruelty") to clean up its coops, including stopping the painful debeaking and scalding of live chickens, acts of cruelty involved in clucker plucking simply so you don't have to cook tonight. Bunny, bless her, recently flew to Louisville, Kentucky, to unveil her "Kick the Bucket" campaign for PETA. But don't get the wrong idea: Lady Bunny loves chicken.

Britney Buys a Puppy, Lynne Runs Over a Paparazzo

Yesterday, Britney, Jamie, and mom Lynne went shopping to buy a puppy for Brit. You know, like they were a normal family and not powerful magnets for photographers out to make a living. No sign of Kevin; that puppy's house-trained now, so she can leave him at home. So Brit, ambulating without a crutch, chose a cute fluffy pup and got some pup accessories and they all headed back to the car, which the cameramen instantly swarmed around. Then, oops, Lynne ran over one of them. Go to worldofbritney.com and scroll down a third of the way for a full, illustrated account. It's hot.

Brush to Judgment

I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy
Snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty
Oily, greasy, fleecy, shining
Gleaming, steaming, flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka-dotted; Twisted, beaded, braided
Powdered, flowered, and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled and spaghettied!

Tran Van Hay, 67, made the Vietnamese Guinness book of records for growing his hair more than 20 feet in 31 years. Now he wants to be in Guinness's world records book. Jeez, man, what's the rush? (Yahoo)

("Hair" lyrics by James Rado & Gerome Ragni)

Where Can a Trannie Pee to Get Some Respect?

Last fall, the Chiang Mai Technology School in northern Thailand unveiled, i