LazlosBasement.com

Boy. You just never know what you’re going to find when you hop on the web. There you are, trying to be an educated voter. Typing a few innocuous words into your search bar. Looking for the truth behind the false-fronts of those ceaseless campaign ads. Gearing up for SNAFU 2008. But the i-fates (and Slate) have conspired to share a little too much information with you, and they have enlisted our assistance.

Think you know politics? Wise to the ways of baby-kissers? Impervious to hypocrisy? Oh, what tangled web we weave when first we practice to… well… write a crappy X-rated novel and then run for public office. It’s hard to know whether to be more offended by the writing or the absurdity of the sanctimony.

Writing Dirty

Slate Quiz: Match the porn with the politician who wrote it.

Republican Senate candidate George Allen made headlines this week when his campaign released a series of lewd excerpts from novels written by his opponent, Democrat James Webb. The Allen campaign argued that the novels “dehumaniz[e] men, women and even children.” (Sample? “A naked boy ran happily toward him from a little plot of dirt. The man grabbed his young son in his arms, turned him upside down, and put the boy’s penis in his mouth.”) But Jim Webb isn’t the only politician who knows how to write a squirm-inducing scene. Can you identify which politician wrote each of the passages below?

The Politicians:

A. Barbara Boxer, senator, D–Calif.
B. William F. Buckley, former candidate for mayor of New York City
C. Jimmy Carter, former president
D. Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney
E. Winston Churchill, former prime minister of the United Kingdom
F. William Cohen, former secretary of defense, and Gary Hart, former senator, D–Colo.
G. Susan Combs, Republican candidate for Texas comptroller
H. Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House, R–Ga.
I. I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Jr., former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney
J. Joseph Nye, former assistant secretary of defense for international security
K. Kenneth Starr, former independent counsel
L. William Weld, former governor of Massachusetts
M. Jim Webb, Democratic candidate for Virginia Senate seat

The Dirty Bits:

1. “Suddenly the pouting sex kitten gave way to Diana the Huntress. She rolled onto him and somehow was sitting athwart his chest, her knees pinning his shoulders. ‘Tell me, or I will make you do terrible things,’ she hissed.”

2. “She was overwhelmed with a desire to nurture her husband. She soon bared her breast and held him close against it, and he responded eagerly to this unprecedented intimacy.”

3. “She romped on top of Simolzak’s huge frame, straddling him with her hands on his chest, her back arched and her breasts flailing wildly in the air. Her back was to him and her long hair swung from side to side as if accentuating the abandonment of her screams.”

4. “I set the edge of my teeth halfway up her breast, just at the point of tension but not, so far as I could tell, of pain. This was the sweetest flesh I had ever tasted, including fish and fowl.”

5. “After dinner, they went dancing at Charlie’s Jazz. Elaine felt detached from herself, floating in Tom’s arms. The hell with [CIA director] Trevor, she thought. And when Tom pulled her close to him, she knew that for tonight at least, it would be just plain Tom and Elaine. Later, back at her house, they made love. It was fierce, two rivers of energy rushing together, gloriously, powerfully. No words were needed.”

6. “The women who embraced in the wagon were Adam and Eve crossing a dark cathedral stage—no, Eve and Eve, loving one another as they would not be able to once they ate of the fruit and knew themselves as they truly were.”

7. “He held her breasts in his hands. Oddly, he thought, the lower one might be larger. … One of her breasts now hung loosely in his hand near his face and he knew not how best to touch her.”

8. “The woman came down the stairs and they met midway. He took both her hands in his and smiled affectionately; she, standing one step above him, bent forward and kissed him. It was an amiable, though formal, salutation.”

9. “The President fondled and kissed her bare breasts. He touched her genitals, both through her underwear and directly, bringing her to orgasm on two occasions. On one occasion, the President inserted a cigar into her vagina.”

10. “I kissed her breasts and ran my hand between her thighs. She gripped my shoulders tightly. Unlike the first time I made love to Alexa, when the ecstasy had been eroded by a sense of anxiety and uncertainty, I was sucked into this moment as quickly and completely as if I had placed my feet in quicksand. Memories from years ago blended with intense physical excitement in a driving, pounding torrent of passion.”

11. “He didn’t notice Jane taking her clothes off but suddenly she was naked: long legged, lithe, and bronzed. The sheets were cool, her body warm, her limbs strong and supple, and they meshed with his just as he remembered. ‘Oh Greg, dearheart,’ she whispered in his ear, ‘I’ve missed you so. Welcome home.’ ”

12. “But this time she led him upstairs into a room he had never laid eyes on, a bedroom with a king-size bed and not less than six oil pictures of Ayn on the walls, one of them showing her bare-breasted, the Ayn of twenty years ago. The shades had been drawn and Nathaniel could savor the scent. Today her lover was being welcomed with synesthetical concern for all the senses, only the music missing. But as he lay and later groaned with writhing and release, he brought the full force of his mind to transmuted, voluptuarian elation in this physical union with the very woman who had created John Galt and Dagny Taggart and Henry Rearden, and had touched down her scepter on him, Nathaniel, igniting his mind, and his own scepter, which paid, now, devoted service.”

13. “With devastating slowness, his hand cupped her completely before he slowly slid a finger into her warmth. She was burning up. Heat sliced through her. Emily gave herself up to the sweet torment of his hand as her hips rocked against his touch. Clutching his shoulders, her mouth blindly sought his. Desperate for release, she tightened her grip. ‘Ross,’ she managed, feeling as though she were spinning out of control.”

Yep, they’re all real. Click here for the answers and citations. Then go cry yourself to sleep on your voter registration card. Or, I guess, visit your local bookstore. It all depends on your point of view.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Jennifer Connelly is easily in the running for Most Stunningly Beautiful Creature Ever To Bless This Earth Simply By Existing. In fact in my opinion, she’s the hands down knockout champion of the universe.

Which is what really makes it a tragedy of epic proportions that she generally manages to ruin it all by sheathing her gorgeous self in the most godpukingawful clothing ever conceived.

So it is in her honor that we begin a new series -

FASHION THAT SHOULD NEVER LEAVE THE BASEMENT:

if you must indulge in apparel warfare, do it in private

I seriously don’t even know where to start with this. It looks like Jackson Pollock and M.C. Escher both got shitfaced and threw up on her. Well it does.

(thanks for the shot Jezebel)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Reality. TV. Gold.

That’s all we have to say about VH-1’s most recent descent into the stranger-than-fiction subculture of reality television, America’s Most Smartest Model. Divided into equal parts trivia and modeling, the brainchild of producers Cris Abrego and Mark Cronin, who brought us such desperately tacky smarm-a-thons as Flavor of Love: Charm School and the recent Rock of Love, reflects even further analysis into the clandestine tastes of American reality TV audiences - which helped them to narrow the prospects enough to hone in on what it is their viewers are really after: Zoolander.

Sure, we’d all love to think that we belong to a directionally evolved species. That we’ve freed ourselves from our lower instincts. That we are, in a word, better. But try as we might to suppress our tendency toward inane debauchery, we are simply no match for these VH-1 savants. We JUST cannot resist a series that showcases:

• A model who uses the professional moniker “Pickle.” Because his name is Jeff Pickle. Apparently “Jeff “was taken. As was “Model.”
• A soundtrack that switches to plodding, brow-beaten, slavish music every time the Russian contestant, who takes himself and his chosen profession waaaaay too seriously, begins a new diatribe on self-adulation (”We are models! We are gods and goddesses!”) and who likes to be photographed screaming.
• A pornish plant who is all but guaranteed to survive at least two-thirds of the episodes because she irritates the uppity female host, whose name I don’t care about enough to look up, in almost every possible way. I believe the exact summary was along the lines of “You’re exactly what I was hoping not to find.”
• Models housed Surreal Life style with shared bathrooms and everything.
• Hysterical episode titles reflecting the most unbelievably vapid comment of the day.
• Ben Stein.

This homage to inanity airs on VH-1 with first runs on Monday nights. But don’t worry if you missed it; like the rest of their shows, you can always catch the rerun on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Oh and Sundays. Of course, if you’re just too booked to watch the series, you can always check out the thumbnails.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites