[Short version today, with four clips instead of six.  It kills me to do this, but I'm just too busy otherwise.  Please forgive me.]

It appears that my twin is a hoax .  While I don’t have any evidence to back this up, a number of you wrote in since Wednesday’s post saying so, and, since I’m totally gullible, I’m believe you without asking a follow-up question.  If someone sends me a link proving it’s a hoax (because God knows I’m not going to spend all day googling), then I’ll post it on here.

If it is a hoax, I have to reiterate, I was totally fooled.  Not only that, I’ve gotten a lot of emails from gay readers who are VERY fired up about this thing.  I’m not sure if this means that "Donnie Davies" is a genius and comedian of the highest caliber, or if his approach to the hoax was just a little too much and may violate the "there’s no such thing as bad p.r." maxim.

Either way, we look exactly alike.  It’s so eerie I can’t even masturbate in the mirror anymore.  So thanks for that, Donnie.  Thanks a lot. 

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Now this is love.  What is most amazing about this story is not that a 65 year old woman saved her 70 year old husband from being eaten by a mountain lion (!), but that the couple will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary next month.  By my numbers, that means they got married when he was 20 and she was 15.  It could be argued that, presuming they dated before they were married, they’ve spent their entire emotionally and psychologically developed lives together.  Holy fucking crap. 

My question: And she still wanted to save him from a mountain lion?  I could see if they were on their honeymoon and still full of love, but after 50 years, I wouldn’t blame if she just watched the mountain lion going to town and said, "Eh, we had a good run."  Hell, I can only date a girl for about two months before I stop opening doors for her or buying her surprise presents or kissing her before commencing intercourse.  And she’s beating away a mountain lion with a four inch log (which, as any of my ex’s can tell you, is not very long)? 

I guess true love does exist. 

(And four inches is fine.  Just fine.  Have another drink and you won’t feel anything anyway, you judger, you.) 

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Book pick

"An American Dream" by Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer’s latest book, "The Castle in the Forest", was the featured review in this week’s New York Times Book Review, which I read, very adult-like, in my clean apartment, drinking wine on Saturday night, listening to Van Morrison.

(Hours later, I would be pleading with a woman to make out with me in front of my friends, even though I was so saturated with whiskey that kissing me would make her drunker.  But hey – drinks are expensive in New York City.) 

For those of you unfamiliar with him, Mailer is fascinating; one of the few true living mad geniuses.  The article reprints a quote of Mailer’s from his "Advertisements of Myself" that reaffirms this: "I wish to attempt an entrance into the mysteries of murder, suicide, incest, orgy, orgasm and Time."

Translation: This guy is the balls.

While he has written more famous and (I suppose) better works, I was drawn back into Mailer recently a picked up "An American Dream."  I don’t know why I was so surprised at how delighted I was when I was reading it, but, for lack of a better phrase, it rocked my world. 

There are some writers who get A’s in storytelling, but B’s in their use of language.  Conversely, there are writers who languages flows beautifully from page to page, but their storytelling is a bit lacking, or at least not as sharp in comparison.  Not that I am a writer, but when my book comes out, I imagine I will get a C in storytelling and a F in language, if only because I wrote a 68,000 word manuscript and still managed to squeeze the word "queef" into every sentence.

(Get it?  "Squeeze?"  God, I really am a writer.)

Anyway, Mailer is without peer in both in his ability to tell a story and his ability to write a story.  Reading this book feels at once like being strangled (because you are completely at the mercy of the story and can not stop reading) and kissing a great kisser (over a dozen times through the course of the book I stopped reading, put the book down, and say "Wow" after a particularly impressive passage).

I don’t even need to talk about the story.  Just buy (or borrow) the book.  I expect your "Thank you" emails in three to ten days. 

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Six Songs

"Wagon Wheel"  Old Crow Medicine Show
Recommended my Johanna in NYC, I played this song about fourteen times in a row when I first heard it.  I want this song to play will if sit in a field and smoke hash and maybe dance a little bit and perhaps make love, but I doubt it, because I’ll be pretty tired from the dancing and also high. 

"You Don’t Make It Easy Babe"  Josh Ritter 
This guy is pretty fucking spectacular, if you like sad, wordy songs.  Which I do. 

"Silver City"  Ghostland Observatory
I wrote earlier that I’ve spent a significant amount of time over the past few days doing the robot to this song.  This is not a lie.

"Hide and Seek"  Imogen Heap
Staying with our robot theme, this song is like making love to a robot.  No, no – it’s more like just making out with one.  You know, because that’s a huge distinction. 

"The Liquidator"  Harry J. All Stars
This song makes me want to go back to Jamaica very, very badly.  Good song to get high to.

"T.B. Sheets"  Van Morrison
Great song to get high to.  About two weeks ago, I went out to Brooklyn to meet a friend for brunch.  I came back into the city on the F, which dropped me off at East Broadway, meaning I had to walk all the way through Chinatown back to my apartment.  It was raining and I had no umbrella but did have a very bad hangover.  This song came on my iPod.  And it made me feel like the coolest of the cools as I walked those streets, the raining falling on me, hungover as all hell, as I passed through the sea of black umbrellas bobbing below my chin and around my shoulders, a good half-foot taller than all the Chinese around me; one of those everyday moments that are amplified, made poetic by music and the lingering amounts of alcohol in my bloodstream. 

(Also, I feel like if my dad knew about this song when he was younger, he definitely would have gotten high to this song, too.  Don’t ask me how I know this, but I know it’s true.  Trust me.)

(Have a good weekend.)