New Web Site

My new photography Web site is up. Hope you like it.

http://johnpwise.com.

Go Australia!

Talking on a cell phone to my Aussie friend James is hard enough, what with his heavy accent and all. But talking to him at 7 p.m. and learning he'd already been drinking at a bar for nine hours made things slightly more difficult.

"John, Australia just won the World Cup cricket championship," he declared. "We had to get here early because of the time difference, so yeah, I'm quite lubricated right about now."

The last time I'd talked to him in the Saturday early evening range was two weeks ago when we were trying to figure out the plan for the night.

This time, we agreed to meet at The Coffee Shop at about 9:30 before we head off to some birthday party at Link Lounge. I have no idea whose birthday party it is, but Bryce from Salonika promises that a bunch of her models will be there. Word on the street is these models prefer the company of broke 36-year-olds, so stay tuned.

National Decorating Month

I know that February is Black History Month, and that is certainly important.

That said, there are only 11 other months in the calendar, so if each is already rented out to some other cause or need to be aware, I imagine said causes are pretty significant.

So you can imagine my surprise at work today -- just a few hours after boarding the morning elevator, where a posting wished colleagues a "Happy Administrative Professionals Day" -- when I saw on MSN.com that April is National Decorating Month.

I don't know what May has in store, but if it's not too late, how does National Rosie O'Donnell Shut The Fuck Up Month sound?

Hand Models

I met my friend Christine at Tonic for a happy hour drink on Tuesday. She's a hand model.

And as you know, whenever something reminds me of myself, I like to tell a story. It is, indeed, all about me. You're currently reading johnpwise.blogspot.com, not someotherjackass.com, right?

Anyway, when I lived in the fun Mt. Lookout neighborhood of Cincinnati years ago, I frequented an establishment called Million's, which employed drinking consultants of all levels of experience and stages of alcoholism. And it was there that I used many awful lines and overall fictitious stories, including one that I will always enjoy. It began when a gal unknown to me approached me with what she thought was probably a simple question.

"Want to shoot some pool?"

"I can't," I said.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm a hand model and I have a pretty big shoot in a few days, and my agent prefers me to stay away from pool tables."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, but I'm quite capable of holding a bottle of beer if you want to buy me another Harp."

I did end up hanging out with that girl, Tiffany, a few times, until a couple years later, when she brought a friend down to Louisville to visit me. And it turned out her friend was someone I'd gone out with a few times about eight years prior, and things didn't exactly end nicely, neither eight years ago nor that night.

So Tiffany, if you're reading, I AM NOT a hand model. But I still drink Harp.

Line Of The Night

I met a co-worker for a drink in the village early Friday night, and afterward, she was taking a cab up to 59th Street before heading east to Queens. So I got out at 59th, and not even a minute later, I remembered there was a going-away party for a co-worker I don't really know, and it was right in the area. I just didn't know where.

So as I looked up one friend's number to find out where it was, he called, and it turned out I was just a couple of blocks away from Sofrito, where I would spend the next two hours.

But the line of the night came after I got to my neighborhood Irish joint, Trinity Pub, just a block or two away from the crib. Two gals were intrigued by my "My Mom's Chili" T-shirt, and a conversation ensued.

We actually talked for quite a while, long enough for it to be relevant to reveal that I used to prefer blondes, and that I earned an odd reputation back in college for performing an overrated sex act as often as possible back then. I'll never remember the gal's name, but what she said was outstanding.

"Oh, you need to meet our friend Mary-Ann; she's a bad-ass dry humper."

Gag Order

(h/t brokedickdog)
As you know, Primpin' Ain't Easy has correspondents in the Greater Cincinnati area, covering the high-profile case of a 51-year-old woman, Jeni Dinkel (Hollywood makeup artist, overall swinger and two-time wife to the same former Cincinnati Bengal) who's alleged to have had sex with their 15-year-old son's high school classmate.

Today's top headline is that the defense is demonstrating how it has nothing to hide by seeking a gag order in the case. A gag order is issued by the court and requires otherwise public documents to be sealed and involved parties prohibited from speaking about the case to the media. It can also be the name of an adult film.

Prosecutor Rob Sanders claims the defense unfairly "seeks to gag everyone but the defendant." Should the defendant be gagged, Mr. Sanders? Bound too? Perhaps spanked a little?

Playoff Format Bullish On Chicago

It's amazing what one two-hour period can do in the NBA.

The Chicago Bulls and the Cleveland Cavaliers, division rivals, couldn't have claimed the second and third seeds in the Eastern Conference playoffs because they're both in the Central Division.

And because we live in America, where we're a bunch of soft little bitch boys obsessed with sensitivity and fairness toward and inclusion of everybody, the four divisions have to represent each of the top four seeds, even if, say, Team 2 from Division B has a far better record than the winners of Division C and D. Got me?

So, because Chicago won the regular-season tiebreaker with Cleveland, the Bulls would have claimed the No. 2 seed and an opening-round series with a fast-fading Washington team. The Cavs, meanwhile, were headed toward a Miami Heat team that just got Dwyane Wade back from injury, and those fools are clicking at the perfect time.

But all that changed on Wednesday night, the final evening of regular-season games. The Bulls had their stranglehold on that No. 2 seed for the last two weeks of the season, and all it needed was a win at New Jersey or a loss by Cleveland to Milwaukee.

Neither of those things happened, so Cleveland gains the easy first-round waltz over Washington, then probably a second-round defeat of Toronto. Sorry, Marcus.

Chicago will lose to Miami in the first round, and the Heat and Pistons will beat each other up in the second round, the winner of which will face the Cavaliers in the conference finals. Either of those squads would probably beat the Cavs, but it's insane how just two hours had such a drastic effect on the postseason fortunes of two divisional rivals.

Sexy Time

There is some gossip that I claim to be entirely above. It's merely a facade.

And then there is this type of stuff, for which I have no problem professing my love. (h/t Dave)

"So Was He"

I got some sad news Tuesday night.

After I swallowed several beers and lots of overpriced junk food and hazed the hell out of Alex Rodriguez at the Yankees game last night (thanks, Troy), I came home and called my good friend Anna in Cincinnati.

In addition to being brilliant and beautiful, she's also Korean. She told me she was minding her business earlier in the day, waiting in line to get a newspaper when a fellow student asked if she was Korean. When she said yes, he pointed to the front page of the paper he'd just bought and said "So was he," referring to Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech killer, implying that because they might have similar facial features and that their ancestors hail from the same country, she must have been in on Monday's tragic plan.

All those Asians run together, right?

It's funny; Cincinnati's unreluctance to hate either didn't bother me or make much of an impression on me when I was there, but since I've been away, nearly three years now, this quality seems quite profound. I lived there for 14 years and made many great friends there, and I'm sure they're tired of my regular rants about it. This broken-record syndrome of mine, however, makes my opinion no less heartfelt.

Don't get me wrong; I'm quite capable of being an a-hole myself. I do it frequently. But to be that weak and make such a stupid comment is simply ridiculous. So on behalf of Cincinnati and dumbasses everywhere, Anna, I apologize.

Booming Bubble Business

At some point, broadcasting companies did enough research -- or so they thought -- to feel justified in bringing news into your living rooms more often than at 6 and 11.

Morning shows were lengthened. The 6 o'clock news suddenly started to begin at 5, and in some markets 4. The noon show was created and then expanded. And some stations offer a 10 o'clock news instead of or in addition to their late news shows.

And oh yeah, those 24-hour cable news networks.

All this because our selfish, I-want-it-now culture demands it.

Don't get me wrong. Immediacy certainly has its perks, especially in TV and online news. You think anyone got the news about the Virginia Tech bloodbath by picking up this morning's paper? Me neither.

But such urgency also means more information travels faster, and to quote a network pretty from Monday afternoon, "Information is coming in, and some of it is accurate." Hooray!

Now that we've had almost a whole 24 hours of wall-to-wall on this awful tragedy, the experts feel it's time to chime in. Gun control reform, some scream, while others demand the firings of the university president and the police chief, among other high-ranking people.

This kills me.

When unthinkable crimes like mass shootings take place, it takes a while to turn numerous accounts from eyewitnesses and purported eyewitnesses into the confirmed facts of the case. On the surface, it does appear that the school suffered from a mild case of inaction.

But again, until the facts of the case are determined, don't so simply urge for the president to be immediately removed. What should he have done? Reach into his backpack for his trusty "Campus Mass-Shootings Survival Guide," and flip to page 72 for tips on handling such an occurrence?

Hmmm, says here that if he shoots up a dorm, in all likelihood he'll end up at the classroom building on the other side of the field. We'd better get some security over there.

Seriously, would a different university president have prevented this from happening?

Unfortunately, such tragedies are becoming all too common, but fortunately, not yet common enough that only a handful of colleges have had to endure them. It's still new to a lot of people, and there's no way a school president can be expected to protect 30,000 students at all times.

Maybe at freshman orientation, he can hand out bullet-proof bubbles to all incoming students so they can stay safe from future dangers.

Perhaps they can do that at all schools, or maybe at all sporting events across the globe, wherever tens of thousands of people are gathered in one location. I'm sure we'd end up commercializing our bullet-proof bubbles with monogramming and Louis Vuitton logos and so forth. It could be a booming bubble business!

I'd like to ramble more, but I've got some news to write. You've demanded it.

Review: Saturday Night

I met up with friends Guy and James at The Coffee Shop Saturday night. This place is cool. I went once over winter, but was nice to get back for a perfectly poured Ketel One and tonic. Guy's wife, Amanda, actually turned me onto Ketel One nearly 10 years ago, and it's been my preferred liquor ever since. It can be temperamental, however, as it seems more likely than other vodkas to mix poorly if the concentration is even slightly off.

After a couple hours there, we ventured over to Soho's cool Pravda, a caviar joint that welcomes drinkers of all ages. Guy and James are cool and all, but they were catching up with their old Aussie buddy Simon, so, as I like to do, I began to watch and wander.

Being at a Russian joint with Aussie friends, this Irish cat ended up talking to a bunch of Indian gals. While drinking Czech beer. It kind of reminded me of the St. Patrick's Day I spent in Chicago about 10 years ago, when my friend Dave and I ended up at a Polish bar in Chinatown, and I was hitting on a Puerto Rican girl as I celebrated my Irish heritage.

If on the rare occasion I'm conversing for more than 30 seconds with an attractive gal, it's quite possible that I opened with a line so ridiculous that she couldn't help but humor me.

But the lovely Ranu interrupted a conversation with two other dudes to stop me as I was headed past her toward the bar. I'm usually not a can-I-buy-you-a-drink? type of guy, so we chatted for a few minutes before she revealed she was done drinking for the night. Which, of course, I promptly followed with, "Oh, that's too bad. I was going to ask if I could buy you a drink."

Nonetheless, we talked for a good 20 minutes before I realized how glad I was that I got sidetracked from my next drink. I was starting to get a little tipsy, so I returned to my friends and we were ready to split.

And as I was waiting to pay my tab, two other lovely Indian gals struck up a conversation with me. They were impressed when I told them I was reading "Siddhartha," but then I remembered that I said that last week over drinks with my friend Sapna, also Indian. Why is this noteworthy? Because it shouldn't take more than a week to read a 120-page book.

Missing The Midwest

Today is definitely a day that I miss my midwest.

It's gray and cold and ominous today, and the weather has been pretty miserable all week and really most of the time since October.

So what's so great about this time of year in the midwest? I'll tell you.

Romance can be found in a gray April day in Louisville, even Cincinnati or Cleveland. Up here, you go to work, you go home. Wash, rinse, repeat. Then wait for the weekend.

And I'm not talking about romance with other people. You can experience it alone, so long as you're mindful of the seasons. They have those in the midwest. I've been here nearly a year and so far most of what I've seen has been summer and then not summer. They don't do spring in New York, apparently, and I don't like it.

But in Louisville, for example, a buzz takes over that city on March 1 and you feel it for about nine or 10 weeks. The NCAA tournament is right around the corner, girl-scout cookies are arriving, temperatures are warming up, and after the tournament, it's suddenly Derby season, the best holiday not called Christmas.

It's Derby season right now, but I'm not in Louisville. I'm in my quiet apartment 700 miles away, in a city that still hasn't seen spring, and I have to go to bed in four hours.

Dave Is Funny

My dude Dave sent me the longest e-mail he's ever sent the other day, and in it he described the new dog he and his girlfriend recently got:

"His hobbies include pissing under the table, pissing in front of the TV, pissing near the bathroom door, pissing in front of the couch, pissing in the hallway, pissing right after he's been taken outside to piss, taking a shit near my guitar, snoring, and not pissing in the kitchen where it would be easy to wipe up."

Imus Unplugged

For spending about a minute making some racially charged and generally insensitive remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team on his radio show last week, talk host Don Imus publicly apologized and accepted like a man his two-week suspension from the program.

Then, once the media blew this thing up, the old white men in suits got involved.

Rutgers responded six days later with a 90-minute -- I repeat, 90-minute -- news conference Tuesday morning, aired live in its entirety on at least one cable network.

Often times what disgusts me just as much as disgusting acts are the disgusting reactions that follow. Certainly Imus' comments are unforgivable. I don't expect anyone to say they were right on. But a Rutgers official -- either the athletic director or the university president -- turned it into a PR carnival Tuesday with stiff, manufactured comments like "the real story here is the wonderful season that the 2006-07 Rutgers women's basketball team had."

Rutgers' season was noteworthy indeed. The Scarlet Knights advanced to the national championshp game, where it lost just last week to the sport's closest thing to a dynasty, the Tennessee Lady Volunteers.

Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer reacted honestly to Imus' "nappy-headed hoes" comments, among others, as did several of her players.

And the first player to speak was one of only two white girls on the squad, no doubt an orchestrated move to show the cameras that all members of the team are to be treated equally, and that each was offended equally.

What's more offensive -- and it takes a lot to offend me -- is how the old white man in the suit spoke into the microphone as if he knows or cares much about these players. R2D2 could have sounded more human than the official when he said of one of the team's top players, "Essence is also an accomplished violin player." Really? Well done on that quick read of the media guide this morning, tough guy. His public-speaking skills are so bad that President Bush laughs at him.

Now be sure to pay close attention to the reactionary criers as this thing drags on and gets bigger, and it definitely will. As soon as you think you're done hearing about this, Imus will then return to work on Monday, April 30, and the firestorm will return, and the story of that week will be whether the two-week suspension was punishment enough. Al Sharpton and others say Imus should resign if CBS Radio doesn't fire him first.

The common rebuttal I heard to that logic today was that rappers, like Imus, are paid to entertain. Imus, like rappers, made derogatory comments in his particular forum about black women one time. Imus, like rappers, is not an elected official. He's paid to be controversial and stir up ratings. It's called "shock-radio" for a reason. And you, like me, have the right to turn it off just as you have the option not to buy CDs that contain offensive lyrics, rap or otherwise.

I'm a big believer in second chances in both the professional world and in personal relationships. And it's funny how on the same day that the NFL doled out harsh suspensions to two of its problem children, they were just that -- suspensions. Pacman Jones and Chris Henry will be able to return to work despite their numerous crimes, actual illegal acts that had far more potential to cause physical harm to other, innocent people.

Don Imus, who is merely a radio hack and nothing else, just used awful judgment one day and made some stupid comments. He will soon serve his punishment and then return to work, and will forever -- and I mean forever -- be remembered for this one week of his life, and not for any of his professional accomplishments. If it were me, that would be punishment enough.

I really don't care if he gets fired or keeps his job. It's time people quit their whining about the actions of other people when those actions have no direct effect on your own life. It's just conversation, and this one should be over. You're welcome to get back to your own lives at any time now.

Reviews

Sorry I've been out of the loop lately. I know y'all have been craving a full dose of uncomedy over here. But another depressing holiday came and went, and I'm building a Web site for my photography, so that's been taking some time. Keep an eye out for that new site by the end of the month, btw.

But I will go ahead and tell you that I recommend "Blades Of Glory." I also recommend "Shooter." But here's the most important recommendation I can give this week: Wait for both to come out on DVD.

Will Ferrell's iron is still hot, so the laugh-out-loud moments aren't lacking. But Jon Heder continues to miss the high notes he reached three years ago with "Napoleon Dynamite." Ferrell picks him up generously, both figuratively and in the script. It's a good laugher, but you don't need to rush out at your next opportunity.

And give "Shooter" credit for some originality because I don't think such a story has been worked into a movie. But it's not without the cliche portrayal of an assassin (Mark Wahlberg plays Bob Lee Swagger) who works alone and prefers a quiet existence in the northern mountains with his reliable old dog who's trusty enough to grab a cold Budweiser from the fridge after a long day of shootin'.

"Shooter" was paced well -- quieter moments separating the high-energy turns -- but the credits probably rolled about 10 or 15 minutes later. And though she's looked better in "Boston Legal" and "Nip Tuck," Rhona Mitra still is stunning in a government administrator role.

Gay Magnet

I've got no problems with gay people, but I do have a few friends who still don't believe I'm a magnet for gay men.

For those non-believers, here's the tab I got from my favorite Lower East Side joint on Saturday night. I blocked the name of the establishment, as well as my credit card number, but please note David's smiley face.

Sportswriters Are Still Annoying

A couple of weeks ago, leading up to the NCAA Tournament game between Ohio State and Xavier, I nearly re-posted one of my December rants because I heard the media and fans in southwest Ohio were reverting to a familiar whine.

After Xavier's impressive Elite Eight run in 2004, then-coach Thad Matta was refuting speculation that he was prepared to leave the Muskies for Ohio State, and accepted the better job in Columbus just a day after his most recent denial.

Three weeks ago, a Xavier upset -- which almost happened -- would have left the coach seeking cleanup on Aisle Matta for quite the egg-on-the-face coaching moment, but OSU prevailed in overtime, and any potential storm of embarrassment had blown over.

But I'm reminded of this yet again now that Billy Donovan has been offering up the standard non-denial denials the last two weeks regarding the vacancy at Kentucky. This is basically the Notre Dame of basketball jobs. A sweet, sweet plum. Donovan should take it, but having been schooled as a player and an assistant coach (at UK, no less) under savvy Rick Pitino, the Florida boss is calmly trying to keep the media pencilnecks at bay.

"Sources" may tell reporters that Mrs. Billy D was spotted house-hunting in Lexington or that an offer has been made to Donovan's people, but the coach is saying nothing incriminating, and for the media to expect him to do otherwise is incredibly selfish.

Coaching is the only profession where reporters seem to think career moves need to be discussed publicly before they're made. Think about that. The very media that blasts a coach for saying he wants to stay but then leaves the next day is the same media comprised of newspaper scribes and TV pretties who put in their two or three years in a shitty market before quietly applying for a job in a mid-sized market and then a larger market. Before one expects the Billy Donovans of the world to say, "Yes, I am thinking about leaving my current job for another one," make sure you've done the same thing once in your career.

Anyway, here's the same rant from a few months ago.

Review: OSU-Florida

This is a true story:

Florida had a couple of guys in foul trouble as it led by 14 points midway through the second half of Monday's impressive championship game defeat of Ohio State.

As you know, I root for Ohio State.

But I received a text message from a friend and Florida fan complaining about the officiating. Remember, this fan's team was ahead by 14 points, and I was the recipient of a strongly worded note about how OSU star freshman Greg Oden was getting away with physical play and how he'd have to pay the officials after the game. Then I got another. Then a THIRD text message. All in the second half, a half in which Ohio State never led, never got to within less than six, if I recall.

Read the rest of my NCAA tournament blog. Scroll down toward the bottom of the page.