It's interesting how he was homeless for a long time, how his catchphrase is, "daddy's leaving and he's taking the money," how, at 44, he still sorta feels like a latch-key kid afraid of losing it all. It's cool how now he actually has cash — a Bentley, a Rolex, a gorgeous house with a square toilet — after losing it after drugs and prison and so on. And he's thinking about having a baby: "The ultimate artifact of our love. In a onesie."

But some of these quotes!

The guy from Esquire, Scott Raab, says something about how he's glad to see RDJ and how far he's come. RDJ replies:

"This morning I was feeling this overwhelming sense of gratitude. I was having an argument with myself, and the thing that came into my head was, If two plus three is five, then five minus three is two - do you fucking get it?"

Um, what?

Then they talk about Iron Man 2, Sherlock Holmes and a possible Sherlock 2, plus a comedy, Due Date, from the guy who did The Hangover. Here's how RDJ explains his pacing:

"The whole pacing thing has come up in front of the review board - and I'm the one who said that if I don't take a break after Iron Man 2, there is something desperately wrong here. I'm not a guy who in order to be well I need to have one or another carrot in front of me the whole time. I can't keep going at this stride and be okay - but I can keep checking all the dials. This is a big, glorious impasse - but Mama needs a new pair of shoes, dude."

(Apparently "Mama," chair of the review board, is producer Susan Levin Downey, his wife. But without that information, it just sounds like there are imaginary people inside the man's head.)

Here's RDJ on his career:

"I hit my stride later than most folks. A couple years ago, it really was a big old hip-hip-hooray and let's get somethin' shakin' here. Then pfffffff - it reorganized at this higher level…"

Here: A restaurant analogy, followed by a sports analogy:

"I hand it to any and everyone who has made it past their late thirties and has any sense of contentment, because you know so much, and the anxiety can be so overwhelming - and managing the anxiety is a skill set that seems like a menu that changes every day. My insanity is thinking that somehow or another I was responsible - personally, directly responsible - for altering the course of things that have us sitting here on this deck. There's so many other factors in this - so many other people and past relationships, my kid and my folks, and the centerpiece of it all, Susan. It's like I know what happened, and I know that I got the ball and ran with it, and hip-hip-hip, and then like they're saying, 'Look - before you blow out a knee, we'd like to give you a bunch of endorsements,' and I go, 'Great.'

The truth of the matter is, it's always been like this. It hasn't gone up from down; it's just that it's finally got wide enough that I can be contained."

A surfing analogy followed by a car racing analogy:

"I'm not paranoid anymore. I'm not fearful. It's interesting to be surfing this tremendous crisis of capitalism - and I know there's a coral reef under me and I don't want to hang ten, but I do think that when you're in the pole position, that's when you try to beat your best personal time. So I really wanted to be aggressive about an artifact."

To sum up:

"My whole story - there's such immense satisfaction to see past that. I found my way out of the woods by a subtler and subtler trail of bread crumbs - now I'm just in the business of the business, and the business of my life, and the mind-blowing opportunities - and if nothing else, dude, I really love the way these ceilings look."

Robert Downey Jr.: The Second Greatest Actor in the World, Downey on Downey: 18 New Quotes from Robert Downey Jr. [Esquire]

The problem with airplanes — and travel in general — is that once I'm on one, I never actually want to do the things I think I'm going to want to do beforehand. I thoughtfully loaded my iPod with eight hours of un-listened Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! and This American Life episodes, and the new Gossip album: The device stays in my pocket. I schlepped my laptop aboard with a full battery: I will not open it. I brought 2666, intending to finally read it: I won't. The problem with in-flight movies is that they suck, and they let you concentrate on just how uncomfortable your seat is. The problem with novels is eyescratch. The problem with looking at a screen is looking at a screen. On a plane, I always need something else, and I never know what it is. It's a difficult task for any media to successfully anticipate — and meet — needs you can't name.

Which is why inflight magazines can be truly dismal, generally because they mistake their subject for "travel" in the narrow, genre sense of the word: tedious evergreen stories about A New Resort On An Island I Will Never Visit, Which Nonetheless Seems Very Similar To Numerous Islands Featured In Other Travel Stories I Have Read. How many times have you read the One Night In Prague story?

Or, mindful of ad pages, they hawk pages' worth of overpriced gadgets that are uninteresting mainly for being comparatively less ridiculous than the overpriced gadgets in SkyMall. (Oh, how many hours I have killed with SkyMall and its kitchen bench automatic stainless steel tomato pots.) That and somebody always fills in half the crossword, in ballpoint, and then gives up.

But if you think about it, the in-flight magazine — done right — has the potential to publish only really fascinating, enlightening writing: the world is its topic, and after all, it has a kind of captive audience. United's Hemispheres starts each issue off with Dispatches, a Talk Of The Town-ish section that runs story-lets on the things you didn't even know you never knew about: Josephine Baker's 15th Century mansion in the French countryside. Old men who take up positions outside of Wrigley Field in the hopes of catching stray balls. A terrible London musical about Ernest Hemingway's suicide. Then there are the features, like the one I read yesterday about a man who's hunting for Solomon Guggenheim's lost silver. Writer Rachel Sturtz even scored a rare audience with the street artist JR, and produced a wonderful profile of him. So what if there are a few too many pictures of $300 stereos and the occasional bullshit puff piece mars the lineup: this thing made out of paper and glue keeps me awake, and makes me learn things I didn't know before.

I think inflight magazines can achieve this kind of greatness because they are not gendered. They therefore avoid both the mannered meta inanities of Esquire, and the thick-headed condescension of Vogue. These are general publications, forced to at least attempt to interest an audience that comprises anyone who travels by air, for any reason. It never occurred to me before, but the artificial sensory deprivation chamber that is the jet plane might just provide a better opportunity than anywhere else for appreciating the printed word.

Yesterday, when I realized I'd get to read a different issue of Hemispheres than the one that was on the planes I took to New Zealand last month, I actually got a little bit excited. I haven't felt that way about reading a women's magazine in years — even though those are significantly easier to acquire on the newsstand.

Hemispheres [Official Site]
The Worst Celebrity Profile Ever Written? [Slate]

Photographer Publishes Plight Of Women Worldwide
Reluctant Esquire Writer Admits That New "Sexiest Woman Alive" Is A Series Of Pretty Parts
Vogue: There Are Dumber Things To Read This Weekend, But At Least 'Baldo' Has A 10% Chance Of Being Funny

Base:
She: Daily Beast
He: Esquire

Duration:
She: 3 Weeks
He: 2 Weeks

Stated Reason for Stunt: ("Poor Writer Does Oblvious Movie Star Stuff as Easy Formula" is implicit)
She: Seeks"an effort to understand this complex star."
He: Seeks to "break down the sanity of the Goop life, from common sense to madness."

Make:
She: 3 kinds of chocolate chip cookies, sugar-free banana nut muffins, turkey ragu, a grand, multi-Holiday feast.
He: Smoothies, soups, "Chicken with Onions, Lemon and Saffron",

Go:
She: A Mario Batali restaurant Gwynnie likes
He: Acupuncture

Get:
She: Leggings
He: Tinted under-eye moisturizer

Do:
She: ReadsCrime and Punishment, gives herself a sugar-and-coffee scrub, drinks 2 tablespoons of EVOO nightly, does a Seven-Day Detox, gives up "white foods (bread, pasta), preserved foods (chips, cookies), toxic foods (candy, ice cream), and foods containing heavy metals", negativity.

He: Reads The Sheltering Sky , gives to charity, does same Detox, acupuncture, dance cardio workouts, attempts organic-only eating, gives up "dairy, gluten, meat, shellfish, condiments, sugar, alcohol, caffeine, and an entire class of food (tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes, and peppers) called nightshades."

Be:
She: Practices the African philosophy of ubuntu
He: Listens to Deepak Chopra

Breakthrough:
She: "And then, like magic, at some point in the middle of week two, I stopped noticing what an unbelievable hassle it was to follow this ridiculous plan. My ear adjusted to Gwyneth's affect, and rather than guffawing at some of her more outlandish suggestions, I found myself intrigued by the $249 Voltaic Solar Backpack and her recommendation to "take your drinking water to the next level" with a $900 alkaline filtration system. What vegan shoe designer does Cameron Diaz recommend? I suddenly wanted to know."

He: "Yet... after four or five days, I noticed a change. I stopped craving coffee. I felt a steady stream of energy all day long. There was, in fact, a spring in my step. My mind wasn't quite as sharp as it used to be, and I had trouble concentrating during meetings, but physically speaking, I felt recharged."

Amusing Failures:
She: gives up the detox after a couple of days; doesn't have time for all the recipes, and can't afford anything.
He: Embarrasses himself dancing and is seen and mocked by neighborhood children; takes an unmanly interest in various effete things.

Conclusions:
She:

There's a lot to scoff at here, but the three weeks I spent following GOOP were pure joy. Expensive, inconvenient and totally unsustainable-yes, but also full of unexpected pleasures...She may be tone-deaf and full of wacky ideas about food and religion, but she really just wants everyone to feel as good as she does. On a few occasions, I think I got close. My GOOP plan began with cynicism and failure, and by the end, I was cooking a giant pan-holiday dinner party with recipes from Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah and Valentine's Day for my boyfriend, three girlfriends, and Rue McClanahan of The Golden Girls.

He:

At the end of this two-week experiment, I can report, without qualification or caveat, that I felt very, very good. I was sleeping better. I had more energy. I'd lost nine pounds. Revolutionary or not, Gwyneth's way worked, and if it worked for this sinner, it could work for anybody. Case closed..And yet. I wasn't having much fun. (I like to eat red meat and drink too much at parties. It makes me happy.) I wasn't doing well at work - maybe it's because I was drinking less caffeine, but I was more reserved in meetings and a little slower on the uptake. I was also quite a bit poorer than when I started out.

Conclusions: It was interesting to see the contrast in the approaches. Although both tried to be open-minded, the dude was clearly more skeptical about the whole endeavor, and found the lifestyle more of a departure. Perhaps most important, he found the whole thing kind of embarrassing. She, on the other hand, even as she bemoaned the unachievable nature of many of Gwyneth's recommendations, got into the spirit of it. In a way this makes sense: Gwynnie's a woman, and Goop's base is, presumably, female. (And if we're more prone to suggestions, tips, advice, self-help, this also implies an open-mindedness, and an ability to take the good.) What they both took away from the stunt was common sense: eat better, drink water, think positive. Do you need self-congratulatory trappings and oblivious stars to tell you this? No. But, hey, if people are taking something good away from it, fine. Both these pieces kind of read like a fable: they have to make a long, absurd journey only to find what was always there in front of them. And while that makes me think that Goop is a waste of time, Gwyneth would probably have a quote about paths and roads and moisturizer that some people would rather hear - and that the rest of us can mock. What did these pieces teach us? Nothing. Or, as Goop would have it, everything.

The Goop Matrix [Esquire]

My Life As Gwyneth [Daily Beast]

• Bar Refaeli let Esquire write the opening of a Stephen King story on her body for its cover. The weirdest part of the process sounds like the proofreading. [Esquire]
• Michael Jackson is rocking this fall collection women's Balmain jacket. [Grazia]

• Kimora Lee Simmons and Djimon Hounsou named their son Kenzo Lee Hounsou, proving that Kenzo flower perfume really is universally loved. [P6]
• Harvey Weinstein, when asked why it took him a year and a half to schedule his honeymoon with Marchesa designer wife Georgina Chapman, replied "Every day with me is like a honeymoon." He then complained about how much his wife packs. [The Cut]
• "It's amazing what happens when you turn an item of clothing upside-down. It transforms. You can stick your legs through armholes or wear a shirt as a skirt," says a three-year-old stylist and designer Fi Doran. [Telegraph]
• Hermès shot its fall campaign in the Swedish province of Lapland. It features reindeer, orange boxes, and giant chunks of ice, and I am ready to love it already. [WWD]
• Oh, look. Nine West shoes for this fall are knocking off Giambattista Valli's shoes for last fall. Fashion is so creative! [Racked]
• On Sunday, Coco Rocha and 20 other models from Elite Canada went to Barrie, Ontario, for a fashion show that benefited a children's cancer charity. [WWD]
• Then, Rocha, who last dyed her hair red at Steven Meisel's insistence, promptly changed colors again — to "almost-black." Let the speculation as to which campaign or editorial it's for begin! [Oh So Coco]
• Henri Bendel announced a month ago that it would eliminate 8% of its workforce and no longer sell clothing after this summer, and instead carry only higher-margin items like cosmetics and accessories, while leveraging its name for its own lines of branded products, like chocolates and boxes of tea. But a little bird says that the iconic New York department store has ordered some coats and jackets for fall — so which is it? [Fashionista]
• Anya Hindmarch was awarded an MBE, the lowest ranking honor in the Order of the British Empire, at Buckingham Palace yesterday. [Telegraph]
• A.P.C. is going to do a unisex perfume for fall. The name and all other pertinent details are being kept secret. [WWD]
• Photographer Miles Aldridge: "I always want my models to have a kind of blankness of expression, which I don't see so much as a blankness as that look of contemplation I see on people's faces when they ride the bus or wait at the airport. That's the thing about being a fashion photographer — you spend a good amount of time waiting around in airport lounges and places like that, so you have a lot of opportunity to observe people. And it's like, there's a Martin Amis book, The Information, where the main character imagines all the men around him at home at night, crying in bed. In a way, that's what I'm doing when I'm waiting around." In New York, you can see a selection of Aldridge's surreal, acid-bright, Almodovar-esque work in a just-opened show at Steven Kasher gallery. [Style.com]
• Richard Chai is obsessed with t-shirts from those Japanese problem-solvers at Muji. But who isn't? [The Cut]
• One year on from his death at age 71, Yves Saint Laurent was remembered at a public memorial mass in Paris. [WWD]
• Laura Ashley's same-store sales rose 6.9% in the quarter ended May 30. [Daily Mail]
• Miley Cyrus, Max Azria, and Wal-Mart are in some kind of unholy branded-apparel deal. [WWD]
• Yesterday in bankruptcy court, the judge approved private-equity firm Emerisque's revised bid to buy Hartmarx. Emerisque raised its offer for the company's assets to $128.9 million, after principal creditor Wells Fargo rejected a $119 million bid as too low. [WWD]
• Christian Lacroix's company was placed under administration for the next six months. It only took Hartmarx four months to nail out its deal, so... [WWD]
• Random unconfirmed rumor to get ridiculously excited about for the day: The Face might be coming back. [Fashionologie]

Marche argues that "brilliant, funny, and powerful women are retreating from sex" and uses the Tina Fey character Liz Lemon as an example:

The most complicated and intelligent woman in television comedy barely ever has sex. She doesn't sit on laps, either - "not a lap sitter," she tells one handsome date she brings home in the first season. (He turns out to be her cousin.) She admits to losing her virginity at twenty-five and accidentally reveals that she doesn't believe people can have intercourse standing up. Liz Lemon's low libido is one of 30 Rock's running gags…"

Things were not always so, Marche claims. He notes that just a decade ago, Seinfeld's Elaine Benes was "hilarious, smart, familiar with Russian novelists, an aggressive and demanding professional, and a woman who fooled around a lot."

Of course, Marche being an egotistical heterosexual man (writing in a magazine for men), his real complaint is that this situation is a "disaster" for men. "Until now," he writes, "feminism has been the best thing that ever happened to us, because it means we get to sleep with people rather than ciphers." Okay, your opinion! But it is interesting that lately, the female characters in the entertainment zeitgeist — from Pam on The Office to the shrill duo of Bride Wars to the chaste, bloodless pairing in Twilight — have sex as the last thing on their minds. There was a Sex And The City movie in which Samantha barely had sex. Seinfeld's Elaine had just as much sex as the guys on the show — maybe more — and was neither labeled a slut nor thought of as a some aberration of the norm. She was just a modern woman. A woman who dates men, and has sex with them. Revolutionary?

So Marche mourns the lack of Elaines in this world. Putting aside his needs — and what men like Marche want for a moment — wouldn't a smart, ambitious woman who has a healthy (meaning active) sex life be a great role model for women? Using 30 Rock as an example, the only choices shouldn't be the prudish Liz Lemon or the disastrous Jenna Maloney, who is all wiggle and no wit. Seems like the only ladies "allowed" to be sexual these days are the dreaded "cougars," and that label comes with its own mocking and derogatory baggage. So where have the loose women gone? Not you, or your friends, but the chicks on TV and in the movies? Let me know; I'll be watching Seinfeld reruns trying to figure it out.

Where Have All the Loose Women Gone? [Esquire]

• For $215 you can be the proud owner of a one inch slice of royal cake from the 1871 wedding of Queen Victoria's fourth daughter, Princess Louise, to the Marquis of Lorne. • Esquire councils their readers on how to console a crying woman. •  A man has been sentenced to six weeks in prison after he urinated on a 66-year-old woman while she was watching an in-flight movie on her way to a vacation in Hawaii. • The 31-year-old woman who came to the attention of authorities when she videotaped herself contaminating food at Domino's Pizza has turned out to be a registered sex offender. • Jossip has unearthed an insane video of a car chase in which the female driver repeatedly "fakes out" police cars and suddenly begins doing donuts on the freeway. •  This short experimental film is the work of Art Clokey, creator of Gumby. It does not feature Gumby, but it shows Clokey's first experiments with claymation. • A new report found that fewer than half of American sexually active women are currently being screened for chlamydia. • I'm not sure why this creeps me out, but here is a video of the new Obama action figures. •  There'ss been a recent spike in child abuse, which doctors are blaming on the recession. Many hospitals have seen a 20-30% increase in reports of maltreatment over last year. •  And Tango Makes Three tops the ALA's list of most challenged books yet again. Also on the list: Philip Pullman and Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. • Afghanistan's police have arrested two men suspected of murdering Sitara Achakzai, a women's rights activist who was gunned down last Sunday. • Judge Judy Eiler is facing disciplinary actions stemming from charges that she is too rude to defendants. Eiler claims that she is nothing like the "TV Judge Judy," but judging from this article, she kinda is. • For the second year in a row, moms are "taking a hit" on mothers day. • In the name of debunking stereotypes about gold digging Eastern European women, this article explains why Ukrainian women go for western men. • Upon finding a robber at her place of business, a 28-year-old Russian hairdresser disarmed him, bound him with a hairdryer, and kept him prisoner as her sex slave for several days. •  Blame it on the recession: vasectomies are on the rise. • A new report reveals that air raids in Iraq kill mostly women and children. •

Some highlights:

A man is good at his job. Not his work, not his avocation, not his hobby. Not his career. His job. It doesn't matter what his job is, because if a man doesn't like his job, he gets a new one.

Timely advice, Esquire! If you don't like your job, just get a new one. Maybe manufacturing cars — we hear that's manly.

A man loves the human body, the revelation of nakedness. He loves the sight of the pale breast, the physics of the human skeleton, the alternating current of the flesh. He is thrilled by the snatch, by the wrist, the sight of a bare shoulder.

First: what is "the alternating current of the flesh?" And can you use it to run some power tools? Men love power tools. Second: gay men do not exist in the Esquire universe. Nor, apparently, do black women.

When his woman bends to pick up her underwear, he feels that thrum that only a man can feel.

Nor do lesbians. Or, at least, they have no thrums.

He does not rely on rationalizations or explanations. He doesn't winnow, winnow, winnow until truths can be humbly categorized, or intellectualized, until behavior can be written off with an explanation. He doesn't see himself lost in some great maw of humanity, some grand sweep. That's the liberal thread; it's why men won't line up as liberals.

A man doesn't rely on vague metaphorical criticisms while simultaneously accusing his opponents of vagueness. Oh wait . . .

A man resists formulations, questions belief, embraces ambiguity without making a fetish out of it. A man revisits his beliefs. Continually. That's why men won't forever line up with conservatives, either.

Ok, this actually makes me mad. First of all, Chiarella's claim is that a man doesn't "winnow, winnow, winnow until truths can be humbly categorized" but that he also "revisits his beliefs. Continually." So basically men have unyielding principles — anything less is for women, pinkos, and gays, obviously — but they are constantly "revisiting" them because they're just so open-minded. Huh?

Really, though, the revisiting actually gets to me much more than the anti-winnowing stance. The idea that a smart, judicious person is someone who "resists formulations, questions belief, embraces ambiguity" is actually very popular — it's why it's hip to say you're politically independent. But debating your own beliefs with yourself is also sort of a luxury — it's much easier to constantly question your own convictions if you've never had to fight for them. If your point of view — if your rights — have ever been truly embattled, you may find it harder to say that your point of view, your desire for these rights, is provisional and constantly subject to change. If Susan B. Anthony had said, "I think women should have right to vote, but, meh, I might feel differently tomorrow," then I might not have been able to cast my ballot last November.

The truth is, though, that it's usually women who are encouraged not to believe in their own views too strongly. It's women who are socialized to preface every claim with "I think" or "I might be wrong" (I had to delete words like this from this post about ten times; it's that automatic). So it's actually kind of surprising that Chiarella is recommending this kind of hedging to men, especially when his idea of a man is someone who "understands electricity or the internal-combustion engine, the mechanics of flight or how to figure a pitcher's ERA" (I guess I am a man). Seriously, though, nobody would argue that you should be blind to new information or refuse to listen to others. But once you've done your homework, give your beliefs the respect they deserve. It might not make you a "real man," but it will help you be heard in the world — and those two should no longer be synonymous.

What Is a Man? [Esquire]

• Video: Samantha Ronson peels out of a Vegas club parking lot. A minute later, Lindsay Lohan emerges, saying, "Did she leave? She fucking left? Where's my car? I want my fucking keys now." [TMZ]

• More on this in Midweek Madness, but: Brad Pitt! And the nanny?!?! "Angelina flew into a jealous rage when she walked past the open bedroom door of 8-month-old twins, Knox and Vivienne - and didn't like what she saw! And it's not surprising, for Brad was on the bed, rubbing the back of a pretty young nanny! Angie got so mad she slapped Brad and fired the girl on the spot!" [Star]
• Speaking of Brad and Angie, E! donated $250,000 to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation last year. They probably thought it would get them not-snubbed on the red carpet; the money went to Brad's Make It Right Foundation in New Orleans and three different UN organizations working in Darfur. [Fox 411]
• George Clooney got drunk and was seen stumbling back to his hotel in St. Louis. [Gatecrasher]
• Hmm, Sean "Diddy" Combs says he did Chris Brown and Rihanna a "favor" by letting them stay at his house. "It's my house, and I'm allowed to give my house to whoever I want to give my house to," Diddy told Ellen. "I don't cast a stone – cast judgment on anybody. So, if friends ask me for a favor, then I'm going to be there for a favor as long as I know the energy of the favor is positive." He also said: "I don't think it's right for anybody to hit anybody." [People]
• The father of Chris Brown's manager, Tina Davis, says of the speculation that Chris and Tina were having a romantic relationship is just" old rumors." [E!]
• Hey, guess who's not going to the Kids' Choice Awards? Chris Brown. [People]
• Miley Cyrus says she's not ready to move in with her 20-year-old boyfriend: "I love him to death…but no…[Justin] is so smart, but just like, everything has to, like, go where it's supposed to go and if it doesn't, I get like really frustrated." Uh, what? [Page Six]
• So on Dancing With Stars, Lil Kim gave her former fellow inmates a shoutout. The Scoop asks, "Is it possible for inmates to vote for Dancing With the Stars, but not for the president?" A spokesperson from prison says: "The inmates cannot dial toll-free numbers." And there's no internet. So. [MSNBC Scoop]
• This piece, titled "Octomom Spurs Media Madness" is about how Oprah and Dr. Phil saw ratings jump with Nadya Suleman-themed shows. [Variety]
• Oh, of course TMZ's Harvey Levin has seen the tape of Nadya Suleman giving birth. Jeez. He says the "friend" filming was "annoying the doctors and nurses by getting in the way." [TMZ]
• Holy crap: PETA vice president Dan Mathews shook hands with Anna Wintour. [Page Six]
• The French are mad at Carla Bruni for showing up at a Mexican state dinner wearing "a dazzling array" of diamonds — her husband, President Nicolas Sarkozy, was in Mexico to discuss the world recession. Anyway, they're calling her Marie Antoinette. [Gatecrasher]
• There's an interesting interview with Katy Perry on Esquire's site, and at the top of the web browser frame are the words "Katy Perry Naked - Hot Pics Of Katy Parry[sic] Topless." She is neither naked nor topless. [esquire]
• Someone somewhere claims that Mischa Barton didn't want to audition for the new Melrose Place but to just be given a role. In the end she had to go through the casting process like anyone else, sigh. Tough times! [Perez]
• Meanwhile, word is that Ashlee Simpson is doing Melrose because she wants something stable so she can be close to her baby. [People]
• The American Idol "dialing disaster" was averted, hopefully. You know Anoop's original phone number was a sex line, right? [People]
• Geri Halliwell has said ciao to her Italian fiancé. [The Sun]
• Does Amy Winehouse want to work on a TV quiz show? And more important: Wouldn't you watch? [The Sun]
• Amy Winehouse has been updating her Facebook page to say things like "Nothing is worth as much as Blake," and "Where's my oblivious Blakey Boy?" For some reason, this is "news." [The Sun]
• "Hundreds of women in skimpy two-pieces will gather Saturday on the shore in Miami Beach and spell out the word C-O-S-M-O for an aerial photograph to be featured in the August issue." For Cosmopolitan, that classy publication. [Page Six]
• Hulk Hogan needs cash. His lawyers are trying to get some assets unfrozen; the Hulkster had back surgery and won't be able to work for awhile. [AP]
• Q: Are you busy? A: I'm trying to be busy. It's not so easy. Everyone thinks I'm dead. — From an interview with Lauren Bacall. [Houston Chronicle]
• Oy: Matt Lucas, co-creator of Little Britain, is working on a Jewish sitcom. [Telegraph]
• Jade Goody, the Brit celeb diagnosed with cervical cancer and given weeks to live, has left the hospital to be home with her husband and kids. [BBC News]
• Sir Paul McCartney's show in Las Vegas is already sold out, sorry. Tickets were gone seven seconds after going on sale. [Mirror]
• Blind item: "Which Celebrity Apprentice was such a boozebag behind the scenes that all alcohol had to be removed from the set?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I wasn't, quote, 'dropped' from the movie. I resigned from the movie because I didn't think I had enough time to achieve the look of the wrestler who was on steroids, which I would never do." — Nicolas Cage, on The Wrestler. Then he said: "The movie was written for Mickey. And, for whatever reason, they couldn't get the financing for the movie back then."
• "Fortunately I haven't had any break-ups. This is my first relationship. I'm very, very happy, that's all I'll say. We were together for a really long time before we got married, we were in no rush." — Beyoncé. [The Star]
• "I always wanted to suspend from the ceiling in a twirling banana. I'm going to be inside the banana. So the banana drops into a fruit bowl with the other sparkling, glorious fruit, and their tops pop off and dancers come out and help peel me out of the banana. I have a fascination with fruit… It's Lucille Ball meets Bob Mackie. It's about innuendo. I want everybody to get the joke, but I want them to think about it for a minute." — Katy Perry, on her persona. [Esquire]
• "If things happen in the press that are hard to deal with or you give in to that awful temptation to occasionally Google yourself and be mortified at what people can write about you. It's hard to ignore it. Keira will phone me up. She's like, 'I'm thinking about doing it.' I'm like, 'I am, too, but don't do it.' And we'll kind of talk each other out of it." — Sienna Miller, on her friendship with Keira Knightley. [Mirror]
• "My mom thought it was cool that if you got a business card that said 'Taylor' you wouldn't know if it was a guy or a girl. She wanted me to be a business person in a business world." — Taylor Swift. [Rolling Stone]
• "That one kinda hurts, because I don't have any rights to participate in it at all. It was done at a time when I was dirt poor so I had to sell everything when I sold the script, so that one hurts a bit." — Wes Craven on the remake of Nightmare On Elm Street. [The Star]
• "The past year has obviously been very difficult for me. Yoga has really helped me turn it into a huge learning experience. I'm working hard to take what I went through and turn it into something positive. Yoga helps me focus." — Ashley Dupre, former call girl of former Governor Eliot Spitzer. [Page Six]
• "My feeling about the movies is that most of them are terrible. If you don't have a decent script and a decent director, forget it. That's why I thought the Benjamin Button movie was so encouraging. I'll forgive anybody anything if they have talent. What I find most disconcerting is that people in the profession are not creative but only interested in money, which is what this country is most about. It doesn't appreciate talent. … For eight years we had a moron in the White House who didn't even know what art meant." — Lauren Bacall. There are more quips in the interview! [Houston Chronicle]

Those of us who love the show often have a hard time picking a favorite character, though after reading Kristen Schaal's hilarious takedown of Esquire (which the magazine itself printed), my loyalties are now leaning towards crazy super fan Mel. Schaal, was snubbed by Esquire when they decided to run a "Women of Flight of the Conchords" photo shoot last October. The article included Rachel Blanchard and Sutton Foster, who played girlfriends of the Conchords in a few episodes, but Schaal, the main female character on the program, was left out completely. After pointing out the snub to Esquire, Schaal decided to write her own detailed description of exactly how her photo shoot would have gone, had the magazine given her the chance.

"Last time I checked," Schaal begins, "I own the only pair of recurring tits on that show. Maybe Esquire assumed I'm too professional to pose in my underwear and stare quizzically into the camera, but it is sorely mistaken. I will do that shit." She then goes on to break down the photo shoot into hilarious snippets such as this:

1:45 P.M. I have another idea. The camera is mounted on the ceiling, and I lounge in a kiddie pool filled with discontinued candies from the 1980s. A few well-placed Bonkers cover up my business.

2:09 P.M. The Bonkers aren't doing it for me. I want to cover up my snatch with a dodo bird. I'm informed they are extinct.

5:42 P.M. A dodo is cloned after DNA is obtained from the Museum of Natural History. The first dodo to walk the earth in 327 years is delivered to the shoot. Turns out I was mistaking dodos for griffins. I order it drowned.

7:33 P.M. I decide to have my boobs surgically switched. It'll basically look the same but register on a subconscious level.

Esquire, clearly a bit embarrassed about the situation, also ran an article titled: "Meet Kristen Schaal: The Funniest Woman On Television." Something tells me she won't be left out of the next photo shoot.

And to get you psyched up for tonight's premiere, here is an episode of Mel's Video Blog, wherein she details her creepy obsession with the Conchords in song:





Meet Kristen Schaal: The Funniest Woman On Television [Esquire]
My Esquire Photo Shoot, By Kristen Schaal [Esquire]
Women We Endorse: The Women Of Flight Of The Conchords [Esquire]

In the clip at left, psychologist Judith Sills explains that while once the term "lady" had a "prissy, withheld, repressed" connotation, "today's lady" should strive to be "confident, strong, but soft around the edges." A survey found that 89% of women would like to be described as "confident" and "gutsy" but don't particularly care to be called a "lady," but, according to some dude from Esquire all it takes for us to make the jump to "lady" is class. So you can be an assertive, confident woman, just remember your manners, make sure you always look cute, and bat your eye lashes while you're at it.

There are five great quotes up on the Esquire website, but here's our favorite one in which
Palin weighs in on credible news sources: "You have to let it go. Even hard news sources, credible news sources — the comment about, you can see Russia from Alaska. You can! You can see Russia from Alaska. Something like that — a factual statement that was taken out of context and mocked — what you have to do is let that go." [Esquire]

The thing is, Chris Jones is not alone in his bromantic feelings towards Vince's golden acreage. To most "dudes," Vince Vaughn is the kind of guy they want to befriend, or even better, the kind of guy they want to be. He was even given the "The Golden Mantlers" and inducted into the Guy's Hall of Fame by Spike TV. But why has the dude demographic, a demographic which is generally not comfortable with expressing same sex affection, professed its undying love for this gargantuan funnyman? We parsed the Esquire article and figured it out.

1. He's good looking, but not too good looking, and certainly not girly looking. He's a big hunka virile man.

His hair rises like a wave above the low-tide beach that is his forehead. (He calls it his fivehead.) His face is full, puffy enough to make him sometimes look as though he's fighting to keep his eyes open—not as though he's just woken up but as though he's never bothered to go to bed in the first place. it.

2. Vaughn dresses like a slob and is still able to pull down famous, quality ladies, like Jennifer Aniston, Joey Lauren Adams, and by some accounts Cameron Diaz.

He wears a pair of old-school Nike sneakers that could be used as war canoes. About…Even from across this crowded restaurant, it's possible to see a jumbo slice of Vaughn's naked belly. It's too much to ignore, this great golden acreage, because he leads with it and because it's probably been kissed by Jennifer Aniston, standing on her tippy-toes. The man doesn't just occupy airspace; he fills it.

3. And speaking of ladies! Vaughn makes sorta lame frattish jokes a lot but he's good natured enough to get away with it. Like this conversation between Vince and bff Jon Favreau. Didja know? Wives are naggy and annoying!

"Are you done having kids?" Vaughn asks.
"Yeah, I'm done."
"You're not going to pull the goalie ever again?"
"No. Joy says, 'It's wife number two if you want more kids.' "
"Then you would have to move to, like, some Islamic country where you could have another wife," Vaughn says.
"Or nowhere. I could do the Hollywood thing, just hit reset."
"Or you could move into Warren Jeffs territory."
"I could set up a compound?"
"Yeah," Vaughn says, "a compound. That was so disturbing. You see all these little girls who look like extras from Little House on the Prairie. It's like Half Pint's been putting out for everybody. . . . "
"Polygamy seems appealing," Favreau says, "but then I've been watching that show Big Love, and you realize it's the same headaches."
"It's triple the headaches. Triple the nagging. Triple the question, What are you thinking?"
"Yeah, one marriage is enough," Favreau says.

4. But finally, the reason so many dudes love Vince Vaughn is because underneath all that golden-hued bluster, he's really just a sad clown. Dudes can wholeheartedly get behind Vaughn because he's not confident 100% of the time. Even the most hardened bro needs to shed a tear every now and again.

Just then, Vince Vaughn looks the way a big man looks when someone stands up to him for the first time in his life. He looks like a man who knows that he can cover only so much ground, that even giants have their limits. He looks like a man who knows he will have to pick a side. He looks suddenly smaller. He still looks a lot like Vince Vaughn, only built to scale.

Vince Vaughn: The Biggest Man In The Room [Esquire]