THE BLACK LIST: ASTROGLIDING TOWARDS INFINITY.
  --The Black Table
04.06.04
 

The Black Table had been misbehaving in shop class -- we stapled some dork's tie to the table drill -- so we were punished by being forced to run laps. Running laps is healthy and fun, but we were hungover and it was cold, cold, so cold. So we're sick and tired and quite groggy today, and there's nothing that could possibly rouse us from our slumber ... Wait ... Is that a Black List submission about ASTROGLIDE??!! It is. We're wide awake now. Counting Astroglide, we have 12 jolly good reviews this week. MORE
 
 
RAPE ME FOR THE PENNYROYAL TEAS.
  --Greg Lindsay
04.06.04
 

A little after noon on Monday, the press conference for "Love & Death," a "new and explosive investigation into The Murder of Kurt Cobain" started without any palpable sense of urgency. After all, it was a press conference. Later that afternoon, J. C. Penney announced it was selling off its drugstore chain, and if you had compared the two occasions, the rituals would have most been the same: the principals posed for photographers beforehand; then were introduced; then gave a short speech from behind a table -- speaking in very serious tones into microphones, and then took a few questions from a polite and bored room of reporters. MORE
 
 
TEN YEARS LATER.
  --Tom Perrotta, James Frey, Dan Shanoff, Jonathan Ames, Whitney Pastorek, Amanda Stern & Tim Grierson
04.05.04
 

As stunning as it might be to imagine, it was 10 years -- today -- that Kurt Cobain killed himself. But even though Cobain himself said it was "better to burn out than fade away," he -- and his music -- has done neither. Many of a certain age remember that day as a major milestone in their own lives. In honor of this anniversary, exclusively for The Black Table, we asked some writers to contribute their own personal recollections on Cobain: His pain, his death, his lasting impact … and, of course, his music. MORE
 
 
INCOMING! APRIL 5, 2004.
  --Will Leitch
04.05.04
 

Late-night porn impresario/nastiest-looking woman this side of West Virginia Robin Byrd turns 47 years old on Tuesday. For those of you without Time Warner Cable, Byrd hosts "The Robin Bird Show" on Channel 35 basic cable, which basically is a parade of the most repulsive "adult entertainers" one could possibly dredge up. Whether it's a woman with a penis, a guy with butt cheeks he could tuck in his shoes or some sort of marine mammal, "The Robin Byrd Show" can always be counted on to repulse and fascinate. MORE
 
 
WEEK IN CRAIG: HAPPY FUNLAND HOTTIE CONSULTANT.
  --Amy Blair
04.02.04
 

But most important, in Amy's Happy Funland, I have the most kick-ass job in the world. I'm a "Hottie Consultant!" You see, at any given moment, I've got a pretty good cache of hot people that nobody else knows about stored up in my feeble little brain. I take a special pleasure in pointing out total hotties on the horizon to my friends and telling them with a knowing smile: "Mark my words -- the media's going to be ALL over that ass in 3 months." MORE
 
 
WHEN I'M SORRY MEANS FUCK YOU: THE LOST ART OF THE APOLOGY.
  --Dave Gaffen
04.01.04
 

When former Bush administration senior advisor Richard Clarke testified before the 9-11 Commission last week, he did something that no one in public life seems to do anymore: He apologized … and he meant it. But most don't. From acknowledged liars like Pete Rose to the occasional citizen of presumed good standing, public apologies are made so unwillingly, it as though they imagine the next step is death at the hands of Darth Vader. "Apology accepted, Captain Needa." We break down the sorry state of sorry. MORE
 
 
SIX THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT: SOUTH DAKOTA.
  --Erin Schulte
03.31.04
  There's a reason you've never met anyone from South Dakota. With about 750,000 residents, what are the odds of bumping into a native South Dakotan outside its borders -- especially in New York state, population 19 million? We're practically the human equivalent of the dodo bird. Even within the state, running across a fellow Dakotan is not as easy as you might think -- we're the 17th largest state by land size, so there's only 10 of us for every square mile. MORE
 
 
THE BLACK LIST: THE SPRING TRAINING WHEELS COME OFF.
  --The Black Table
03.30.04
 

By the time you read this, baseball will have started. Seriously. At 5 a.m. this morning, the Yankees played the Devil Rays, in Japan. In a dome. Is this how baseball is supposed to kick off? If you set your alarm really early, you maybe got to catch the ninth inning. It's spring time, people! If somehow Derek Jeter went down to a career-ending injury, none of us would have even been able to enjoy it. And that's sad. 11 reviews this week. Holla back, youngin. MORE
 
 
LIFE AS A LOSER #200: "SMITH STREET."
  --Will Leitch
03.29.04
  It's a beautiful day in New York City today, one of those days that reminds you why you're here, one of those days when you feel like you're a part of something bigger, something important. No other city can make you feel like this, like you are plugged into some massive generator, like you are an essential part of a machine that never stops churning. It's one of those days when the sidewalks feel like they're vibrating. So I decided to take a walk. MORE
 
 
THE PASSION OF THE MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PREVIEW.
  --Will Leitch
03.25.04
 

Last October, with its Red Sox-Yankees, Steve Bartman, Aaron Boone drama, was not only the most exciting postseason in recent memory, it might have been the most historically influential. It might be the fulcrum around which the future of baseball will pivot. Here's The Black Table's official 2004 Season Preview, as always, way too long and way too wordy. Teams are in order of predicted finish, unless of course you're a Yankee, in which case the author will happily accept three-year, $6.1 million contracts to change them. MORE
 
   
 
 
 

The Zapruder film has been examined rather thoroughly. The U.S. government has done its investigations, Oliver Stone has done his frame-by-frame revisionist history and just about every crackpot political theorist in North America has spent some time with a magnifying glass and paranoid fantasies. But given that the Zapruder film is four decades old, it's nice to see people are over-analyzing new movies. Like the "Large Marge" section of Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

Cookies + Fetish = Gold. When they're not being eaten, it appears that Gingerbread Men are complete freaks, ready for some S&M loving. As this site proves, those innocent little cookies we've been eating for years are bored of their sugar coated lifestyle and long for blindfolds, nipples made from candy and some hard core domination. Enter the world of carnal cookies.

Do you find yourself stuck in Russian prisons a lot? Do you worry that the guy with the kitty tattooed on his foot is going to kill you? Don't worry, he'll probably just steal from you. But the one with the barbed wire on his forehead -- he's in prison for life, with no chance of parole. In the spirit of Lil Orphan Annie, this web-based decoder ring will explain it all. You can thank us when you get out of the gulag.

Who knew? This year’s largely truth-free State of the Union Address contained not only fraudulent jabber about yellowcake uranium from Nigeria, but the lyrics to an unabashed homage to vigorous gay sex. Some deft digital sound editing laid on top of throbbing, anonymous dance beats gets right down to the secret and oh-so-dirty heart of W’s alternative speechifying. Dick is a killer indeed.

Shake that ass, bitch. What this Southern bass classic lacks in couth, it makes up for in directness. And as this tremendous video proves, it makes you want to dance until to start seeing Black Charlie Brown chillin' in a B-boy stance. Good times. Or to quote the song: "So get in my face and make that ass clap, G-strings from the back, just shake that ass for the splack pack." Word. And let me see what you got.

When happens when a regular adult poses as a 10-year-old and writes letters to Senators, asking them for their favorite joke? Well, after his letters are screened and re-screened for anthrax, chemical agents, explosives and pornography, Senators actually write back with jokes. John Kerry is about as funny as a block of wood, but at least John McCain is able to make fun of himself.

Attention Lazy Bloggers! The Black Table finally has an RSS feed. Click the icon up there to do whatever you people do with that kind of thing.

It was a sunny day on Main Street in Fisher Price Land, when all of a sudden the gates of hell opened up, wild animals took to the streets and all those happy, plastic people got totally fucked up. For just $10 on eBay, you can own the carnage and reenact your own outrageous scenarios, murdering those annoyingly perky Fisher Price people in all new and unusual ways. Or, as happens all the time in Third World nations, you can simply leave the bodies in the street as they fell.

Humans are overrated. Sure, we have opposable thumbs, and yes, we sure are good at creating mindless forms of entertainment to distract us from the mind-numbing, ongoing existential crisis called "employment after college." But sadly, humans are also really good at using petrochemicals and poisoning just about every single thing we come across in nature. And that's where the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement comes in.