By now this is old news and you are probably tired of hearing about the performance artist who gave birth in a Brooklyn gallery, but I just wanted to make sure you got the memo. Marni Kotak believes that giving birth is “the highest form of art.” She created an art piece out of it, entitled “The Birth of Baby X.”

The  next stage of the performance is “Raising Baby X.” It’s total bullshit under the guise of pretentious pseudo-feminism. Well, I am writing about it, so I suppose as far as performance art goes, it’s getting the word out. “If a baby is born in an art gallery and lots of art people are around to see it, does it count as art?”

- Haley Hogan

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Billionaire Texan Sid Bass is getting a divorce from his second wife, Mercedes, the news has reported. It was a mutual end and they hope to remain friends. Apparently Sid is fed up with the glitz and glamour and wants to live a simple life as a painter. Though he has given millions to the Metropolitan Opera, it turns out that it was his wife’s interest. The opera bores him.

Their marriage was the opposite of their divorce: scandalous and tabloid-worthy. In 1986 Sid was spotted sneaking into a fancy Parisian hotel room to cheat on his former wife (a prim, lady-like type) with Mercedes (an extroverted type who was fond of gossiping and dancing on tables). And so their relationship began.

Maybe second wives aren’t what they appeared to be at first blush after all.

- Haley Hogan

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The hidden identity of a mousy Manhattan lawyer working in the New York Attorney General’s office has made a splash in the news this week. She might be “Alisha Smith” by day, but by night, she’s “Alisha Spark,” dominatrix du jour. That’s right, she unbuttons her pant suit and “performs” at S&M events, satisfying the fetishes of thwarted businessmen, with whips, and chains, and various apparati…

She’s been fired. Obviously. But the reason she was fired was not because of the perverse nature of her extracurricular activity — it was because she was (probably) getting paid (a lot) for it, and the Attorney General’s office never approved this financial excursion. It’s not against the rules to be into S&M, but it’s against the rules to get paid for it. Lesson learned. Maybe if you work in finance both options are permitted.

- Haley Hogan

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There has been an unfortunate mishap at the Hustler Club in Manhattan. A man is suing the club for getting tricked into his $28,000 bar bill. He claims that the busty employees got him so intoxicated that “he was no longer capable of conducting financial transactions.”

At least he’s not alone in his idiocy. One CEO beat him out, with a bill of $241,000 at a similarly slutty establishment. At least that guy got fired.

For $28,000 you’d think there would be more than just alcohol in the equation. At the very least he should have received a nice set of Jagermeister tchotchkes.

- Haley Hogan

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Midnight In Paris is yet another delight from Woody Allen. Gil (Owen Wilson) serves as the “Woody Allen character,” a disgruntled Hollywood screenwriter who dreams of reaching a higher level of literary genius by writing a novel. Unfortunately, he is engaged to a pushy girl, Inez (Rachel McAdams), who loves big diamonds and even bigger houses in Malibu.

The setting is Paris, as Gil and Inez freeload on her father’s five-star business trip. But Gil has a different Paris in mind: the Paris of Fitzgerald and Hemingway and the rest of the expatriate crowd of the 1920s. Gil’s nostalgic delusions lead him to his true literary purpose in life, and, of course, to his real romantic passion.

Paris + Woody Allen + hottie Marion Cotillard + The First Lady of France (as a tour guide) + Adrien Brody (as Salvador Dalí) = a film more worthwhile than anything Steven Spielberg could produce or Brad Pitt could star in.

- Haley Hogan

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I’ve encountered my fair share of male flashers, but thankfully have yet to be seated next to one on an airplane, like the poor 17-year-old girl who witnessed a man masturbating under his tray table on her flight home. She had engaged in innocent small talk with the man before take-off, and when she least expected, while she was searching for prom dresses in Seventeen magazine, she was distracted by the sight of an exposed penis wagging back and forth beneath the 50-year-old creeper’s tray table. Luckily, she had an aisle seat and managed to escape to the back of the plane without having to crawl over the pervert’s lap.

The disturbed young cheerleader reported the incident to authorities, who immediately arrested the man for public display of lewdness. He claimed to have spilled Tobasco sauce on his privates and blamed any seemingly inappropriate movement under the tray table on an unbearable, burning itch that needed immediate scratching.

The culprit has a PhD in Biomechanics, was a professor of physical therapy at Duke University, and has written and lectured on topics such as “Core Stability: Integration with Lower Extremity Rehabilitation” and “Manual Magic: The Method is not the Trick.” I’ll bet he’s always taken a hands-on approach to teaching. Needless to say, he’s certainly mastered the art of creeperdom.

- Lizzie Crocker

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Hugh Hefner did as all classic pimps do: he got engaged to be married to a 24-year-old Playboy playmate at the ripe old age of 84. I don’t know about you but sixty years of difference seems like some sort of a record.

The ‘lucky’ lady, Crystal Harris, is a British-American model and singer (according to her Wikipedia page), and she comes from a long line of entertainers. To be exact, her parents worked at an England-themed amusement park in Arizona. It was during Crystal’s formative years studying psychology at San Diego State that she first delved into the exciting world of modeling and the Playboy empire.

In typical Hef fashion, he met Crystal at one of his infamous Halloween parties, and the rest is history. It was a Christmas Eve engagement for the happy couple. Let’s hope that Hef holds out through New Year’s Eve so that Crystal can have her magical geriatric make-out session.

- Haley Hogan [Follow me on Twitter & read my other blog about WASP culture]

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The New York Times ran a short documentary film about a ‘Miracle on 22nd Street’ that involved  an adorable gay couple who started receiving hundreds of letters addressed to Santa Claus. They have no idea how 450 kids got their address on West 22nd Street, but they decided to take on the task of being Santa’s helpers and sending out hundreds of gifts.

Maybe it’s all a scam against the gays from some Sarah Palin followers desperate for free PlayStation sets. At least it’s nice to know that some people still believe in the Christmas spirit. Watch the movie here and try to do something nice for a stranger this Christmas.

- Haley Hogan [Follow me on Twitter & read my other blog about WASP culture]

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The thought of marriage is a bit daunting to me, given that I’m slightly neurotic and can’t imagine finding someone who will put up with my shenanigans forever and a day. Then of course there’s the issue of meeting a man whom I can bear ‘til death do us part – in bed, at the kitchen table, on the toilet…

If opposites attract, then I should get hitched with someone who is grounded, stable, and rational. But those criteria sound downright dull to me, and I’m convinced life would be more exhilarating were I to spend it with someone who is as eccentric and passionate as I am. According to new research, I just may live happily ever after with a man who also has vague “issues,” so long as we spend plenty of time between the sheets. Angry sex, emo sex, dirty sex, even mindless sex – apparently the emotions lovers feel during the act don’t necessarily reflect (nor affect) the couple’s general happiness, or malaise. What matters is that they’re doing it frequently. I guess this all makes sense, given that neurotic types are probably more likely to be perverts, creepers, and nymphomaniacs than “normal” people.

There may be hope for me after all.

- Lizzie Crocker

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There is a billionaire in Russia named Roman Abramovich whose girlfriend is into the arts, so naturally he has decided to drop $400 million to make his own museum on an island near St. Petersburg. Roman already has a significant contemporary art collection to install in his museum, and he hopes that others will have the chance to enjoy his vanity project.

The island/museum is really just an excuse for Roman’s hot girlfriend to become a curator of a big museum. I think it’s one of the sweetest things a rich pimp could do to spread romantic cheer one Francis Bacon at a time.

- Haley Hogan [Follow me on Twitter & read my other blog about WASP culture]

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