Tonight as the wife and I watched The Daily Show, we were ostensibly treated to footage from the recent Tony Awards: it showed, incredibly, LL Cool J rapping onstage with the deathless, eerie, corn-joke-that-will-live-forever Carol Channing. (If you don't know the corn joke, the handy internet can probably help you out.) It was seriously "HOLY SHIT!" footage, and I literally--literally! (certain friends will appreciate this)--clutched my skull in horrified wonder. There was Commodore Ladies Love Cool James, spinning some rhymes and pretending like he never heard the word "Rollerball," and right next to him was this emaciated chicken neck clad in tinfoil doing a rather alarming kind of Frug.

The Tony Awards. Baffling. To tell the truth, I didn't even know when it ran. And, as far as I know, neither did any of my actor friends; that, or nobody was going to admit to it. The Tony Awards quite simply blow mangy dogs, and are of no relevance to anyone with a lick of sense. Hey, let's honor the BEST OF AMERICAN THEATER! And wouldn't you know it? Every year, it's to be found in New York City! What a strange phenomenon! Musicals? They're really GREAT! Especially piles of shit like "Wicked," which is a (by all reports) utterly mundane belt-fest based on a novel that is, in itself, a pile of shit. WHOOPEE! It is really a testament to the utter hubris of NYC/Broadway that these dreary awards can even pretend to have a whiff of credibility or gravitas. Winning a Tony is a lot like being the Great Neck Pork Queen--sure, you get a nice trophy; unfortunately, someday, others are bound to see it.

"Hugh Jackman! I remember you! You took off your shirt in some horrible play I saw!"

"Yeah, it's me. Listen, give yourself a break and go rent X-Men."

"What about Swordfish?"

"You're not listening. Rent X-Men."

In unrelated news, last Christmas (note that this is June, here), the wife received some gift cards, one of them from JC Penney's. So she did a little online shopping, and bought some clothes. This was horribly unwise, as it turned out. (I got a card myself, but I spent it on failsafe things like a spice rack and a DVD.) When she got her merchandise, it was rather gruffly shoved into plastic bags, which were then also gruffly shoved into plastic shipping bags, so the whole process of liberation of said clothes was sort of like peeling away thick sheets of dead skin cells in order to get at a tumor.

At the time--months ago--I remember her unveiling the goods. One horrible garment appeared to be built by angry, retarded gnomes; it was allegedly a blouse, but seemed to be constructed of the same sort of thin paper that bar coasters are made of. The gaily-colored print that seemed nice in the catalog looked, in reality, like a cheap shroud for a disliked florist. A pair of pants that she had found attractive had the texture of tent canvas. It was possibly the most dispiriting package of merchandise ever to be countenanced by humans. If someone put this crap into a space module, and it was found by aliens, they would probably think, "Holy Baltoods, Meat Unit BARL 4! We must endeavor to avoid these beings. Did you see these bras? They're made out of bark."

So the wife sent the horrible crap back. Months ago. (Remember, this is JUNE!) She simply asked for a refund, if possible, knowing that they might get snitty about a refund, as it was a gift card purchase from a third party. But hey, no problem, JC Penney--some time later--sent a refund check. Cool! No more canvas pants!

The check bounced. From JC Penney.

I'm in contact with Sondheim. He's all over writing some tunes for my notional show, such as "Itchy Ass" and "How To Stuff A Mild Bikini." We're going to rake the Tonys, I predict. All I need are Hugh Jackman and Carol Channing.

I wonder if we can work in a bit about corn.