The Democratic National Convention? A tragic yet fantastical blur. Did I forget to mention that I was attending? Yes. Well. Allegedly I attend every year or whatever, but supposedly I never brag. I was in the private box with Hillary. Clinton. Senatrix? NY? Moderately dilated and dewy with patriotic twitterpation? Debatably queer and frantically not waving a silly placard? (Me, not Hillary.) Indeed. Well, I don't remember much, for obvious reasons, especially not about Kerry or whoever's protracted acceptance yammer. (Even his complexion went slack in a bored and exhausted manner.) But with blazing clarity I do remember this: I was thinking precisely what you were: "Fuck this up, you saggy ol' sack of man-dust, and I'll just smack you so silly."

So. Mother. Fucking. Silly!

Which reminds me somehow: I also seem to recall abundant The Fags bobbing gaily in the turgid roil--wee and hopeful pockets of them, impossible to discourage, desperate democracy bursting the buttons off their pink and connubially oriented little hearts. And forget the utterly devastating musical selections? Never. (Bruce Springsteen? BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN?) But when all is said and predictably not done, and our world is but a smoldering heap of "Why didn't we see this coming?" it's the man-hookers we'll remember. Today and forever, the man-hookers. O, the glorious man-hookers!

"Ange," a reader from bold Kentucky boasts, "Ha! If your source thinks she saw Orlando Bloom, he was really in Versailles, Kentucky, filming the Cameron Crowe movie Elizabethtown with Kirsten Dunst and Susan Sarandon," which might have made it remarkable for Orlando to have also been seen wandering the brackish froth of our own beloved Alki Beach, the expedient miracles of air travel notwithstanding. And John Kerry or whatever? Does he know we lost Vietnam? Would someone please tell him?

Curious "Linda" from NYC asks, "Does Chris Cornell still live in Seattle? Whom is (his ex-wife) Susan trolling with now that she's probably approaching her 60s--and has his child?" To which one might respond, "Off and on. No clue. Sixties? And Heavens to Betsy!"

Lastly, a server at Fisherman's called "Justin" exclaims, "What little respect I had for her doubled when she tipped 20 percent!" Meaning Jessica Simpson, who, accompanied by Nick Lachey (all 98 degrees of him), allegedly finely dined, then reasonably tipped in the aforesaid downtown seafood joint's waterfront garden. "Hell, I fucking kept a copy of the credit card statement!"

Hell! Vote Edwards.