I Don't Know Much about Art

A good deal has been made (as well it should) of the RNC reimbursing an operative for $2000 spent at an erotic club called Voyeur in West Hollywood. Apparently, from the latest word I've seen, it was for an "afterparty," to follow a Young Eagles Donation Dinner. The news has characterized Voyeur as a lesbian-bondage-strip club, a label to which the club owners take strenuous objection. It isn't stripping. It's art. Okay. Art. Got it. Like MOMA with dogcollars, paddles, gags and...well, never mind. Art.

But the RNC: How did they let this happen? By which I mean, why on earth did they reimburse this expense? Don't they give their operatives guidelines in terms of what is appropriate spending and what is not? Or maybe it just never occurred to anyone that it need to be explained to Young Operatives that The Party of Family Values does not spent money at strip clubs erotic art installations.

An expense account, as one of my bosses in the olden days once remarked to a co-worker, is not a license to kill.

"But I Still Have a Job..."

"Conan got screwed. I got screwed," Jay Leno said at an interview. "This is TV. The reason show business pays a lot of money is so when you get screwed you've got something left over."

I no longer remember that far back (I have always found Jay Leno profoundly unfunny, so didn't see the point of handing him The Tonight Show in the first place, and didn't see the point of giving it back to him later) but why did Leno leave TTS in the first place? He was retiring? Or wanted to take part in a consummately stupid experiment in what network TV watchers want? Poor fellow.

Newsflash: Avocado Still Teenager!

Today is the first time I have put on clothes and left the house; the five minute walk to the chiropractor, with a quick stop at the ATM and a shop on the way home, left me utterly beat. I think I'm winning in the war with this virus, but it's not going quietly or making a last minute plea bargain.

Avocado went out at about 11:30 to shop for a bathing suit for a swimming "thing" tomorrow. It started to rain here about half an hour ago. The kid just called me to say that she and her friend Amy were at the Glen Park J station and it was pouring rain and do I love her and would I please walk over in the rain to bring them an umbrella...

To which I said, No. She appeared shocked. "Really?" I would be more bothered by this except that I know she doesn't mean to be self-centered, she just is. She'll improve with age. Or else.