June gloom has lifted, and LA is bright and sunny and full of spit and vinegar. Why, Perez Hilton, that infamous blogger, got a knuckle sandwich to the face on Sunday from the road manager of the Black Eyed Peas after Perez called Will.I.Am. a “faggot.” It went down in Toronto, but you don’t take a shot at LA’s number-one celebrity blogger and not expect retaliation. Perez is filing suit. Fergie just wants to keep the peace. It’s all so f-ing G-l-a-m-o-r-o-u-s.

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My father turned 65 on Saturday, and sadly I wasn’t home in the 'Sota for the big shebang. On the blessed day, he grilled some burgers; drank a brandy Manhattan; and took Uncle Howdy, Aunt Barb (his sister), and his father for a ride through some Wisconsin wilderness on his John Deere four-wheelin’ Gator. No shame in keeping it simple.

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Some people do drugs to get high; I just need a live taping of Prairie Home Companion (street name: PHC) to get a little juiced, staggered, and steamed.

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I have a distinct childhood memory of sitting in the back seat of my family’s Volvo station wagon on a July Saturday night on Highway 8 and listening to Prairie Home Companion. Having fully exhausted myself from a day of swimming and sandcastling at Grandma and Grandpa’s cabin, I rested against the car window and watched a bright orange sunset dart between the knee-high rows of corn as the tender bass of Garrison Keillor and his Prairie Home Companion lulled me into a sweet, summer peace.

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It was MinnPost’s Daily Glean that first alerted me to the tragic news of musician Jay Bennett’s passing on Sunday.

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It was because of dirty laundry that I donned my Al Franken for U.S. Senate T-shirt. I wasn’t looking for political discourse or thinking that such a third-tier T-shirt (sorry, Al, but I thought you were so last November) would produce a geyser of conversation with strangers on Sunset Boulevard. Worst-case scenario, I thought the shirt would read: ironic hipster looking to get some action from female ironic hipster.

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Oh, how my Echo Park neighborhood—home of Dodger Stadium—weeps. Slugger and stooge Manny Ramirez has tested positive for a banned substance and is suspended for fifty games.

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Hollywood is apoplectic today with the news that 111-year-old talent agency William Morris is merging with the fourteen-year-old agency Endeavor. Endeavor was started in the mid-nineties by Ari Emanuel (the inspiration for Entourage character Ari Gold and brother to Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel). As the trades are reporting today, it’s a well-suited match: William Morris has cash from its lucrative music ventures and decades of  TV packaging fees (The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Cosby Show) while Endeavor has the more impressive client roaster of Hollywood’s elite actors, writers, directors, and producers.

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Day two of the Sinless Vegas Bachelor Party started at noon at the Bellagio Buffet’s Champagne Brunch. For more than four hours, we sipped champagne and buffeted to our hearts' content. We had come seeking Alaskan King Crab, but the succulent meat isn’t served until 4 p.m., so we ate, drank, and waited.

Much like Robert Bly’s Iron John, the experience birthed incredible conversation and interaction. 

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Last year I took on a major challenge and journeyed with my mother to Las Vegas for some good ole r and r. Although punctuated by some very awkward situations—namely when Mom met a shirtless Carrot Top at Hard Rock and was then forced into a poolside conversation about boob jobs by our waitress—it was an unqualified success.

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