Local bastard

“It’s so damn hot … milk was a bad choice."—Ron Burgundy. When the wind dies in Chico and it’s over 100, and your Local Bastard ’s moist, pale, hairless thighs are splayed wide around his failing swamp cooler, his blood slowly loses its anger and turns very, very tired. There will be no hot scene-hopping to report this week, only the brain freeze of the cold and comforting Internet. Refreshing:

Adorable bunnies. Stumbled across L.A. artist Luke Chueh ’s rad acrylic & ink works of cute baby animals painted darkly at www.lukechueh.com . Pictured, “The Soundtrack (To My Life).”

Http://bringbackthecouch.blogspot.com / It’s simple: This guy wants The Daily Show to bring back the couch from the show’s old set for the guests to sit on, and this blog is ground zero for his protest.

You ¡¶¡£¡·idiots! In the July 14 online edition of China Daily (What? Local Bastard reads it every day, honest: www2.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-07/14/content_460176.htm ), there’s a story of the Chinese “author” who’s written a book with no words. Hu Wenlian g’s novel ¡ ¶¡£¡· is supposedly a “special touching love story” consisting of only 14 Chinese punctuation marks. He says it took him a year to write (so that’s where the “special touching” probably comes in), and if you can guess what the hidden story is, you win 140,000 yuan:

“A family walks into a talent agency…” And so begins the in-joke that comedians have been supposedly telling each other since the days of vaudeville. Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller and comedian Paul Provenza know the joke, and they’ve made a documentary/one-up contest of graphic depravity where the “talent agent” in question is pitched an ever-changing and uniquely extreme family act by famous actors and comedians ( Jon Stewart, Phyllis Diller, Robin Williams, Bill Maher, Eric Idle, Chris Rock, Don Rickles, Sarah Silverman , the South Park guys and a gazillion more). There’s no nudity, sex or violence, just words, and the thing is rated NC-17—check the trailer at www.thearistocrats.com /, and if you have the stomach, read the blog devoted to the joke’s variations at www.dead-frog.com/aristocrats/ .

I t kind of looks like a snake. The less that’s said about www.theshitsnake.com the better. It’s no Aristocrats joke. … Well, actually it kind of is. Don’t get mad at L.B.—he didn’t start it.

TWO MORE: Knowing Oliver Stone ’s penchant for the visceral in his filmmaking makes me worried about how people will react to his reported movie-in-the-works about 9/11 starring Nicolas Cage as one of two Port Authority officers trapped under the rubble of the World Trade Center. Last, in an attempt to kill herself last Thursday, a Chicago woman allegedly accelerated her 2000 Mustang to 70 mph and rammed into a 2001 Honda Civic, killing all three men inside, including Silkworm drummer Michael Dahlquist. The woman, of course, was not seriously injured./i>