To: NY Comedy Scene Re: Heckling Video

Well, the "heckling video" has just been made private, so this post I was working on is essentially moot now, but to the 69,000 of you who saw it, here's what I have to say:

Yesterday, a video that had already started to go viral in the comedy community was shared on The Huffington Post, which brought it to an even wider audience. The video's title, "Heckler Gets DESTROYED!," implies that this would be yet another video of a comedian on stage handling a heckler in the audience. There are lots of those online, some now infamous, like this one where Bill Burr tears into a Philly crowd so incredibly that he, perhaps unfortunately, has inspired a whole generation of younger comics to jump at the chance to be confrontational with audience members.

But, instead, the video features a young girl named Emily getting her comeuppance, as some would have you believe, for being disruptive during the open mic where this was filmed.

Like Carol Hartsell at Huffington Post Comedy, my first reaction to this video was that it had to be an April Fool's prank, since it was filmed on April 1st. Hartsell says, "No crowd could possibly be that mean to one performer, we thought." Not to mention the fact that it seems virtually implausible that any female comedian, no matter how green, would start a set in the year 2012 with "birth control tampons." But in an interview with Hartsell, Adam Cozens, the comedian who filmed and uploaded the video, confirmed that the incident was not staged. Cozens told Hartsell, "Prior to this incident, she and her friends talked and heckled and yelled all throughout the host's opening time, being repeatedly told by the host, as well as comics sitting around her to be quiet (in not always those kind of words). Of the 15 or so comics that went on prior to her, she talked during each and every one of them."

It's important to note that Cozens said "she talked during each and every one of them," not that she heckled or made fun of every one of them. The implication in the title of the video is that she was making fun of each and every comedian who went up before her, but accounts by those who were there describe her as more of a general disruption than a mean-spirited heckler. I asked Cozens to give me an example of the sort of heckling she was doing, and he said, "Something about "Don't forget to tune in to watch 'Whitney,' Thursdays on NBC," which is harmless and kind of funny. Cozens joked, "Yea, she was NASTY!"

I wasn't there so I can't attest to her behavior, which is part of the problem with this video. The viewer isn't privy to any examples of this girl's prior misbehavior, only the "little mercy" she was shown from the comedians in the audience. Most importantly, this woman was not only taped without her permission, but then subsequently exploited on the web. (As of this writing the video has nearly 69,000 hits.) Many who've seen this video wonder why she wasn't simply asked to leave. Cozens told Hartsell, "Around the time that it was all coming to a head and it was make or break time in regards to giving her the boot, it was decided to just put her on stage and handle it the way we did." So taping her without her permission in order to punish her was a premeditated act.

Even if Emily were rudely heckling every single comedian who went up before her (and it doesn't seem like she was), one person heckling one other person seems a benign act compared to a room full of mostly men attacking a woman who was clearly so nervous to do comedy that she had to get drunk first. (Note to those who want to try comedy: never drink first.) The behavior of the comedians in the audience is at best childish (big surprise!) and at worst barbaric. This should be viewed as the hazing incident it is, meant to intimidate and harass a newbie female who dared disturb the balance of power. Some have argued that a male comedian who behaved in the same way would have been met with the same response, but that's doubtful. Female hecklers are notoriously reviled by male comedians, which is not to say that other female comedians there weren't bothered by her behavior, but rather to draw attention to the latent sexism behind the act of embarrassing this girl online. Putting her in her place, as it were. This is the first video of its kind as far as I know (of an open mic-er being attacked by an audience of fellow comedians) and it's no coincidence that the subject is female.

While some comedians - male and female alike - continue to suggest that gender has nothing to do with what happened, others are willing to analyze the incident more critically. Comedian Josh Homer told me, "Watching that video was like watching gang rape. It was premeditated and over the top. It was pure mob mentality." He continued, "If that was my sister up there being treated like that, I would have burned The PIT to the ground." Indeed, watching this video is like watching a stoning. Or, as comedian Mike Lawrence tweeted, "Viral videos are the new Scarlet Letter."

I'm particularly disturbed by the fact that many people who weren't there continue to maintain that "she got what she deserved!" The willingness of people who weren't there to accuse this girl of things they didn't see her do and then to thrill at her punishment is telling. Additionally, the way some people remain ignorant of the obvious abusive nature of this exchange says so much about how violent our culture at large has become, how volatile comedy rooms can be and how anger is often at the root of what makes comedians funny. This is what happens when that anger comes out without a punchline. (Though I will admit the line, "Your hair is shitty!" is hilarious.) I'd like to commend the host for intervening eventually, though I'm not sure if he was in on the premeditated act of asking her to go up so she could be ridiculed.

To those that would counter, "What do you expect? Comedy is hard! Be rude to comedians, this is what's gonna happen!" I will say this: I might not take umbrage with this act if it happened in an isolated room. It's the uploading of this footage for the world to see that seems like the particularly cruel and unusual punishment. What's worse is that as a result of the fact that this video was shared online, Emily felt compelled to attend another open mic last night and film an apology:



Thank God for the comic at the end of this apology video (who I'm told is Scott Chaplain) who says, "Anyone who actually wants an apology is ... an idiot. Seriously, don't ever apologize, have you watched their sets?" Not only does he prove himself funny, good-natured and insightful, he also makes an important point. While I think it's fair Emily felt compelled to apologize for interrupting other people (after all, that's 1st grade etiquette), what about the apology she's deserved for the way she was treated? I asked Cozens about that and he told me he'd rather not comment publicly, but that he does feel remorse for uploading the video. (Which is perhaps why it has been made private.)

When I contacted Cozens about this saga, I told him, "I hesitate to even mention the fact that by sharing this girl's abysmal material with the world you've set women in comedy back 50 years." That's perhaps the most unfair part of all of this. The comedians who supported sharing this girl's drunken open mic set with anyone willing to witness this train wreck would certainly not support filming a well-known comedian working out new material in a loose room. This material isn't ready for anyone's consumption, let alone the judgmental eyes of the entire Internet. These terrible jokes about tampons and menstrual cups play into every negative stereotype about women in comedy, which comedian Nathan Rand notes has given "some idiots ... an excuse to shit on all women who do comedy." He told me, "I'll say that one thing I do find really disturbing in the comments is the amount of misogyny displayed by the misinformed. She was a heckling jerk who then went on stage and got booed while telling an unfunny, hacky joke. There are more awful male comics than there are awful female comics because there are more men in comedy, period." Um, no pun intended, I imagine.

Spring Cleaning

I was wearing that horrible nighty my mother bought me when I was pregnant. Or was I? I can't remember. You could hardly call it a "nighty," really. I mean, it wasn't some short sexy see-through thing you'd wear to be cheeky before sex. It was a nightgown. Like, prairie-style, all-the-way-to-the-floor, cotton with a ruffle at the bottom nightgown. It had those floral eyelets and was yellow. Light yellow, like sunshine. I guess that's the only reason I liked it, cuz like so many things in my life, even tho I hated it, I sorta kinda liked it, or at least I thought, "This works."

But I couldn't have been wearing that nighty, because this was before my daughter was born. Maybe it was while I was pregnant? But it couldn't have been while I was pregnant, because I never thought of leaving while I was pregnant. Okay, once. I did once. But that was when I was cowering on the floor in the kitchen because my ex (he was my husband then) had just glowered at me for not paying the cable bill. He glowered and scowled and was sullen a lot, over really insignificant things. But this anger was different. I hadn't really seen anger like this before. I felt like he was going to hit me over the head with a frying pan. I guess it's a good thing I don't really cook so there wasn't one readily available. He would have had to dig through the cabinets to find one and I would have had time to run.

So I guess I wasn't wearing that nighty, but maybe I was. It doesn't matter, really. But I associate that nighty with cleaning, because I wore it a lot to clean. And I cleaned a lot. That's what my mother taught me to do. Keep everything clean! Scrub away your sins. Dust out your frustrations. Sigh. Lots of heavy sighing. It's important. It's a release for you and it lets everyone around you know just how God damned put out you are for having to clean up after them. Fuckers. How dare you breathe?! Now I have to rearrange the dead skin particles you just unsettled! I am so unsettled! I AM UNSETTLED.

But anyway ... it was a bright sunny day. I remember because all of my memories were formed on bright sunny days. I don't pay attention to the other days. Or they make me feel dead inside. I'm not sure. But it was a bright, sunny day like so many Saturdays and I was cleaning the entertainment stand from Target. I loved that furniture. Dark brown wood and it matched the stand where I displayed the crystal bowls we got from our wedding. I was dusting the stand where I put the TV we got from my mom, actually *I* got from my mom, in college, the one my ex still uses today. He collects things from exes and lives off them, on them, fucking a 22-year-old on our marital bed the way I fucked him then on the marital bed he shared with his first wife. Funny. It's a pattern! It's discernible. If you're looking.

So where was I? Oh. The nighty. And the sunshine. Streaming through the front windows of the first house that ever felt like my home with the dark brown wood furniture from Target and the ugly crystal bowls that I didn't like but that I sort of liked because they worked. Dar Williams was playing. Spring Street, from The Green World. "Start over on Spring Street. I am welcome anytime."

I've always liked to listen to upbeat music while I clean. When I was a kid, it was the only thing that made me feel like I wasn't alone in my aloneness, having been left alone to scrub generations of demons out of the knick-knacks. I bought my mom all these bells. They were mostly ugly, but they worked. Some of them were really pretty, though. The glass ones, they were different colors, crystal, like the stupid useless bowls we got from our wedding. I'm not even friends anymore with the daughter of one of the women who bought us one of those bowls. I mean - WHO BUYS CRYSTAL BOWLS? You can't do anything with them. You can't use them. You just have to look at them and protect them but they don't give you anything. They don't help you. A crystal bowl will never be there when you need it to be. It's just stupid. But it works. If you like to just look at stuff that could break anytime.

So the glass bells were pretty. They were nice. They were red, orange, yellow, green and blue. I don't think there was a purple one cuz purple is the best and we couldn't afford it. My dad and I, when we went to get them at Argersinger's. We couldn't get them all cuz we couldn't afford it. But we got most of them. For my mom. It worked. As a gift. She never looked at them and just saw them as one more thing to dust. But they worked. She hates gifts. She hates birthdays. They make her sad. Because ever since her parents died they just haven't been the same. Her birthdays. After my grandparents shot themselves.

But anyway! Where was I? Oh! The bells were okay. I mean, let's face it. They were just okay. Everything we've ever owned has just been okay, but it works. Sort of. I mean, it's fine. SIGH. No, it's fine. Nothing's wrong. It's fine. Just. JUST LEAVE ME ALONE. IT'S FINE.

I'm fine.

Oh yeah. So, Spring Street. I was cleaning. In the nighty my mother bought me when I was pregnant or not cuz this was before that and I was thinner and wearing a cute t-shirt. Maybe a white one without a bra. I always thought that was kinda hot. I mean, cuz I have nice tits. I do! They work. They work really well. Except for feeding babies, and he glowered at me about that, too.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? he said. Because I couldn't breastfeed right. I had to switch to formula because my baby wasn't gaining enough weight. Because there was something wrong with me. So I had to switch to formula. Poison. It cost money. Breastfeeding was free. So I fucked up because I cost us money. MONEYYYYYYY. The only thing he ever sort of kind of loved. It worked. I mean, sort of. It could get you more shit that sort of kind of worked, anyway.

So, where was I? Oh! I was cleaning and the beautiful, melting sunlight was streaming in through the gorgeous tall windows of the only house I ever really felt like was a home because I made the walls purple and purple is the best color. We couldn't afford it - at least that's what he told me - but I went to the dollar store - El Mundo! - and I got the periwinkle curtains and I went to Target and I got the curtain rods with the periwinkle glass bulbs at the end because I love Target and the dark wood furniture they sell that you can put your crystal bowls on. The ones you give away after you get divorced. My friend Cecilia has one now in her entryway. It looks pretty there. It works.

I was dusting the entertainment stand because it was always very dusty. And I was dusting the stereo system because back then people had stereo systems and this one was even older because it was from his first marriage. So maybe it had her dead skin cells on it. I don't know. But I was rearranging her dead skin cells, mingling them with mine and the cat hair - they'd had a cat, too - it died and I know because that's the only email she ever sent after she left him - and I was listening to Dar Williams sing Spring Street.

Start over on Spring Street, I am welcome anytime.

The thing is, when you live in New York City, you are right there near Spring Street. I mean, we lived on 116th Street, but it was only a 30 minute ride to the East Village. And that's basically SoHo. And that's Spring Street. So I didn't have to leave. Just like Dar.

"And that's to say, yeah I'm leavin', but I don't have to go there. I don't have to go to Spring Street. Cuz it's Spring everywhere."

The sunshine was streaming in my windows in my house, the only house I'd ever really felt like was my home and I was cleaning it. I didn't have to go to Spring Street. I could stay right there. I knew I should go. But I wasn't ready. I needed to dust some more things. I needed to rub around a bit more in some dead skin cells belonging to someone else.

Me on Uinterview: Advice for Ashton and Demi

Rumor had it that Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore were getting divorced after he cheated on her on the eve of their 6th wedding anniversary. Some say they're now trying to repair their marriage. I know how it is:

Mr. and Miss Matched

My father was a man with many signature behaviors. He had an unmistakable laugh and gregarious nature that could penetrate even the hardest of hearts. He bore the brunt of his obsessive need to work, to do well at his work, to create work where there was none thanks to his unquenchable desire to groom and mold the physical world around him. But, perhaps most importantly, or at least most intimately, anyway - in the way that a daughter knows her father's intimate side - he had a habit of lallygagging around the house, on the few days he would allow himself to take a break from work, in the most ridiculous mismatched plaid pajama combos imaginable.

Even the couch cushions are plaid...

I'm not sure how it is that my dad acquired so many mismatched tops and bottoms, or why his loungewear collection consisted of nothing but plaid fleece, cotton stripes and bizarre prints (tractors, anyone?), all of which he liked to wear at the same time, if possible. But knowing my dad would be sitting at the head of the kitchen table reading the Sunday paper in one of these clown costumes on weekends when I came home to visit as an adult is one of the things I grew to rely on, to feel comforted by. It was a goofy tick of his that let me know that no matter how old I got, and even when I had my own child, I would always feel like a little girl around my dad.

Yes, the blanket is plaid. And I'm wearing my dad's bathrobe. It's plaid.

Adriana, trying to comprehend the perpetual, pervasive presence of plaid.

I lost my dad in 2008 to cancer, something I haven't really talked about excessively. I've mentioned it here and there, but not nearly to an extent representative of the gaping hole he left in my life. I'm not alone in feeling his absence, of course. My father was not only the head but also the heart of our family - and, given how much time he spent yelling, I suppose he was the lungs, too. I cry all the time when I think about my father, not just because I miss him, but because he was so great. Great, as in large, larger than life. In hindsight, I realize my father expended a lot of energy throughout his life compensating for his tiny stature with the size of his personality. He left such a giant mark on everyone he touched - even people who only met him once were changed by having interacted with him, and I'm really not exaggerating. If tiny women who pack a punch are referred to as firecrackers, my dad was a hand grenade, yelling hello at mailmen from across the street, waving and shouting friendly taunts at neighbors, tooting his horn at passersby. Every time a waitress walked up to him in a restaurant and asked, "What can I getcha?," he'd respond, "A million dollars and a day off to spend it." Inevitably, even if she was having a bad day, the server couldn't help but chuckle a bit, to feel relieved by my dad's easy presence.

And boy was he present, my dad, always living in the moment, always expressing exactly how he felt when he felt it. His capacity to feel empathy was enormous, which is probably why he took me in like I was his own child. Not only did my dad never make me feel like he was my step-dad (a term that wasn't even considered for use), he told me from day one that he was my Dad. With a capital D. I'll never forget that moment, right after my parents got married. My dad ran his carpentry business out of our house, and so the phone was always ringing, especially in the evening when people knew they might actually have a chance to talk to the elusive, charming, cantankerous Mike Castiglia, Builder. One night I answered a call - like I liked to do, since it made me feel important as a young child - and ran to the garage to tell my dad who was on the phone. I opened the door and called out, "Mike! It's for you!" My dad walked up the steps, slowly and deliberately, bent down to my eye level and said, "You can't call me Mike anymore, kid. You have to call me Dad now." Then he patted my head and I went back inside, transformed. I had a Dad, and I got to love him the way only little girls can love their fathers. I spent the rest of his life giving him unwanted kisses and hugs, never fully being able to say thank you for that.

My daughter is now about the same age I was when Mike became my dad, and though she hasn't seen her grandfather in almost four years, I hope she carries a vague memory of him with her. She must know his imprint on her DNA on some basic, spiritual level, because she certainly was channeling him through her sleepwear choices the other day, so much so that I had to take her picture. So here's to you, Dad, and your ridiculous pajamas. I miss you still and always will.

The Widow and The Divorcee, Episode 8: FINE and The Art of Brooklyn Film Festival

Check out episodes 3, 5 and 8 of The Widow and the Divorcee at The Art of Brooklyn Film Festival this month! The festival runs from August 20-27 with a special preview and gallery show tonight at the St. Francis College Theatre starting at 6 pm. For the complete schedule and more details, visit The Art of Brooklyn site.

A brief glimpse inside the hate-filled mind of a con artist:

My friend Kyria Lydia Abrahams, author of the very funny book, I'm Perfect, You're Doomed, just sent me a blog post she wrote titled, "Never have dinner with Susan Crain Bakos." Much to Susan Crain Bakos' dismay, I'm sure, I had never heard of Susan Crain Bakos, but a Google search tells me that she's the author of several books about sex, she's got a hard-on for black dudes (but it's not cuz she's ugly and white guys won't fuck her - which is not a racist assertion or anything) and that she hates to pay for lunch. Or dinner, so it seems.

Susan Crain Bakos is a con artist who has admitted to sticking several young women with the check after various meals meant to be networking meetings. (Bakos recently tried to make Kyria pay for a very expensive meal after a business meeting arranged at Bakos' request.) In a post on her Open Salon blog - which she has since tried to delete (as you can see in Google's cache) - Bakos writes, "I say I didn’t bring my wallet and hand [the check] over—usually to the woman who wants to “network” with me, i.e., she’s younger, full of herself, very ambitious in the sense of wanting to get somewhere fast and be somebody NOW but not in the old-fashioned sense of: Willing to work hard to get there." Bakos is a classic con, possibly a sociopath, who is filled with hatred toward the women she is taking advantage of, even as she admits that sometimes she needed money from these women when she found her "cash-flow constricted." (Here is a PDF of the post as it originally appeared. I will reference it throughout.)

Bakos' anger stems from the assumption that these women see her as a has-been, an "old achiever on way out," despite the fact that they "gush over her work" during dinner. I understand the tumultuous cycle of "self-loathing-turning-into-burning-hatred-for-anyone-who-loves-you-slash-all-humanity-on-a-base-level-catalyzing-more-self-loathing-which-in-turn-fuels-anger-against-every-asshole-out-there-who-thinks-they're-better-than-me" phenomenon very well, because I was in an intimate relationship with a man afflicted by it. The effect of a one-time con on a victim is very different than the effect of having a long-term relationship with a con artist, but either way, it's best to avoid these people altogether.

And that's what Kyria is suggesting young women do with Bakos - avoid her. "Beware, young up-and-coming female writers in New York! There is a raging 'Dine and Dasher' who is preying on women at some of the city's finest restaurants. She also happens to be a 60-year-old grandmother and a well-known sex columnist," Kyria writes. Bakos, like every other con artist, is hiding behind the public persona she has created. "But a well-known, accomplished and presumably financially solvent person has no reason to steal," we think. "Why would a grandmother take advantage of a young girl?," we are forced to ask ourselves. Simply for the thrill of it. That is all.

Bakos literally doesn't care about people, and views dealing with them - us - as a waste of time. We are pathetic, she is mighty. Bakos says of those who have accused her of victimizing them, "If I don’t care about people, I don’t care about what they think or write or say—even if I am the subject. Anonymous internet trolls and mean girls, snarky jealous people and the poor little marks who didn’t get all that free help they wanted? Time-wasters. Watching a syndicated episode of “Friends” is a better use of time than reading them." (One has to wonder who helped Bakos ascend from the bottom rung of the sex columnist ladder, but that's neither here nor there. Maybe she made it alone, masturbating the whole way.)

Bakos goes on in her post to examine her own sociopathic behavior, which proves to me that these people do have some level of self-awareness. She writes, "This check-dodging is relatively new behavior for me, a new category in a series of bad behaviors that is—at least I can say this much—declining in severity and intensity to the point where it is an errant stream, not a river sometimes overflowing its banks."

As Martha Stout revealed in The Sociopath Next Door, the lifestyle of a con artist is so taxing, eventually these people run out of steam. They just burn out. And this is where I have to say, in struggling for two years now with my own feelings about sociopathy and the people who are afflicted by it, despite everything I have been and continue to be subjected to as a result of the disease, I do have sympathy for these people. Not pity - pity is a sociopath's tool - but some level of compassion. I can only imagine how hard it is to live one's life in such a horribly burdensome way, to be filled with such sad rage and to feel a need to use whatever bit of power available to take others down. Frankly, that has to suck.

The worst part of sociopathy is that people are reticent to call it out and diagnose those who suffer from it, most especially mental health professionals. In fact, sociopathy isn't even listed in the DSM anymore, and is instead lumped in with Anti-Social Personality Disorder (euphemistic language, paging George Carlin!) along with psychopathy and a host of other afflictions. Some say the term sociopathy is being bandied about too much, that it is becoming part of the pop-psychology pantheon. That may be so, but as I see it, it's out of a need to recognize the many sociopaths and narcissists in our society, wreaking havoc in ways large and small.

In the Open Salon post about her recent cons, Bakos writes extensively about the different therapists she has seen and the various diagnoses and treatments she has received, pin-pointing just how important it is to research and diagnose these ASPDs and to get those that suffer from anti-social behavior - which is all of us in the end - the help they need. Bakos says:

For much of my life I have been struggling with psychological issues. Following a suicide attempt seven years ago that was very nearly successful, I began hearing a new diagnosis from a succession of therapists. Programs run out; new ones open up; everybody has their own diagnosis and treatment concept; nobody ever put me on drugs which should have been a clue to Borderline. When I was out of those options, I saw a semi-retired therapist who had a sliding fee scale fee. I paid her in lump sums when writing checks came in. Some therapists said Borderline Personality Disorder; others did not. My first therapist following the attempt labeled it “reactionary depression to a series of life setbacks.” My current therapist, an expert in the field of personality disorders, describes me as “on the borderline of Borderline,” not quite putting me in, not quite taking me out. (“BPD is an umbrella term, covering a range of symptoms and behaviors, manifested differently in each sufferer; and in the majority, the symptoms are treatable, the behaviors can be changed but it takes time which is why insurers go for the ‘untreatable’ label*.”) Her treatment plan includes dialectical talk therapy and Buddhist meditation. (Google the research, people. It works for many of us.) Brain scans prove that Buddhist monks have been able to change their brain patterns through meditation. And brain scans of Borderlines also show abnormalities in certain regions of the brain**.

*sociopathy is considered untreatable as well
**sociopaths and psychopaths show brain abnormalities, too

Miraculously, really, for those of us that have been involved with con artists, Bakos describes exactly what goes on in the mind of a con and details the aforementioned roller-coaster of self-loathing attached to conning someone.

Bakos on identifying a mark:

We are street hustlers, small players for petty cash or the equivalent. A hustler or a con artist works on the same basic knowledge of human nature: The greedy, the self-involved, the dreamer with a romantic vision of her future success that doesn’t include a trail of blood, sweat and tears—he and she can be conned and hustled. It takes but a tiny amount of leverage to use that greed or lust for fame against her.

Bakos on how it feels to pull a con:

Applying the leverage, pulling the hustle, feels good at the time—really a high—but awful afterward. I imagine binging/purging must feel like this in the mind and soul. Or shoplifting.

Bakos on the turmoil cons experience:

I am trying to understand and explain the behavior—and recognize the trigger points, usually major life events out of my control—to stop it because Jesus is not there for me (but Buddha is.) Looking back, I see that I risked months, years of stability and happiness on a big gamble (or, in this case, in little crimes) that let out some of the emotion, like blood-letting. The street hustle as pressure valve.

Bakos ends her post with an anecdote about a friend, a fellow con who "has done it for the same reasons I did: for the high and out of contempt for the mark." She adds, "There’s a lesson here for you too: If you go out looking for a free lunch, you will probably get a check, payable now in your case, or later with interest in mine."

That last part is revealing, to say the least. Bakos' cons have taken a toll on her, clearly. But what about those girls who didn't go out looking for a free lunch, like my friend Kyria? Kyria says that Bakos contacted her about meeting, not the other way around. Kyria writes, "You contacted me first and claimed that you had a business opportunity.... you lied and said that you needed me to take photos for an article you are writing for Playboy.... I told you I wasn't hungry (to be kind, I had eaten before the restaurant) but you INSISTED we order huge swathes of food, telling me multiple times 'It's on me.'"

It seems there is no way to rationalize that type of victimization, even through a lens of contempt for a ruthless up-and-comer unwilling to pay her dues. Bakos' con against Kyria doesn't fit that mold; Kyria wasn't trying to get anything from Bakos. In this instance, Bakos is just another sharky female looking for a free meal - exactly what she accuses others of being. Funny.

Since I'm not a psychologist, I can't diagnose Bakos or anyone else as a sociopath (and, thanks to the current DSM, neither can psychologists anymore, which is a problem), but I know the signs of a con artist - and so should you. Good luck out there, ladies. Don't forget your wallet.

Weiner's weiner!

Originally posted on Babble:

In case you haven't heard, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) said this weekend that his Twitter account had been hacked Friday night. Whoever the prankster was that broke into his account, Weiner argued, sent a lewd photo to a 21-year-old college student in Seattle. (The photo isn't really that lewd if you ask me, since whoever took the photo was wearing underwear. The weiner in the pic - which is linked after the jump - is bigger than Jane Pratt's huge boobs, tho.)

The tweet and photo in question were deleted almost immediately, reportedly before the college student even saw them. The photo was allegedly sent in response to a tweet by the student, Gennette Cordova, which read, "I wonder what my boyfriend @RepWeiner is up to right now," the Washington Post reports. New York magazine adds, "Some right-wing bloggers are asserting that the photo might be evidence that Weiner is having an affair. Those bloggers note that, on Friday, Weiner tweeted about what time he'll appear on Rachel Maddow, saying, #That's5:45inSeattleIThink," implying that Weiner and the student may have been in close contact, a suggestion she vehemently denies.

Weiner got snippy with reporters today for questioning him about the so-called Weinergate, and he has hired a lawyer, a move which some see as an admission of guilt. It's hard to tell whether or not this incident was planned and executed by conservatives or was actually a misappropriation of fun on the part of Weiner. One thing's for sure, though: Anthony Weiner has a problem... flirting with high school and college girls.

Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post notes that "of the 200 people @RepWeiner follows on Twitter, a surprising number (well, more than zero, at any rate) do seem to be what might be termed nubile out-of-state houris." Conservative blogs are having a field day with the fact that "Weiner’s Twitter Friends Include Pages of Young Luscious Fans," posting photos of some of the women Weiner has followed on Twitter. (One of the girls is in high school.) The blog The Prudence Paine Papers has screenshots of tweets sent by a porn star indicating that Weiner had sent her a Direct Message. According to Paine, Weiner has also had contact with more than one high school girl on Twitter. She writes, "@Starchild111 was a high school girl who was trying to get Weiner to be her prom date. She was overjoyed when he followed her, upset when conservatives laughed that Weiner was trolling the school yard, and dismayed when he unfollowed her. Starchild has deleted her twitter account."

The bottom line is, as many bloggers have noted, it would be easy to see who posted the questionable photo - just look up the IP address of the computer it was sent from. If the photo really was sent by Weiner, clearly his career is over. Even if the photo wasn't sent by Weiner, all this scrutiny of his Twitter account is revealing an undesirable side of the Representative. We'll know soon enough how badly this has damaged his reputation. In the meantime, here's the photo for those of you who want to see it. Parents: let this be a two-fold lesson. First, remind your children to NEVER TAKE COMPROMISING PHOTOS OF THEMSELVES! Never, never, never! It always ends poorly. Second, be sure you're monitoring your children's online activity. You never know when one of them is going to fall in love with a member of Congress.