Pampered Film Professionals Gather Annually for Ironic Pampering of Pampered Film Professionals

According to sources, a fascinating Hollywood ritual has been taking place each year for the past eight decades at which prominent members of the film community gather to lampoon themselves and their craft by staging an elaborate "roast" cleverly framed as a lavish tribute to the mere fact of their professional existence. The Friar's Club-like organization in charge is called "the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences," a deadpan witticism in itself that captures perfectly the no-holds-barred, satirical spirit of the event.

The symbolic self-flagellation begins outside the venue, where the arriving guests--dressed in borrowed jewelry and gifted high-end designer clothing--must walk a red carpet through a gauntlet of media personnel doing a spot-on impression of a crowd of sybaritic hacks. The two-fold message is clear: For one night, let us remember that we have this world so thoroughly by the balls that Harry Winston and Giorgio Armani won't even let us spend our own millions, and let us also remember to never take ourselves seriously lest we spawn a cottage industry of aggressively sycophantic "entertainment news" journalism against which our only defense would be Alec Baldwin's fists.

Once inside, the hazing continues as each already-rich-as-Croesus invitee must dislodge from their seat a bag containing $80,000 worth of redundant luxury items and then keep it on the floor between their legs for the rest of the evening as a form of penance for their excessive good fortune. Then the lights dim, and for the next four hours, scores of mock "awards" are presented in an amusingly endless list of categories of basic industry functions. The particulars of each award are irrelevant -- the jest lies in the fact that everyone present is already so overloaded with unearned blessings that to throw in awards based on peer recognition would be like saying "As befits your charmed life, even though you were just doing your grossly overpaying job, you nevertheless deserve a special award for having shown up for work pretty much every single business day for several weeks and even months at a time, and for having contributed to the creation of a salable work product by meeting expectations and generally demonstrating the competence necessary to obtain steady employment in your respective film industry sector."

When the last award statuette is finally handed out, the guests disperse and make their way to one of several private post-award soirees where these deeply sensitive and grounded film professionals can relax with their colleagues, reflect on the humbling lessons of the evening, and continue to laugh heartily at themselves over an ironic Baccarat punchbowl of Cristal.

Russell Brand Romantically Linked to Russell Brand

Manhattan Taxi Driver Discovers Mysterious "Turn Signal" Lever on Cab's Steering Column

Fifty-eight year old hackney carriage operator Quentin Armstrong thought he knew every inch of his taxi's interior like the back of his hand, so when he recently dropped his cell phone on the floor and turned the steering over to his left knee while he bent down to retrieve the device, he got the shock of his life when he spotted an unfamiliar lever located on the steering column. "My initial reaction was, okay, time to stop borrowing other people's prescription eyeglasses because I must have dropped my cell phone on the floor like that at least a hundred times before without noticing the lever. When I realized it closely resembled the one on the other side of the steering wheel that operates the windshield wipers, I was suddenly very impressed by the car designer's decision to add redundancy to the window cleaning system."

Armstrong says he impulsively pushed the lever but quickly regretted the decision. "An ominous, green triangle started flashing and ticking like a clock, so I shut it off immediately and made a perpendicular beeline for a group of double-parked taxis to my right. The other cabbies were in the middle of what we call a 'PAM,' short for 'Preternaturally Aromatic Meal,' but they dropped everything and rushed over to see the strange lever for themselves. Then another taxi pulled up and triple-parked next to my vehicle. It was a guy we call Lazarus because he's got almost six months of driving experience--if he didn't know what the lever was for, nobody would. Lazarus glanced at it, nodded sagely, and said 'Turn signal.' We asked him what 'turn signal' meant, but he just shrugged, returned to his cab, and drove off diagonally into the night."

Nothing daunted, Armstrong looked it up on Wikipedia as soon as he was back on the road. "Supposedly, the lever is for 'indicating' whether you want to turn left or right, but that's Wiki for you--somewhere an eleven-year-old is laughing his ass off for posting that drivel because it makes absolutely no sense to have such a lever. I mean, let's face it--we may think we want to turn right, but halfway into the next lane we usually decide to swerve left and then right again, don't we? And what about all those times we aren't really turning right or left so much as abruptly heading north-northeast or north-northwest? Ridiculous! Anyway, we'll figure it out eventually, and in the meantime it gives us cabbies something to think about when we feel the need to just tune out the road in front of us until forty minutes before our shift actually ends and we can activate our "Off Duty" sign, roll down our windows, and start cherry-picking passengers who happen to be headed in the general direction of Canarsie."

Information From Anonymous Sources 100% Reliable, They Say

You can't believe everything you hear, as someone once said, but apparently that unidentified someone was wrong for once, they are now saying, because information of any kind from anonymous sources is said to be completely reliable.

The word is that generic advice on important matters, news of improbable scientific breakthroughs and discoveries, dubious fiats on the subject of maintaining optimum bodily health--essentially any amorphously authoritative declaration whatsoever—can be treated as gospel by the intended recipient, no question about it. Furthermore, they know for a fact that no matter how farfetched such information may seem, and regardless of the reliability of the individual citing the anonymous source, the proffered information is nevertheless dependable--guaranteed.

They say that, as events have shown, we can rest assured the information we’re getting is accurate, and that the supposed importance of identifying sources is just an old wives’ tale. The cognoscenti also insist that it’s only common sense to accept on faith the veracity of unspecified sources, despite what you may have heard to the contrary. The record clearly shows anonymous sources know whereof they speak, they say, and believe me, they ought to know.