These lovely and tasteful wedding pictures raise an important political question: Will our president's support of a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman have the horrific unintended consequence of preventing the wedding of two consenting heterosexual hounds? Better write your congressional representatives today to demand protection for canine matrimony!
After only three issues, New York Dog has already established a pack of regular features that fans can't wait to see.
There's "Doggyscope," a dog horoscope column: "Libra dogs are influenced by the planet Venus, the Goddess of Love and Beauty. You are romantically compatible with those born under the signs of Aries, Leo and Virgo and you are constantly falling in and out of love! BUT PLEASE TRY TO BE MORE DISCRETE!"
There's an obituary column where dog lovers can commemorate their departed pets: "Fido Graham, 1992-2004 . . . Fido, pronounced 'Feedo' by his owners, in recognition of a French father and his taste for the finer things in life, 'loved vittles from Gourmet Garage and a drop or two of wine on festive occasions,' according to his family."
Best of all is "Queer eye for the scruffy dog," in which Howie Binder and Larry Roth, proprietors of a New York pet salon called "Doggie Do and Pussycats, Too," provide "extreme canine makeovers" for grungy dogs, complete with before and after pictures.
Alas, the latest issue reveals that all is not well at Doggie Do. Howie and Larry have had a nasty falling out, and the mag reports that Larry has been accused of attacking Howie "with a pair of grooming scissors."
That explains why Howie did the latest makeover without Larry. It also proves that New York Dog is not an Onion parody or a piece of commie propaganda: No satirist or propagandist could possibly make that up.
The Literary Stallone
Whew! For a while there, it seemed like the trend toward celebrities starting magazines named after themselves had petered out, but now we're in luck:
Sylvester Stallone, star of the Rocky and Rambo movies, has published the premiere issue of Sly, and it's just as wonderfully awful as you'd expect.
Whenever these mags appear, the Magazine Reader staff snaps into action and counts the photos of the eponymous celebrity in the premiere issue so we can rate it on our patented EgoMania Index. Sly has 34 pix of Stallone, which means he comes out in the middle of the index, ahead of Rosie (5) and Oprah (15) and Gene Simmons (27) but far behind Ivana (58) and Mary-Kate and Ashley, who hold the all-time record with 63.
The premise of Sly is that Stallone, the mag's 58-year-old "editorial director," will teach men how to "stay in the game past 40." To that end, it includes generic advice on diet, clothing, travel, cigars, wine, beer, HDTVs and, of course, sex.
There's also a piece on anger management that reveals the kind of guys Sly expects to reach. A quiz designed to determine just how angry you are asks this question: "Are people so used to you being angry all the time they assume you are even when you're just constipated?"
Stallone's contributions to the first issue are, um, modest. Under the title "Women We Love," he wrote a tiny, poetic essay on Kim Basinger: "She lets you into her life a molecule at a time." He recorded a brief conversation with James Caan in which Caan tries to lure him into appearing on a TV show. There's also an excerpt from "Sly Moves," Stallone's forthcoming fitness book. And a story about "The Contender," the NBC boxing-related reality show that Stallone co-hosts, which debuts at 9:30 p.m. Monday.
Plus, an excerpt of the script of the forthcoming "Rocky VI," which just might be almost as much of a cinematic masterpiece as "Rocky V."
There are also a bunch of full-page ads for "Stallone Instone," Stallone's line of nutritional supplements -- including one ad for a testosterone-boosting potion that identifies Stallone as a "Renaissance Man and Physique Icon."
For the intellectuals in the audience, Stallone has composed a couple of pages of neo-Nietzschean philosophizing: "Be the guy who tells the joke, not the recipient of the punch line. Be the predator, not the food source."
Stallone didn't just write those words, he lives those words. In the case of Sly, he is the predator and the suckers who shell out $3.99 are the food source.
