Ah, man, you did it again: Too much liquor / karma dictates you will be sicker — and your body won’t be happy with you in the morn. Considering you can’t tell your own body to “take a hike, don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out,” here’s a morning-after primer guaranteed to help you ease your pain.

BEFORE

Think about this: achieving anything worthwhile in life is all about preparation. Why should it be any different for a night out on the town?

1. Eat! - Before You Drink & Be Merry

Is there any mystery why you see more girls stumbling for the vomitorium than the boys? Eat a nice starchy meal before you hit the town - force feed your girlfriend a rice cake if need be.

2. Water Boy

Playing the bar field dehydrates you. Therefore, before getting into the game, drown yourself in water, sport drinks and O.J. (Sure, you may have to excuse yourself to pee every five minutes, but your liver and kidneys will thank you in the morning.)

DURING

“It’s not whether you win or lose that counts, but how you play the game.”
Translated for the drinking set: Play the game to win and you may be the unlucky cat who ends up with his photos plastered all over the web. You know the ones, where you have shaving cream and graffiti all over your face and a dildo protruding from the forbidden zone.

1. Beware the Darkside, Luke

The darker the liquor (red wine, bourbon, scotch, brandy), the more it will corrupt, and the higher content of the evil chemical “congeners,” which occur naturally in all fermented drinks, it will contain.

2. Cheaper by the Dozen

Sure, you can get more bang for your buck with the cheap boos, but understand the cheaper you go: the higher poison content, called “tyramine.” Be especially aware of it in “discount” red wine.

3. Put Your d-Pod on Shuffle

Think about alternating in a non-alcoholic beverage every couple of rounds to keep you hydrated — water and fruit juice being your best options.

4. Moderation Police

Sure, we know this one is pretty futile to suggest but…consume no more than one drink every sixty minutes. Your liver breaks down alcohol at the rate of about one beer per hour. Fortune cookie say: Moderate the rate, be able to walk and talk in morning.

LAST CALL

The night is almost over and you’ve got a choice: one more round (while prowling for leftover babe-age) or invest your money in something more practical.

1. Hey, Pizza Man!

Before heading home to pass out in your own, well, whatever, make friends with a slice of pizza. Cheese and carbs are a good source of amino acids. Food doesn’t absorb alcohol, but it will increase your metabolism and increase the speed by which your body deals with the toxins you just manufactured.

2. Trivia Pursuit

Share this with the gang when you’re slurping down that slice: The name of the No.1 evildoer (chemical) that wreaks havoc upon your body immediately after drinking is “acetaldehyde.”

AFTER

Upon stumbling in your door, there are few things you need to be responsible for before you pass out on the couch watching your favorite South Park or Jessica Simpson clip.

1. Water Boy - Part Deus

Two or three glasses of water/sports drink immediately.

2. The After Cocktail

Swallow the following vitamins: high-potency B, 500 mg C, and a multi-vitamin.

3. Red Alert

DO NOT take aspirin. The headache hasn’t even gotten to town yet, and aspirin only aggravates the stomach, while Tylenol, when mixed with alcohol, has the potential to make your liver explode. Wouldn’t want to go there, huh?

4. To Worship or Not to Worship…

Lastly, drag yourself to the porcelain altar. Here’s where you have to make the big call. If you really think you’re going to be f*cked in the morning, pull the ripcord, i.e., stick your finger down your throat and let it fly. If you decide on not going to extremes, at least drain the hose, so you don’t wake up an hour later and have to navigate the P-train (your maid will thank you).

THE MORNING AFTER

This is when you arise and decide if World War III has struck or you’ll be able to function.

1. Water Boy - Part Tres

More water, orange or tomato juice and sport drinks. Beware the coffee. Caffeine is diuretic and can aggravate dehydration. If you must, add a few teaspoons of honey, as the potassium in the honey helps counter the effects of the alcohol and reduce your craving for the morning drink.

2. Five Alarm Fire Down Under

If the stomach still hurts, try something like Maalox and maybe a cup of peppermint tea. Banana shakes, with honey added, also do wonders. The milk acts to soothe your stomach, and re-hydrate your system, and the bananas are rich in electrolytes, magnesium and potassium, which are heavily drained during binge drinking.

3. Binge Drinking

A recent study found that 3 out of 5 college students engage in binge drinking, SO, if you’re a student, there’s a 3 in 5 chance that you should print this article out and tape it to the frig. And if your head still hurts, whip out an ice pack and give your cabeza 20 minutes of cold.

4. The Final Call

Proceed directly back to bed, or be adventurous and get out and sweat the toxins out of your system. That means: exercise. In which case, you’ll be ready for the coming night out on the town a lot quicker.

*

Recommended reading: The Fastest Way to Lose Weight

Oh yippee, a film version of Sex in the City. Speaking for men everywhere (except the gay writers/producers/directors of the movie/series itself), wake us when it’s over. We wouldn’t go to this POS if our girlfriend promised to line us up a three-way with her bestfriend. Well, OK, in that case, we might.

Mark S. Allen of the CW Television Network (intern, mailroom division) calls it “The best date movie of the summer!”

Who the f*ck are you kidding, dude? Maybe the best date movie for BFF, or GFF, gay friends forever, but not hetero men, no possible way.

Why do we despise SITC that much?

Let’s start with the actresses (AKA cardboard cutouts) who dried on the vine long ago. Can you say: WAY PAST THEIR PRIME?

And it has nothing to do with age, so don’t break out any of that Feminazi ageism crap. Well, OK, it has a lot to do with age. We just said it did. So we won’t deny it any longer: Darwin was right, and we’d much rather knock-up Gisele Bundchen than Sarah Jessica Parker. And we definitely don’t want to listen to SJP whine about it after the fact! Speaking of whining…

We’re also tired of the incessant bitching-and-moaning-and-lamenting about men on the show. And then, to witness the male twits the casting directors marched through the series door? N-O. We are not those men, ladies, nor will we ever be. Because those men actually put up with your…

Um, time-out. This is as good a time as any. Girls, do you want to know what our biggest problem is with you? It’s the DRAMA. We just weren’t built that way. But we digress…

Yes, we know it’s a “chick flick” and we’re free to watch anything else. And, frankly, we will. But we still have to hear about those four skanks, and see them on billboards, and, yes, have dreams we’ll one day end up with women just like them! Can you say: Nightmare?

When salacious pop culture informs a young woman’s life more than college, haven’t the terrorists won?

And now these young women are growing up, weaned on too many seasons of SITC, and they expect men to live up to the myth of some faux knight-in-shining-armor named “Big.”

Yeah, yeah, we know it’s what everyone woman desires. But it’s not always size that counts, ya know? And, also, we don’t have fancy Hollywood scriptwriters for the sh*t that comes out of our mouths, OK? So give us a little break. Get real.

And, NO, we’re not bitter (even those of us with small penises). That’s your job, girls. Something else the show reinforces: membership in the Bitter Woman’s Club. All the past men that have done you harm, insulted your intelligence, tried to hump you on the first date, blah, blah, blah.

Perhaps it’s time for you to examine the negative psychological effects a TV SHOW has had on you, so we can all get back to dating-as-usual: the guy rules, and you’re happy to just be riding shotgun.

Otherwise, you run the risk of, forever, taking home the second place trophy.

Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have to get back to our Grand Theft Auto IV. Too bad the creators didn’t add Sarah Jessica Parker to the cast of Liberty City.

What kind of artist chooses not to attend their own gallery opening? A cat who’s scared of getting arrested, that’s who. Say hello to renown graffiti artist Banksy, the English provocateur who has pulled stunts that would have less intelligent tricksters behind bars. Have no fear, this trickster keeps his identity a well-guarded secret (never doing face-to-face interviews). He chooses to operate well below the radar, under the city scope, much like the rats he admires and includes in many of his works.

“I love rats,” Banksy says. “They’ve invaded everywhere. From like the lowest place in the city to the highest. Maybe they represent the triumph of the little people, the unloved, over everything else.”

Since 1993, when his famous block-lettered signature began appearing on walls and trains around Bristol, Banksy, himself, has invaded everywhere. From a Paris Hilton CD to the famous Louvre Museum in Paris and on to Disneyland, where he placed a blow-up doll decked out in a GitMo Bay prisoner uniform at the foot of Thunder Mountain. At the Louvre – and just about at every other famous museum in the world – he was able to hang his own work among the collection.

“I hang my own paintings up in galleries, because I can’t afford to wait until they do it themselves,” Banksy says. “The art world is the biggest joke going.”

Banksy’s partner, Steve Lazarides, who operates the gallery through which Banksy’s paintings are sold, says, “it wasn’t open to us, so we just decided to open up a different branch of art.”

Call it Infiltration Art, and after years spent in the trenches (read: on walls) it’s now fetching extraordinary amounts of dough, Banksy’s highest sale topping out at $575,000 at a recent auction. A representative from Sotheby’s calls Banksy “the quickest-growing artist anyone has seen of all time.”

Is Banksy psyched or what? After his biggest cash coup to date, he posted this message on his website: “I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit.”

Analyzing whether Banksy’s work is actual shit, or not (some of it is, some of it isn’t), is a job for the art critics. But his bold statement would suggest that the once nameless spray painter isn’t exactly having the easiest go of dealing with the fame. He admits: “the money that my work fetches these days makes me a bit uncomfortable.”

Irony of ironies: the artist who lives to make people uncomfortable is now uncomfortable himself.

Adding more unease to his plight, a slew of celebrities have jumped on his bandwagon: Keanu, Jude Law, Macaulay Culkin, Christina Aguilera, Everlast, Joni Mitchell and the Royal Couple themselves, Bradgelina. Needless to say, Banksy isn’t too hot on the attention: “Brad Pitt told a journalist ‘I think it’s really cool no one knows who he is’ and within a week there were journalists from the Daily Mail at the door of my dealer’s dad’s chip shop asking if he knew where they could find me. All the attention meant I lost some of the element of surprise.”

Pitt’s exact quote: “He does all this and stays anonymous. I think that’s great. These days everyone is trying to be famous. But he has anonymity.”

Now that his anonymity is being chipped away (thanks, Brad!) and his pockets are well lined with green, will it change Banksy? Or will he rise to the challenge and retain his classic outsider pose?

His usual anti-authoritarian themes reflect big issues, from the senselessness of war to world poverty. He even throws some animal, and gay, rights into his act (witness his graffiti bombing at zoos, and check out his “two policemen kissing.”) Banksy admits he “originally set out to try and save the world. But now I am not so sure I like it enough.”

And maybe that’s the job of a father: go out into the world with idealism, hatch babies, then grow cynical and decide you’d rather take care of yourself than save the world; leave the kids to have a go at that whole idealism shit.

Banksy’s kids are numerous. And they’re armed.

“All these lads look at Banksy the way the youngsters who are into football look at Beckham – he’s their hero,” says Denise James, the director of Bristol Clean and Green.

Bristol, known as the graffiti capital of the U.K, spends more than $300,000 a year to clean up the city. “It annoys and frustrates me, because it’s just so ugly,” says James.

“Imagine a city where graffiti wasn’t illegal, a city where everybody could draw wherever they liked,” Banksy once wrote. “Where the street was awash with a million colors and little phrases.”

It’s called Los Angeles, and one cruise along the dirty boulevards and freeways will give you a hint that the city Banksy dreams of might not be as utopian as he believes.

And, while we’re on the subject: What happens when an anarchist’s dream comes true? Does chaos eventually morph into another form of order? For better or worse? Is Banksy thinking about the repercussions? Or is he just following the muse? But I digress.

Banksy has been to L.A. He’s g-bombed the crap out of it. He went all commando at Venice Beach, and of course snuck into Disneyland and left his Git-Mo prisoner (which you can see on youtube). But the biggest wave he made was at his second official art show – that he of course didn’t attend. Held last September, it was called Barely Legal and, in addition to selling his stenciled work, Banksy tried to draw attention to world poverty by placing a real-live elephant in the room. It was painted in the design of the wall décor and it drew a firestorm of ire from animal rights activists. But also a lot of press for Banksy.

The dude was blowing up. How high? While setting up for the show, Banksy ate a pizza. Someone managed to retrieve the box from the dumpster and sell it on e-Bay for $102.00.

But that pizza box is about as close as Banksy’s fans are ever going to get to him. “I have no interest in ever coming out,” he says. “I figure there are enough self-opinionated assholes trying to get their ugly little faces in front of you as it is.”

Banksy would rather hang with the rats. So what’s that saying about us?

For more, check out his site: his site.

You might think with a surname like Zombie, Rob would rather tackle something more up his

Halloween is a prequel of sorts. But that’s not a word that RobZom likes to use. He prefers to say “it’s a remake with more back-story built into it.”

That means get ready for all the Freudian reasons why the chilling Michael Myers became the serial killer we have all come to know and, of course, love.

PAUSE.

Let’s face it. There’s only one reason to make a sequel, prequel or “re-imagining”: Greedy movie studios trying to CASH in on a brand name. So, right away, you’re making the film for the wrong reason.

Zombie, who comes off as totally straight-forward and cool on the telephone, might have something else in store. I say “might” because I don’t want to sound like you dickwads on youtube who already passed judgment on the film based on viewing a two-minute trailer, the faithful crying out, desperate to know: Is Rob going to further run the original Halloween into the ground? Or is he going to infuse the tired franchise with a grand, new beginning? – ala Batman, which is the comparison Zombie likes to draw.

Directing his third feature, the man who has already conquered the heavy metal world, and says there are virtually no challenges left for him in that arena, might be able to pull off a resurrection with Halloween because he seems to possess a sense of wonder and enthusiasm for this new mountain he finds himself climbing. He loves directing, says he’s “really calm and mellow” on the set. And, frankly, he also says he doesn’t give a shit about what you or the critics think of his work. His gut tells him when something gels, and he chooses to shut off the outside chatter so as not to confuse his own creative process. “People like to vomit their opinions all over everything these days,” RobZom says. “And sometimes those opinions can change your own.”

I was in my teens when the first Halloween rang our collective doorbell. And, quite honestly, being a teen, and a total stoner, there’s no residual opinion I have left in my brain cells – other than: that must have been some good shit we were smoking. I do know that John Carpenter’s Halloween was a cult classic that launched a ton of imitators of the teen-slasher variety. (We all know that imitation is the death of originality.)

“This isn’t a teen slasher flick,” Zombie says, defending his movie adamantly. “It’s more mature. It’s rated R.” OooooooooK.

Speaking of maturity, let’s talk actress Adrienne Barbeau, who was a last minute replacement for a small role in Halloween. For those of you too young to remember her glorious roles in the ‘80s (The Fog, Cannonball Run, Escape From NY, Swamp Thing), Barbeau was a young teen’s wet dream waiting to happen. Though, not Zombie’s. When asked if Barbeau was like his Farrah Fawcett, RobZom said, “No. Farrah Fawcett was like my Farrah Fawcett.”

Touché, Mr. Zombie.

When further pressed on Barbeau’s past hottiness, Zombie said he had no comment, and that “I’ll leave the pervy comments up to you guys.”

Hey, there’s some other cool actors in the flick. And not just the sure-to-be teen
scream queens who get sliced and diced by Mr. Myers. We’re talking the honorable Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Sam Loomis. “I loved working with Malcolm,” RobZom says. “He’s my kind of actor. And A Clockwork Orange is my favorite film.” Also look for RobZom’s wife Sheri Moon taking a part, and two actors who are locks for the Creepy Actor’s Hall of Fame: William Forsythe and Brad Dourif.

RobZom loves them all. He will dish no dirt, because, as he says, “Hey, I gotta work with these people.”

Film to Zombie is all about working with his peeps peacefully, and doing the prep work before the shoot, and coming to the set with an open mind to collaborate. “Making a film is a lot like going on tour with the band,” RobZom says. “People don’t even realize how many people it takes to pull it off.”

When he is asked if what he hopes to pull off is scaring the shit out of viewers, Zombie says, “I hope so.”

It should be noted that RobZom was hardly scared by anything as a kid, other than the occasional funhouse experience and by the movie Jaws. Maybe that’s why, whether with his music or film work, he’s made a career out of raising the decibel level on your tingling spine. Fans everywhere are hoping he does it again on Halloween. So it’s a holiday treat for all involved. And not just another studio trick.