Crack is a very good thing, and by “crack,” I don’t mean the stuff that Whitney Houston uses as a substitute for bubble bath or the stuff nightmares are made of. No way! Rather, I refer to the “Crack Young Staff” of The Hatemonger’s Quarterly who are celebrating their second anniversary as luminous “webloggers.” Last year, they threw a fantastic gala, and I look forward to arriving at the second such affair tonight, wherein I will surely drink too much cheap wine and promptly proceed to dance on a table. Now I am off to prepare for this fabulous partay, so I will leave you with memories of the time that “Chip” wrote a guest post for me here last spring:

A Fistful Of Pinch-Hitters by The Hatemonger’s Quarterly

A little while ago Sadie, the proprietor of this luminous “weblog,� asked us, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,� if we would fill in for her, since she was overburdened with various “weblogging� duties. As you can imagine, dear reader, we collectively jumped at the chance.

Accordingly, the humble post you are currently reading amounts to the first guest “weblogging� in which we have engaged. All of this, however, made us a bit apprehensive. After all, “A Fistful of Fortnights� is a high quality operation; we don’t want to sully it with one of our typical witless rants. Could we come up with something atypical?

Indeed, who are we to pinch-hit for the woman Horace Silver would call Sister Sadie? We aren’t exactly the sharpest proverbial knives in the proverbial drawers: It took us approximately two weeks to figure out what the word “fortnight� means.

Even so, dear reader, Ms. Sadie offered some helpful “weblogging� guidelines. First, she first told us that, first, we ought not to use words repetitiously.

She also informed us that her musings tend to discuss the vicissitudes of popular culture. If we could drum up a post related to this topic, we would do fine by her. As such, dear reader, the Official Guest “Weblogging� Ideas Department of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly� spent the better part of a week brainstorming.

On Monday, in fact, the Official Guest “Weblogging� Ideas Department was so deeply immersed in thought that it missed its fifteen-minute snack break. Which is a real bitch, because Monday is black forest cake day.

And what sort of idea did we collectively come upon? Well, as tepid as it may sound, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,� decided to offer a popular culture review of sorts. You know: The kind of feature that would allow people to keep up to date with the latest in the land of the lowbrow.

We envisioned it as a mildly retarded version of People magazine for folks who have slightly smaller vocabularies. Without the pictures, of course.

Without any further throat clearing, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,� are content to present:

A “Fistful of Fortnights� Guest “Weblogging� Special: A Tepid Popular Culture Review

1. It seems as if Michael Jackson, the so-called King of Pop, may actually be the King of Homosexual Pedophilia. Or at least the Queen.

2. Filmmaker-cum-omnivore Michael Moore has won the Kim Jong Il Personal Freedom Prize. The award is bestowed on humanitarians who help promote a world safe for totalitarian dictators.

3. The rock group Quarterflash appears to have broken up. It is difficult to determine whether this is true, since this band has not had a popular song since Joe Piscopo was funny.

4. The producers of “The Surreal Life� are working on a new season, which they hope will feature the drummer from Wang Chung, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and Rick(y) Schroeder.

5. The Islamic Relations Committee has awarded Casey Casem with its coveted “Most Mellifluous Muslim on the FM Dial� prize. Mr. Casem has received this award each year since its inception in 1983.

Well, dear reader, that’s the latest from the World of Pop. Tune in next week for a special Basque installment of the “Tepid Popular Culture Review.�