You know, the Olympics start this week. Really, they do. Friday. This isnews to us because, well, we don't know a single person who is looking forward to the Olympics. Aren't sports supposed to have a rooting interest? We mean, sure, we're pulling for the United States athletes … we guess. Really, though, we're all wondering if this is all really necessary; our main rooting interest is for everyone to make it back in one piece.

That's really not all that fun of a thing to root for. Go team!

Anyway, all you're going to hear about for the next two weeks is the freaking Olympics, after which all you will hear about will be the Republican National Convention. It's a lot to slog through just to make it to the start of the NFL season … but fortunately, it's SO worth it.

After our week off, we return with a flash of 10 reviews this week. You can be a part of the Black List reach-around by using the little form to the right. Yah!

-- BT

The Black Table needs your help! Every week, we need reviews of the latest media-related crud, new products from Capitalists and odd idea, concept or trend. All you need to have is a sharp opinion that you can distill down to one paragraph of 150 words and give a letter grade. To submit, please fill out the form below. Entries may edited for length, style and clarity. Hit us with your best shot. Fire away.

RICK JAMES, BITCH: Nobody really knows any of his songs other than "Superfreak," and yet we all let out a collective "awww" last week when we heard that funk artist Rick James was dead at 56. Rick was '70s cocaine abuse personified, and for better or worse, the guy somehow stayed charismatic in an ironic, bloated, hooker-bashing, washed-up disco icon kinda way that only he could pull off: Rick thought himself a superfreak to the end. One could argue that it was because delusions of grandeur were among his many ailments, but thanks to Chappelle's Show, "I'm Rick James, bitch!" has become part of Americana, and both MC Hammer and Charlie "Darkness!" Murphy owe their careers to The Freaky one. So goodbye, Rick. You weren't with us for that long, but while you were here, you proved to us that, in your own words, "Cocaine is a helluva drug… heh heh heh." A for Rick, C- for his death. -- Mike Bruno

"LIVE STRONG" YELLOW BRACLETS: A friend of mine from L.A. sent me one of these yellow rubbery bracelets with the phrase "LIVE STRONG" on it. They're being sold by the Lance Armstrong Foundation to raise $6 million for cancer research. He said they were the hot new thing and they'd take New York by storm soon. I was initially smug when I started seeing them crop up everywhere; for once, I was ahead of the curve -- just like Lance! But it washed out my freckles, stuck to my skin and didn't match any of my clothes, so I hung it on my doorknob. I can support cancer research

without wearing ugly jewelry, surely. Apparently, the other 8 million people in New York haven't thought of this. At the risk of sounding like someone who thinks cancer is GREAT and we should stop research NOW, can the yellow bracelet just go away? The other day in Brooklyn I saw a guy wearing TWO on each arm; apparently he hates cancer worse than the rest of us. Please, stop subjecting your arms to this fashion atrocity. Buy them if you like, but stack them in a bowl at home like so much oversized calamari. Better yet, skip the bracelet altogether and make a straight donation. C -- Erin Schulte

THAT STUPID COVER OF "AGAINST ALL ODDS:" How did you infect my iPod, Mr. Postal Service's fey cover of Phil Collins' singular 80's power ballad "Against All Odds"? Perhaps when I stuck my hipster dork gizmo into the office iBook on Friday, you caught a case of this virtual clap. What I want to know is, what spineless little emo misogynist snuck this ditty into a public MP3 sponge and corrupted my iPod. Who? Was it Mr.Hair Wax? Captain Urban Outfitters? Or was it you, Black Plastic Glasses and Green Lantern Action Figure On Your Desk? Stupid pussy beats and unironic irony. I wanted to RAWK. This sucks. And what sucks the most? I've listened to it five times in a row. Hate to love it. I'm such an assface. You're the only one who really knew me at all... A -- John DeVore

THE JAILBAIT GENERATION: Just as Molly Wingwald was idolized as the pinnacle of Brat Pack sexual tenderness, Lindsay Lohan has been minted as a new goddess of venereal wonder. Fresh out of their sexually explosive middle schools and inspired by their highly fuckable and self-absorbed icons, they have begun to swarm among us with all the subtlety of Christopher Reeve at a metal detector. Weaned on the pop-culture of contrived reality and conditioned by their security camera addled schools, they are more than happy to frolic in their status as forbidden fuck-objects, flaunting their attitudes and chaste treasures with dubious obliviousness. Their potential for exploitation is what makes them so abominable, yet this same potential is what inspires the inner sexual predator in so many of us. So how do we reconcile the inner tumult caused by the sight of these miniature Paris Hilton clones? A short list of countries without extradition treaties is a good thing to keep in mind. But if there isn't any good jailbait in Nepal, why would I want to go there? B -- Roy

HAVING AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS ON THE STAIRMASTER AFTER SEEING SOMEONE YOU USED TO WORK WITH ON VH1'S A-Z: Somewhere between when the dot-com bubble burst and receiving a graduate degree in creative writing, I realized that I might never have what many people commonly refer to as a "career." Not that I'm letting that get me down. Success isn't measured in titles or health insurance. It's in finding your own niche and doing everything you can to make it all your own. But sometimes you come across a person you used to know and were never very impressed with, doing something kinda cool, and suddenly you feel like you forgot to lather on sunscreen before sunbathing in the parking lot of a Coney Island condominium. Ouch is all I'm saying. Ouch. I have an opinion about Jessica Simpson too, motherfucker. It's on my blog. That I pay for, thank you very much. D- -- Frank Smith

IRONIC HEAVY METAL POSTURING: So an Iron Maiden tune gets popped in the juke box at the dirty/trendy bar during happy hour, and douchebag with the fruity red T-shirt decides to get all silly and make the devil horns and stick his tongue out. Wait. Look over there. No Neck with the crappy button-down is doing it to! And you know what? After the Maiden tune is over, White Lion's "When the Children Cry" comes on and those two fuckbones hold up their cigarette lighters and sway them back and forth. Yeah, good one guys. High-five and start the fucking wave after the song ends. I hope you shit your pants in your sleep. F -- A.J. Daulerio

DOING VEGAS WITH MOM: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. So does this mean I should bury the sordid details of my three-day trip with mom? Sordid because of my food poisoning. Sordid because I couldn't drink around moms, and therefore I had to chug a beer in the lobby at "O" and experienced a gag reflex because I haven't chugged since, like, college. Sordid because we nearly bought a ticket to a topless show, and fuck seeing topless anything with your mom! Sordid because I preferred watching movies in the hotel room over partying BY MYSELF in the lobby. Yeah, let's forget this trip ever happened... D -- KS

AUDIENCES' OVERREACTION TO CELEBRITY CAMEOS IN MOVIES: "Ben Stiller? In a movie? But I thought he only did movies!" That seems to be the thought process going through the heads of audience members when they all gasped and shrieked in delight as Ben Stiller made his cameo in "Anchorman." They couldn't have been more amazed if the characters had leapt off the screen, yelled "Sweet three-dimensionality!" and ran off to terrorize Boston. It is conceivable on some level that an actor might do a little acting here and there. Do these same audience members fall backward in their rocking chairs when Tom Brokaw shows up on a news program? Your glut of enthusiasm disturbs me, sirs. D- -- Peter Haas

GETTING A DRUNKEN MARRIED WOMAN BACK HOME: Let's face it, many men see a drunk-off-her-ass single woman as a golden opportunity. If you stay with her through her woozy puking fits all night long, she may look at you as her savior when she finally wakes up the next morning. Or, if you are among the less scrupulous among us, you'll pour her into bed and see what might happen between those aforementioned episodes of heaving. But when that drunken woman is married, things are completely different. When you see her sit there with her head in her hands, poised over a waste basket, all you want to do is run in the other direction as fast as you possibly can. Why put in the time rubbing her back and holding her hair, you think, if she's got a ring on her finger? So she can tell her husband how nice of a guy you were? But, because you're a human being who doesn't want to see another person suffer in solitude -- and because you know you've been in her position many times -- you suck it up, load her into your car and get her into bed as quickly as humanly possible. Then you close the door to her room, tiptoe out of the house, and speed off to the nearest strip club, just to make sure you still have your manhood intact. C- -- Joel Keller

HINEY SPIDERS: New York City summers are cruel. It's bad enough that for three months it's 943 degrees and you're constantly stinky and sticky, but to make matters worse, the swamp ass and heavy ball sweat has caused a chafing in your butt hole that has violated your sphincter. You can dump a pound of Gold Bond in your shorts, and it still won't stifle the unscratchable itch and burn that comes as a result of the wet friction down below. The next two days are spent limping around like you've just been raped with an open bottle of Tabasco sauce and coming home, pulling down your pants and sitting on a wet wash cloth. Find me a cure. Please. F -- A.J. Daulerio

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