BOLLYWOOD BS

New York Press is a free paper given out in New York that will print anything. I once heard that someone gave them some paper they found wadded up in their pocket and the NY Press printed it. On the front page. Every week it gets thinner and lamer, and most folks think they're on their way to going belly-up any minute. So they've added a gossip column. The problem is that they can't afford a good gossip columnist so they've resorted to someone called "Dope Peddler" who runs whatever the drunks tell them on the endless circuit of bottom feeder receptions and openings they troll when they're not refilling the office copy machine's paper tray.

My favorite is the following item they ran:

BOLLYWOOD VALUES
Conservatives in this country like to decry the immorality of Hollywood. Maybe it's a good thing they don't live in India. A rich married investment banker, who is from the subcontinent and specializes in Indian equities, reported to Dope Peddler that he's slept with quite a few B- and C- level Bollywood stars who are at least moderately well-known there - and it wasn't his balding looks that did the trick, so to speak. These actresses are women on the level of, say, Catherine Keener. They aren't big stars, but plenty of people have heard of them.
"The sums involved," he says, "are surprisingly small. In some cases, $2,500 will do it. It's interesting because a lot of them play women in the movies who are religious figures, and they're supposed to be sweet, wholesome, virginal. But believe me, the affairs aren't all that hard to arrange if you know who to talk to."
The actresses, he explains, have film roles, fans, and fan clubs. But it's just not considered all that strange for such women to supplement their salaries in the manner of 19th-century courtesans.Thr

There are so many racist and sexist assumptions in that little tidbit supplied by the Dope Peddler's drunk, bald, banker friend that it would take more time than it's worth to point them out. However, Instead, I'd like to suggest some blind items to the Dope Peddler in the spirit of this piece.

CHINESE VALUES
A rich, married investment banker told me that many Chinese actors require all their scripts to be written in math because that's something all Chinese people understand...

JAPANESE VALUES
A billionaire, divorced commodities trader told me that pop stars in Japan kill themselves if they can't hit the high notes in their live performances...

SINGAPORE VALUES
A zillionaire, polyamorous panda trainer told me that everyone in Singapore plays violin by the age of five and that children who don't are fed to feral cats...

Wow, this is easy! Maybe I'll become the "dope peddler".