Some British gent claims “Shakespeare’s Plays Were Written by a Jewish Woman.” I’ll leave it to you to imagine Hamlet’s soliloquy recited by Fran Drescher, or Juliet’s balcony speech emoted by Sarah Silverman.

…has compiled pix of regular people who look sort of like squarer versions of famous people, and placed them under the group title “If Celebs Moved to Oklahoma.” Not included: Kevin Durant or Kevin Calabro.

…another 7 daze since I last posted. Excuses: Got none. (Except that a startup entrepreneurial venture I’d been involved with this past year seems to have gone “on hold.”)

In the nooze recently:

• That novelty Hillary Clinton nutcracker I told you about late last year? Somebody used one as the focus of a bomb scare at the Olympia state capitol. Unfunny.
• As you may have heard, the Clinton campaign’s “3 a.m.” TV commercial was assembled from purchased stock footage. The little girl in the footage is now grown up, she lives here in WashState, and, yep, she’s an Obama supporter.
• That most recent, well-funded save-the-Sonics drive heads toward a not-really-that-drastic deadline. While the plan for minimal KeyArena improvements (mostly a food court and new concourses; not that many new seats) would rely on private funding for half its cost, the would-be new owners want the state to chip in $75 million. It’d take some pushing n’ cajoling to get that request thru the Legislature’s current regular session, scheduled to wrap up darn soon. Some Legislative leaders, such as House Speaker Frank Chopp, have built their public images around the idea that they don’t cave in to such big-money demands, at least not right away. But Gov. Gregoire can still call a one-day special session to pass the funding (in my opinion, a reasonable investment for a reasonable reward). The hard part’s still persuading Clay Bennett to sell and persuading league boss David Stern to stop being Bennett’s toady.
• It’s a big night for all lovers of classic Tacoma power pop, as the Ventures get into the R n’ R Hall o’ Fame.
• The Sunday Times/P-I cut its total opinion pages (which, by contract, are alloted 50/50 to each paper) from six pages to four. When the joint Sunday edition launched, 24 and a half years ago, each paper got six pages to express its “editorial voice.”
• Boeing boosters blame McCain for that big Air Force tanker contract going to Airbus. So much for a GOP revival in this state this year.

As always, this, the most accurate In/Out list published anywhere, compiles what will become hot and less-hot in the upcoming year, not necessarily what’s hot and less-hot at this current point in time. If you believe everything that’s hot now will just keep getting hotter in the future, we’ve got some subprime mortgage hedge funds to sell you.

…this totally fictional (for now) ad would show up. (I found it at Seattlest; it’s been poppin’ up all over the local blog-O-sphere.)

As far as reality, there’s little more to report Croc-wise. The joint’s still closed. Stephanie Dorgan, its owner these past 16 years, isn’t talking to the media. At least one potential new ownership group has apparently shown up, but a lot of behind-the-scenes haggling would need to be done. Shows had been booked at the Croc into January (some touring gigs had been booked into next April); new venues or cancellations will be announced one show at a time.

I’m trying to figure what to say about the beloved, loud, crowded Croc, it of the tasty bar grub and the long lines, the way past-their-pull-date ceiling hangings and the exterior windows still (partly) commemorating the place’s 10th anniversary in 2001. The opening party for Loser took place there in 1995; I took care to place hand-scrawled signs at the door, warning that it wasn’t a secret Pearl Jam show.

I fell in love several times in that building, and out of love at least once. Darn, I hope someone figures out how to revive the place.

This is what happens to local celebs who move to LA intending to enjoy the A-list lifestyle. An author who’s either Bill Nye’s ex-wife or ex-fiancee vandalized his backyard garden with an OD of weed killer. He charges she was trying to poison him; she says it was just a psycho-moment’s prank, and that she’d only wanted to destroy his flowers.

In the early 1990s, “grownup toy” and gift shops sold a faux-Chia novelty product called “Barbara’s Bush.” Above, a less genteel product for a more X-treme time.

…many things. Not among them are cutesy-poo “dignified” new neighborhood names.

Unless, of course, we do it properly.

Herewith, some suggested new monikers for some micro-sections of our too-fair city:

• NorthSouth: The strip malls, office buildings, and Park n’ Ride lot south of Northgate Mall.
• Squares to Curves: The strip of Fairview Avenue between the Seattle Times and Hooters.
• Yo! Town: The stretch of upper First Avenue populated at night by clubgoing frat boys spouting outdated “street” talk.
• Forge Town: The blocks of the Industrial District and east Georgetown occupied by metal sculptors who only exhibit their work at Burning Man.
• Scent-ury Square: The blocks on Fourth and Fifth avenues downtown where the air’s corrupted by the clashing, overbearing aromas of designer perfumes.
• Bored Walk: The sidewalks between LInda’s and the new Cha Cha on Capitol Hill, where the young and prematurely jaded trudge along and moan about how everything sucks.
• Bel-Red West: The new condo towers stuffed with Microsofties.
• Soul Meets Body: The stretch of southern Broadway dividing Seattle U from the Swedish Hospital complex.
• Brownsville: The stretch of Mercer Street near the Pacific Northwest Ballet school, patrolled by girls with hair dyed the exact same shade of tan.
• Ditch-Me Land: The bar strip in west Fremont filled at night by newly jilted singles trawling for a little rebound sex.
• Sanctimonia: The south Wallingford enclaves of the organic, the progressive, the macrobiotic, the clog wearers, and the bicycle-repair collectives.
• 420 to 520: The northern U District and Ravenna homes formerly occupied by gaggles of stoner housemates, now occupied by reverse commuters from the Eastside.

As some of you know, I don’t dress up for Halloween, but I admire and honor those who do. As part of this annual celebration, I’m searching for this year’s raddest costume ideas.

Here’s one list of dress-up ideas, most of which are quite commercial and lame.

But what would be better?

This year’s most lampoonable real-life figures (Paris, Britney, Lindsay, and Larry “Wide Stance” Craig) are more walking tragedies than icons of joy.

This year’s scariest real-life figures (the Bushies and their wholly-owned media advocates) are blustery and certainly larger than life, but have a rigidly anti-fun, soulless undertone to their personalities. They’re not the funnest people to pretend to be.

So what else is out there?

If you want to be really tasteless, you could go as a smoke-inhalation-vicitm Malibu Barbie and Ken, complete with charred-out surfboards.

You can prove your up-to-date popcult awareness by being Hannah Montana, Ugly Betty, Stephen Colbert, the horny healers of Gray’s Anatomy, diet-book hawker Dr. Oz, Hiro from Heroes, an iPhone, a flat screen TV, an unemployed mortgage broker, Dennis Kucinich and his tall uber-bride, the I CAN HAZ CHEEZBURGER cat, a YouTube video clip of somebody doing something stupid, or a fat-n’-sassy Al Gore.

Or, of course, you could band together with fellow partiers and go as the most monstrous, most frightening sight imaginable.

I speak, of course, of the High School Musical cast.

As always, please send in your pix and scene reports from costume events over the next week.

Every now and then one of these “gender” pundits proclaims that political conservatives have absolutely no tolerance for, or vision of, female sexuality.

Bosh.

There is a right-wing female sexuality. Several, in fact. You might not be particularly turned on by/approve of ’em, but they’re there.

This was proven back in the pre-Reagan ’70s, with Marabel Morgan’s once-popular paperback book The Total Woman. In it, Morgan extols the ultra-eager-to-please wife, who might not have a career but who works damned hard to keep energy in the marriage bed.

The current edition’s Amazon page is chock full of juicy, snarky customer comments. Most of the commentors howl at Morgan’s vision of female totality as little more than passive-aggressive bimbodom.

But is Morgan’s fantasy woman really that passe?

Perhaps she’s simply been succeeded by another set of ideals.

Morgan’s vision of the conservative feminine libido belonged to a conservatism that was already fading when her book came out.

It was a conservatism of hierarchy, of rules, of clearly defined social roles. A conservatism of modest luxury and quiet good taste, when business executives at least still talked about prosperity for all; when politicians at least still talked about civility.

Those days are long gone.

The organized thuggery and egomania that are today’s “conservative” culture are topics I’ve ranted about before, and probably will again.

But with a changed culture come changed personal roles. That includes female roles. (I’ve already written that the sole positive thing I can say about Bush is he respects strong women.)

I happen to have had acquaintances of differing degrees with a few of these modern right-wing women. I won’t get into the sordid particulars.

Let’s just say I’ve seen what a new Marabel Morgan might write about in gushing tribute.

I’m sure you can, too.

And as soon as I’ve figured out how to add them newfangled comment threads to this site, I’ll ask you to add your own suggested chapter titles for a new self-help tome, Nookie for Nubile Neocons.

‘Til then, take these as inspiration:

• “You don’t need a pool to have a pool boy!”
• “You never feel so empowered as when you’ve fired half your employees!”
• “Jamaica’s best gigolos!”
• “Keeping your lover away from hubby’s mistress!”
• “Fine handcrafted dildos for under $3,000!”
• “Your new corner office–it’s incomplete without your own ‘casting couch!'”
• “Marrying a closeted gay politician–no pesky sexual demands, AND you get to be a public victim when he’s found out!”
• “Turn that spare guest house into a dungeon! Have fun, AND frighten the household staff!”

From here to the bigtime mainstream media, everybody loves the South Lake Union Streetcar’s new unofficial nickname, South Lake Union Trolley. Or rather, they love its juicy acronym.

And who wouldn’t love the SLUT?

Particularly since the acronym’s just so darned appropriate for a mini-transit system “railroaded” into existence by Paul Allen’s lobbying, whilst plans that would move more people thru more populous places (can you say Mo-no-rail?) get slowly hacked to death?

I expect all of you to be wearing your official unofficial SLUT T-shirts on the line’s opening day in December. Heck, you could even wear ’em at this coming Monday’s reopening of the downtown bus tunnel, another of Seattle’s under-two-miles transportation non-solutions.

I haven’t mentioned it much here, but I’ve been admiring the online scribblings of HorsesAss.org’s David “Goldy” Goldstein. Most recently, he’s lucidly compared the totally-made-up faux-controversy over a newspaper advertisement with the classic play/movie Betrayal.

…a Courtney Love-branded perfume? Even she’s not so sure.

Could the newest Bin Laden video be really a bad Milli Vanilli lipsync job?

…without the “writers’ embellishments,” but now it’s a total scream. It’s Effin’ Unsound’s annotated Bush in Bellevue speech.