Baseball

“I wrote 63 songs this year. They’re all about Jeter.” Just kidding. The game we love, the players we hate, and more.

Culture and Criticism

From Norman Mailer to Wendy Pepper — everything on film, TV, books, music, and snacks (shut up, raisins), plus the Girls’ Bike Club.

Donors Choose and Contests

Helping public schools, winning prizes, sending a crazy lady in a tomato costume out in public.

Stories, True and Otherwise

Monologues, travelogues, fiction, and fart humor. And hens. Don’t forget the hens.

The Vine

The Tomato Nation advice column addresses your questions on etiquette, grammar, romance, and pet misbehavior. Ask The Readers about books or fashion today!

Down With People
November 16, 1999 · No Comment

I can’t count the number of people who, after knowing me for all of twenty overcrowded-cocktail-party minutes, have laughed at one of my wisecracks and said, “Wow, you’re really cynical.” I’ve never understood that, unless …

The Canon According To Tomato Nation, Part One
October 16, 1999 · No Comment

Welcome to the first installment of The Canon According To Tomato Nation, a list of the books and authors you’ll find on my bookshelves (and in my closet, and stacked in piles beside my bed, …

There She Is, Miss America
October 16, 1999 · No Comment

Back in the day, the Biscuit and I produced our own public-access television show. One of these days, I’ll write a column about the “Moist Towelette” era, but in order to avoid meandering off into …

Giuliani Stinks
October 16, 1999 · No Comment

The local TV news here in New York City never changes. A typical newscast leads with one of three stories: a sexual or drug-related abuse of power by a low-ranking school official; a shooting death, …

Sob Sister
September 18, 1999 · No Comment

A couple of days ago, I found myself tearing up during a movie preview, which sounds pathetic enough by itself, but it gets worse. I teared up during a preview for a Kevin Costner movie. …

Creative Writing
September 18, 1999 · No Comment

I have read Susan Faludi’s Backlash. It took me three tries, but I finally got through it, and only because I brought with me on my forty-minute subway commute each morning so that I would …

Making Sense Of Ghosts
September 18, 1999 · No Comment

Last night, the Couch Baron accompanied me to The Sixth Sense. I like going to the movies with the Couch Baron because he is, as Nicole would say, easy like Sunday morning. The Couch Baron …

Give Me The Liberty Or Give Me Death
September 18, 1999 · No Comment

My freshman year in college, I had a roommate who played hockey – not upper-crusty kilt-wearing field-hockey hockey, but thuggish pad-wearing ice-hockey hockey. I knew next to nothing about hockey – my parents hauled me …

Oh, My Aching Head
September 18, 1999 · No Comment

Ah, city living. New Yorkers have at their disposal, in addition to an infinite number of cultural opportunities and convenient scenes from life’s rich pageant, hundreds of ways in which they might acquire a championship …

We Got The Punk
September 16, 1999 · No Comment

Ernie and I became best friends because we could both derive hours of undiminished amusement from bathroom humor. We became friends in a rather roundabout fashion; we met through our mutual friend The Lip at …