My plan for Slammers at Night was simple: we offer small corn tortillas stuffed with Spanish rice, shredded chicken, Green Mountain salsa, and melted mozzarella cheese, plus a decent Mexican bottled beer, all for five dollars. That is the best after-hours deal you can get in Manhattan, or possibly the world. On the chopper ride back to New York, Russell Crowe could not stop raving about this plan—how genius it was, how brilliant, what a consumer breakthrough. At one point, he turned to me, grinning but dead serious, and said, “Not everyone can look God in the face and say, ‘No. No way.’” I honestly had no idea what he meant.

Apparently Chris Onstad is quite fond of sandwich betrayal. Another thing that he is fond of is puppies what have big eyes. I did some science studies and came to the conclusion that the larger the puppies eyes, the cuter said puppy. Allow me to illustrate with a mathematical graph:

This is only true to a point, as you can see in this sliding show:

I consult my map, and my Google Street View printouts. I’m here. I camp out with a coffee at a Peruvian chicken-and-hot-dog stand (an estufaýo, technically) across the street, and set my sights on the doorway. The boring human traffic shoots up and down Lexington Avenue: cars and cabs, Penske box trucks with roof damage, Portuguese men pedalling oversized feijoada trikes with thirteen-gallon kettles of stew between the handlebars. I’m in New York City, and it is six o’clock in the morning.

A young man in his mid-twenties comes out of the doorway a few minutes later. He glances nervously around; he’s carrying an oblong black-plastic case, like what might hold an oboe. A black van with several unusual antennae pulls up. NYMMRS, it says on the side. New York Metropolitan Model Rocket Society. They just picked Zach up. He won’t be back for five hours.

I sprint through the traffic—it’s easier than it looks on TV. Everyone stops politely, no one honks. Some middle-aged women in a nice Camry wave, and a silver-haired gentleman in the back of a Maybach rolls down his window to say, “Good morning.” He smiles as I reply, then rolls the window back up, happy to be a part of it all.

I briefly work my tensioner in the lock, and I’m in. Six flights up and I enter Slammers, my rival sandwich operation. I’m surprised to see how many CD towers there are everywhere, but other than that there’s the usual assortment of ninety-dollar IKEA tables and stamp-forged flatware. A beagle lies on a rug near the window, his head under a large red pillow. He’s pretending he doesn’t know I’m there.

“Hello, dog,” I say.

The dog buries his head in deeper.

“Do you want to smell Olive?” I ask. Olive is my standard black-and-tan dachshund.

“Yes,” comes a muffled reply from beneath the pillow.

“Then you have to come here,” I say. “I won’t come to you.”

The beagle extricates himself and pads over, his cute little snout subserviently pointed down the whole way. “You can smell Olive now,” I say. He sniffs my shoes and cuffs.

“Thank you,” the beagle says. “Zach is away doing rockets, but you can be here.”

“Thank you. I’m going to make some food now. Food for Zach.”

I unpack my bag and begin to assemble what some call “Armenian Sandwiches,” or rolled sandwiches, on lavosh. I have a system that keeps these from being slimy pedestrian Costco-fare. No tomatoes or lettuce, for one—those vegetables age poorly once dressed, and underperform in the mouth—and a dressing based on dried oregano, mirin, red-wine vinegar, sriracha, and mayonnaise.

“You are making neat food,” says the beagle.

“Thank you,” I say. As I carry the completed sandwich tray to the table and prepare to leave, I toss him a little nugget of gouda rind mashed together with smoked-ham rind.

“Oh, thank you,” he says, gulping it down.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“I don’t have one,” he says. “Olive’s Friend?” he suggests, hopefully.

“No,” I say.

I let myself out.

—Chris Onstad

I’m an avid collector—everything from coins and stamps to rare milk. Collecting just comes easy to me. My stamp collection, for instance—I started it a few years back, when the U.S. Postal Service raised the postage. It left me with half a book of twenty-nine-cent stamps and, boom, a collection was born.

Coins have always fascinated me and I’ve been collecting them most of my life. It just takes a few minutes at the end of the day to sort my change into different jars and cans. At this point, I have somewhere between one and two dozen coffee cans filled with pennies. Some of them are so old that they’re probably worth a penny and a half by now. But I’d never sell them. It’s not about the money for me.

I also have a growing collection of string—different lengths, thicknesses, and even colors. I keep them in a special drawer along with my collection of vintage computer cables and extension cords. At some point I’ll detangle them and get them mounted against white satin in a big shadow-box-type deal. I’ll probably hire someone to do that.

Sometimes people ask me why I collect things, and I can’t really explain it fully. It’s just something that I’ve always done. It’s not like I thought at some point, ”Hey I’m gonna start collecting packing tape, or spatulas.” It just happened. I recently showed my nephew my collection of used batteries and he was blown away. He just shook his head slowly and went and sat down on the couch without saying a word. That’s the effect my collections have on a lot of people.

If I had to choose a favorite collection it would be really hard. But let’s say I had to. Let’s say the Smithsonian called and they only had room to show one of my collections. I might go with my collection of empty CD cases. They’re magical in the light of the desk lamp. But then you can’t forget the sentimental value of some of my other collections. The owner’s manuals, for instance—a lot of those go back to my teen years, and then there’s my paper-grocery-bag collection. I always get nostalgic flipping through those. I’ve nearly ruined one with tear stains (it’s the 1979 Piggly Wiggly). That reminds me—I need to get those laminated. O.K., I’ve got it. I know what I would choose. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this right away, because nothing thrills me more, or fills me with a greater sense of accomplishment, than opening my fridge and seeing my radish collection in the crisper. I could definitely see those in a museum someday—each on it’s own marble pedestal with some fancy track lighting. How cool would that be?

Well, I guess that’s all for now. Till next time, keep on collecting. I know I will.—Matthew Diffee

• A couple choice items from my clothespin collection. I have tons more.
• This is just one of over thirty forks from my collection of antique plastic ware. (front)
• (back)
• 
  Rubber bands!!! Pretty sweet, huh?

It was fine.

It’s winter in Argentina now, so I went for my annual hike around that nation’s many snow-capped peaks. My trip couldn’t have come at a better time, considering the horror show at Slammers last week. Plus, it was Labor Day—a three-day weekend. Long story short, I went trekking without a guide, there was an avalanche, I was buried under eight feet of snow, and I thought I was going to die.

Just as I was taking in my last breaths, a ray of light shot through my icy grave and I heard the urgent yipping of a tiny St. Bernard, who turned out to be in a backpack on the back of the Australian acting-magnate, Russell Crowe. After helping me up out of the snow, he lifted the puppy and gave me its tiny brandy jug.

“Thank you, Russell Crowe, but this is empty,” I said.

“Oh shoot, here,” he said, and handed me the Jamba Juice he was holding. “This little guy can’t quite make it up the mountain.” He gestured to the puppy.

“That’s nice of you to carry him until he gets bigger,” I said.

“He’s not getting any bigger. I had him bred this way.”

“So, how long are you going to carry him?”

“Until he passes on, I suppose.” He made a sign of a cross.

“How… how long do they live, usually?” I asked.

“Fifteen to twenty years.”

“Whew,” I said.

“It’s the least I could do, after transgressing against God in having him make this dog exist in this way.”

“True,” I agreed, and handed him back his juice, which tasted strongly of brandy.

“Hey, shit, aren’t you Zach from Slammers?” he said.

“I am.”

“I’ve heard great things,” he said.

“We had five fatalities last week,” I said.

Russell Crowe took out some rolling papers and a plastic bag half full of four-leaf clovers and rolled himself a cigarette.

“What do you call that dish with the fish that are raw?” he asked.

“Sushi?”

“That’s brilliant, I’ll call up my man in the patent office.”

“It already… everyone calls it that,” I said.

He shook his head and exhaled a plume of smoke. “I asked you what YOU call it.”

“I think I see what you’re getting at.”

“Well?”

“Gogofish?”

“Now we’re getting somewhere, partner.”

Before Russell led me to his helicopter, he removed his backpack and unleashed his miniature St. Bernard. “Run free, be free,” he said, as he let the dog go. Then, as if he were Shakespeare acting out one of his own “asides,” he said to me, “He’ll surely die out there.”

And just like that, I became partners with Russell Crowe in opening up what we’re tentatively calling “Russell Crowe’s Slammers at Night.” We outlined some of the preliminary details, and I have to say, I had always thought Russell Crowe was a bit brooding, but it turns out he can actually be quite manic-depressive when you get to know him—in the good way.

Wow, it sounds like Zach really took a beating at Slammers last week. I wonder…nah. It’s just plain bad luck that his purveyors were duped into buying congenitally hyperthermal turkeys and enlarged cow meat. Bad luck to a T, I tell you. Bad luck was the case they…no. Zach’s cutting corners. This week’s whole installment was almost about how I want to genuinely befriend Zach, now that we’ve learned so much about the restaurant game in so little time, but forget it—the guy’s cutting corners left and right, to the point where left and right actually don’t go where they used to. They go kind of left-southwest, right-southeast, etc. That’s a bit unclear, I know…it might make more sense as a brief musical:

Zach:

Choosing a Vice-President is indeed complex. I agreed with the four factors you listed, and I agree even more with the seven or eight that you left off your list. Those are factors which are irrelevant and even somewhat offensive, especially the middle one.

The word and creates a stronger and stickier bond than either friendship or family or the floor of a movie theatre, and so when you become Obama and Biden or McCain and Palin, the and is permanent. But it also can connote slightly different things, so I decided to look at some famous duos and see how the and defined their bond, and which one most resembles the relationship between the President and Vice- President.

Simon and Garfunkel: This seems to be the most similar relationship. While Simon was out front, writing and singing the songs that the whole world loved (although it should have been “I am a rock and/or an island, Garfunkel was mostly hidden in a secret underground bunker somewhere.

Adam and Eve: Here’s where the and takes on shades of meaning. They thought it meant “and if we have each other, we don’t need anything else, not even clothes.” No duo has made that mistake since.

Penn and Teller: The classic relationship of contrasting personalities: one is big, loud, and sweaty and the other is short, silent, and has the natural odor of cinnamon stick.

Bait and Tackle: A famously gay eighteenth-century figure-skating duo from Belgium who won nearly every competition they ever entered, despite the fact that they skated in bare feet. Because of their dominance, their names became synonymous with success. Even today, for example, when fishermen go out to catch fish, they metaphorically say that they’re bringing their “bait and tackle,” perhaps without even knowing where the phrase came from.

Gin and Tonic: Here, the and is unfortunate. Does anyone even need to add anything to a delicious splash of tonic?

Total Enlightenment and Chipotle Mayonnaise: This is the relationship which most approximates the President/Vice-President relationship. Everyone has become so familiar with achieving total enlightenment—for me it starts daily after a bowl of cereal, even when I don’t necessarily want it to—that they’ve discovered that they don’t even understand what the chipotle mayonnaise is there for, or why these two were paired together in the first place. And I don’t either.

You may not realize it, but Perez Hilton, the world’s leading Internet celebrity maven, is also a cartoonist. I sent him some photos of celebrities to do what he does best—putting them in their place—armed with only the MS Paint brush tool. Take a look:

Perez Hilton: I don’t consider myself a cartoonist, because to me a cartoonist has a lot of technical ability to draw and such. However, I do consider myself to have a bit of a cartoonist character. I definitely am analyzing and satirizing pop culture and politics and whatever strikes my fancy.

C.L.: If you lived in a time before computers and Internet, what would you do? Did celebrities even exist back then?

P.H.: Celebrities have always existed. And I did live in a time before computers and Internet. I didn’t even have a computer until I was twenty years old. Before that, I would work on my Brother word processor. I finally got a computer as a junior in college. I got my sister’s old computer. I don’t know what I would be doing right now if I didn’t have my Web site. I would probably be working as a journalist—that’s what I did before I started the site.

C.L.: Who is your favorite celebrity of 2008?

P.H.: My favorite celebrity is definitely Miley Cyrus. She just exploded this year and gave me so much to write about. So I’m very appreciative of her.

C.L.: Who do you expect to see big, bad things from in 2009?

P.H.: I expect to see more bad behavior from Miley Cyrus. At least I hope she continues to act out and be the naughty girl we know she is.

C.L.: 2029?

P.H.: Shiloh Jolie Pitt because she’ll want to rebel against her parents.

C.L.: Sometimes you post sexy pictures of celebrities. No question, really, I’m just saying.

P.H.: Who doesn’t like sexy pictures?

C.L.: So, why celebrities anyway? Why not target kids from my high school or Dr. Feldman my psychiatrist who is always like, “and how does that make you feel”? That would be an enjoyable Web site for me.

P.H.: Because celebrities are more well-known. Those other Web sites do exist, but I have no interest in writing or reading them.

C.L.: I notice you’ve also made appearances on television (what we cartoonists refer to as moving, real-picture cartoons). I guess my question is, what’s TV like? Any future plans in the TV world?

P.H.: TV is just another opportunity for me to entertain people. Although it’s definitely a lot slower than the Internet, that’s for sure. And I already have plans to do something else in a significant way on television in the future.

C.L.: All right, enough softballs. It’s time for the hard-hitting questions other interviewers are too wimpy to ask. What’s the deal with Lindsay Lohan?

P.H.: She is a fame whore and she knows how to work the game.