The ultimate outsider

C. Thomas Howell ("Ponyboy" in the film version of the SE Hinton classic, The Outsiders. I remember how profound I thought it was to write "Stay gold" in someone's middle school yearbook) made half of a cameo appearance in E.R. last night, playing a kidnapping pedophile whose three lines were, "Ergh!" "Where is she?" and "Let go!" What happened, C. Thomas Howell? Remember how much promise you had Soul Man, the overly racist (but totally typical of 80s) movie illustrating the backlash of affirmative action wherein your character wore blackface to be admitted into college? I always confuse him with Timothy Hutton, though I like TH much better and wanted to marry him after seeing Beautiful Girls. I just looked TH up on imdb and he's in pre and post production for about 5 movies, so that's a good sign. Anyway, E.R. has become this field of Where Are They Nows? Last night's episode alone featured John Stamos, John Leguizamo, that amazon lady from Third Rock from the Sun, the kid who used to be on Once and Again, and aforementioned C. Thomas Howell (whenever I write his name, I want to add "Thurston Howell, the Third").Before I forget, Philadelphia Weekly's lead article for this issue is "The Trouble with Hipsters and Why We Hate Them," which is hilarious in that they try so, so hard to be hip and most of their readership (you and I excluded, of course) are the Converse wearing, shaggy haircut sporting, dimly ironic, Urban Outfitter shopping, white 20-somethings covered in poorly rendered tattoos and unflattering facial piercings they proclaim to scorn and loathe. It's so uncool to pretend you're too cool to care about cool. You do. Just admit it. And you had six months in which you got it right, feeling like a poser the whole time until you heard some white- blond, Pat Benatar pre-Love is a Battlefield girl make fun of your shoes while you were waiting in line for the bathroom at Ray's Happy Birthday Bar.