Blissfully Clueless

Still Here?

2006-05-07T08:15:00.000-07:00

After you finish brushing the dust and cobwebs off, hop on over to Blissfully Clueless 2.0.

Migrating...

2006-03-22T16:31:00.000-08:00

I'm in the process of moving the blog. All future posts will be here. I don't know how long it will take to move all the archives and whatnot, but you'll be able to read the rest of my random ramblings over at Wordpress.

Sour Notes

2006-03-22T13:50:00.000-08:00

Christina Aguilera is the new Madonna, reinventing herself, yet again, for her next album. (Billboard)

Sting is considering opening a strip club, in which the strippers keep their clothes on during lap dances. Must be some sort of connection to tantric sex in this somewhere... (WWTDD)

Interview with Morrissey. (Observer)

50 Cent will reportedly record a duet with Michael Jackson. Maybe Fiddy will give Michael some tips on bulking up in preparation for his "uber-masculine comeback"?

Aaron Carter carries on the family tradition of attracting legal trouble.

Steven Tyler to have surgery for an undisclosed medical condition.

Trey Songz emulates R. Kelly in his live act. (Cake and Ice Cream)

Kid Rock is a realist. (D Listed)

Will E-40 finally become the new household name in Hip Hop? (EBX)

The L Word Season 3: Year of the Cock

2006-03-21T07:05:00.000-08:00

Edit: There is a more reader-friendly version of this post at my new blog home, which can be found here. ________________________________________ Showtime's The L Word is the perfect example of a good show, or at least, a good idea for a show, gone terribly wrong. The show was never really a deep, thought provoking drama; in its first season, viewers were treated to the type of show that had a talented ensemble cast, a lesbian focus (albeit a narrow one), and a combination of dramatic plotlines and classic comedic moments. The show was pitched as "groundbreaking television", the first show on tv that reflected how "real lesbians" live. Right from the start, there was criticism about the show's portrayal of Los Angeles lesbians, because of the glaring omission of any butch or non-glamorous characters. Many people complained that an entire segment of the lesbian community was missing. And how can you have a show that realistically portrays lesbians if you no butch characters, or at least, any characters who don't wear makeup, short skirts, and spiked heels? Despite these flaws, however, the show was actually watchable, if you were willing to accept the idea that maybe some of the things that were missing were due to compromises with the network (some viewers were even quick to joke that most Los Angeles lesbians are pretty glam; Shane, the lothario of the group, was as close to butch as we were going to get). And of course, it is tv; we can't always get everything that we want. So, many decided that, for the first major lesbian representation on television, The L Word wasn't all that bad... But, that was two seasons ago. The show has been airing for 3 years now, and each season has gotten progressively worse than the last. In Season 1, we were introduced to a group of very likable, human, characters, and even if some of the situations they found themselves in were a bit far fetched (e.g., Bette and Tina's attempts to get pregnant by asking a random male stranger to have a one-night, condom-free, menage a trois with them, only to have the guy leave, indignant and offended at the fact that these two beautiful women only wanted him for his sperm), the show was still entertaining enough to suspend disbelief for some of those outlandish plot twists. Season 2 introduced another highly unrealistic scenario, which, unfortunately was a plotline that stretched through half the season, and which left me wondering if the "lesbian" focus of the show was being compromised in order to pander to a wider audience. Of course, any television show seeks to gain as many viewers as possible, but when a show compromises its basic premise, or has its cast members acting completely out of character, I have to wonder what the real "purpose" of the show is. Was it really a show that wanted to pave new ground by showing a realistic representation of lesbians? Or was it just a melodrama that would put take the low road in order to get higher ratings? The scenario that seemed to "turn the tide" for The L Word was the story arc involving two females, Jenny and Shane, and their male roommate, Mark (an aspiring filmmaker). Mark, unbeknownst to the women, had wired the house with hidden cameras and microphones, and enlisted a friend to help him spy on them 24 hours a day, in order to gather footage for a "documentary" he had been planning. This situation went on for months, until Jenny discovered one of the tapes. Jenny confronted Mark, who reluctantly admitted that he had been filming their every move in the house, including highly personal conversations and sexual activities. Now, you would think that any sane woman, especially a lesbian, would immediately kick Mark out of the house, but Jenny and Shane decided to let him stay and deal with his "guilt". I had many problems with this storyline, but I was soon to see that it paled in comparison from many of the story arcs in Season 3. In this current season (Season 3, the finale of which airs next Sunday), The L Word writers have sacrificed the very thing that kept viewers loyal to the show. Even if we had to deal with crazy plot twists, and less than stellar dialogue, at least we could count on the characters remaining true to themselves through all of it. Any show can survive a multitude of issues, as long as the audience can maintain loyalty to the characters that they have grown attached to through the years. Ilene Chaiken, creator and Executive Producer of the show, has been facing a lot of criticism for this season's departure from character development. Most of the major characters have received personality replacements. It would be understandable if a character developed over time and slowly began to exhibit different traits, as a result of personal growth through life experiences, but this show has not even tried to use this strategy. Characterization has been sacrificed for the sake of melodrama; we have been subjected to seeing characters act the complete opposite of the way they did in just the previous season. There is no character progression anymore, and there is no continuity in the story arcs or the timelines. Most viewer complaints are not about the wild plotlines, but the fact that the timing of some of the questionable events makes things completely unbelievable. The other major problem with this season is the fact that it has almost completely lost its lesbian focus. Instead of watching a show were we have a group of lesbians interacting with each other in both positive and negative ways, we are now presented with a show that just happened to have a group of lesbian characters, whose lives revolve around various men. I'm not saying that men have no place on the show; I would actually like to see a more positive portrayal of the men who are on the show. I labeled this season "Year of the Cock" because it is obvious that the message that is being conveyed to the viewers is that even lesbians cannot function without men coming in to take control, and lesbians cannot be happy unless they are emulating men in some way. Also, this season's lesbian love scenes have taken a back seat in order to focus on male-centered relationships. In one episode in particular, we were treated to more cock than a typical episode of Queer as Folk. And this is on a lesbian show! The characters have been butchered so drastically, that people are saying that they feel sorry for the actresses. Knowing that contractual obligations are tying them to this show, we feel empathy for them, having to suffer through the humiliation of performing scripts that make no sense and plots that ignore character/series history. Really, this show has only been on for 3 years, and some of the historical inaccuracies are glaring. I've seen soap operas (some that have been broadcast for 50+ years) that present historical details with more accuracy. Indeed, may viewers have voiced the hope that it be revealed the next season that Season 3 was all just someone's extended nightmare, and that we can all wake up to have the "real" L Word back. Bette Porter (Jennifer Beals): Bette has lost her backbone. Former an alpha female, Bette has tried to get into mediation in order to find a center to her life, which has fallen to pieces. She has not only lost her father to cancer, her job as a result of a calculating rival in love, and her life partner to a man, she also risks losing all rights to her child. For an entire season, we have been waiting for Bette to take charge and take control of her life, but we have been subjected to watching her allow people to walk all over her, which is the complete opposite of what her character is all about. We have watched as Bette allows her former partner, Tina, flirt and canoodle with a man in her house, and this is after Bette had made it clear that Tina was no longer a welcome presence in her home. Most viewers, and surprisingly, even straight female viewers, have been complaining about how Bette's character is not the same. But even so, comparatively speaking, Bette's character change could be explained away as development. Anyone could reasonably believe that Bette, faced with the problems that she is going through, would bury her alpha tendencies because she is in a difficult place in her life. The same cannot be said, though, for her partner, Tina. Tina Kennard (Laurel Holloman) Tina is the character who has gone through the most unbelievable metamorphosis this season. Her actions have been so ridiculously outrageous, that many viewers have taken to explaining the situation by saying that aliens must have abducted the "real" Tina and replaced her with a pod-Tina. Tina, Bette's partner of 7 years, has just had a baby through artificial insemination. While many of her motives have been questionable, we have been forced to accept Tina's actions at face value, because we have never really received any background on her character. We have never seen or heard about Tina's family, we don't know much about her history outside of her relationship with Bette, and she doesn't have much of a personality, but even taking that into consideration, most viewers were open to knowing more about Tina. Now that has all changed. It is rumored that EP Ilene Chaiken is using the character of Tina to seek revenge against someone in her personal life, a former lover who left her for a man. Supposedly, we are seeing this woman's actions mirrored in Tina, but even if this is the case, they are not being presented in a believeable way. Tina, in the space of a 6 month period, had suddenly "developed feelings for men". This is from a woman who has identified as a lesbian for at least 7 years (she had been living as a straight woman before her relationship with Bette), and who has never been shown to even give men a passing thought. In one episode, Tina tells a friend, "Men are boring". But that was back in Season 1. Now, in Season 3, after going through a separation with Bette, during which she carried on a steamy affair, while pregnant, with Helena, another alpha female, Tina has started craving penis. Tina starts a cybersex affair with an anonymous man on the Internet, yet she still presents herself as a lesbian, even to him, calling herself a "dyke with baby". Her screen name even hints that she identifies as lesbian: "Lindsey[76]" is the name of one of the lesbian characters from Queer as Folk, who cheated on her lover with a man. Tina goes, in 6 months, from having hot sex with both Helena and Bette, to "having feelings for men", and makes a dismal attempt to seduce a male employee. After this, she eventually meets another man, Henry, a divorcee with a young son, and begins an affair with him. The major problem with this storyline, as many have said, is not the fact that Tina is interested in men, but the fact that the timelines are ridiculously unbelievable. Tina meets Henry, has sex with him in her house, in the bedroom that she shared with Bette, with her child and Henry's son in the next room sleeping, after having known the man for a matter of hours. Even heterosexual fans have complained that the timing of these events is unrealistic. What new mother with a young child would bring a strange man to her home to have sex with him, in her lover's bedroom? And after the first night, Tina and Henry are inseparable. Tina even announces that she wants to "make a family" with Henry, which excludes Bette and the possibility that she will be allowed to see their child. Again, the timing of all of this is completely unbelievable, because Tina has met, mated, and now wants to mesh with Henry, all in less than 10 days. And the strange thing about this storyline is the fact that the writers have presented it in way that makes the timing element very obvious to the viewers. All of this happens while Bette is away on a meditation retreat (a trip that was supposed to last 10 days, but Bette actually leaves the retreat early). Many viewers have expressed extreme displeasure about this storyline, and many people, who were either supportive of Tina, or even noncommital, can't stand to watch scenes that include her character. Tina, who was once the "goody-two-shoes" character, has now become the villain of the show, all in a few episodes. Jenny Schechter (Mia Kirshner) Jenny is a bisexual writer, who was once the most villified character on the show. Jenny has been described as the character who is closest to being an onscreen representation of creator Ilene Chaiken; the actress who plays Jenny even looks like Ilene. Jenny was the series' most disliked character because she was selfish and manipulating, but she always got her way, because she exuded an air of innocence. Jenny is a character who tends to have good intentions, but she goes about things the wrong way. Her life revolves around her writing, and she will use friends in order to gain fodder for her work, even without their permission. Jenny is currently in a relationship with a FTM (Female to Male transgendered person). And, typical for Jenny's character, it appears that she is pursuing the relationship mainly to further her writing career. Indeed, Jenny is one of the few people on the show who has remained true to character. Helena Peabody (Rachel Shelley) Helena is the other alpha female character. Helena, a calculating, vindictive, selfish, and greedy English lesbian heiress introduced in Season 2, is now a lovelorn, shy, timid, wallflower with low self-esteem. There was never any explanation as to how Helena suddenly became a completely different person. In Season two, she was breaking hearts and seducing women with just a look; in Season 3, she has to seek the advice of a fortune teller to help her decide the course of her week. The old Helena never answered to anyone, not even her equally alpha mother, who holds the purse strings to Helena's trustfund. The new, self-doubting, shrinking violet Helena has been suffering through an extortion scheme plotted by a woman who she fell in love with. How Helena, supposedly a savvy and calculating woman herself, could fall for such an obvious ploy is really difficult to believe, but as this show has proven, the writers will script anything that that they can get a way with. Alice Pieszecki (Leisha Hailey) Alice, one of the show's most popular character, is played by the show's only (openly) lesbian actress. Alice is a free lance pop culture writer, perky, but in a snarky way, always handy with clever one-liners, who usually provides comic relief. One notable subplot from Season 1 was the bisexual Alice's relationship with a "lesbian-identified" male named Lisa, who felt like "a lesbian trapped in a man's body", and who refused to use his penis in any sexual encounters with her. It has been mentioned that despite Alice's bisexual status, she has never been shown to be in a serious relationship with a man. Her most significant relationship on the show has been with another regular character, her best friend Dana. This season, Alice suffered through the breakup of her relationship with Dana. Alice's behavior after the breakup was over the top, but once again, if we suspended disbelief, we could chalk perky Alice's psychotic behavior toward Dana, a woman she professed to still be in love with (extreme jealousy, slashing Dana's tires, building a shrine to Dana in her living room) to comic relief. Shane McCutcheon (Kate Moennig) Shane is the show's resident lothario, or as many like to describe her, the L Words' answer to Brian Kinney from QAF, or this show's version of Samantha Jones from Sex and the City. Shane has a huge following, as most heartbreaking heart throbs do. Shane lived her life from day to day, never turning down the chance for a hookup; if it was anonymous, that made it even better. The writers have tried to make Shane settle down in a monogamous relationship this season with Carmen, but when Shane dallies with a former lover, we are supposed to believe that this is the tragedy of the century. The whole Carmen/Shane relationship has been really forced, and the characters seem to be as bored with the story as the viewers have become. While I commend the writers for apparently attempting to give Shane's character more depth, her interactions with Carmen for the most part have come across as laughable teenybopper melodrama. Dana Fairbanks (Erin Daniels) Dana's character has received the worst treatment of all. Dana, a lesbian tennis star, and probably the most popular character of all, was killed off the show this season. The rumors preceding the character's demise suggested that the actress was having a salary dispute with producers, and this would have been an understandable situation, but alas, it was not the case. Ilene Chaiken has said that she wanted to invoke awareness about the prevalence of breast cancer, so the only way that she could do this was to have Dana be stricken with the disease, and to have her character die. Countless viewers have criticized this tactic as being a poor way to "educate the audience" about breast cancer, and have complained that it would have been much more meaningful to have Dana as a cancer survivor and not a victim. Killing the character off the show (for such a flimsy excuse, it seems like an attempt to try distract from poor writing) was only half the insult. After the episode (in which Dana dies), Chaiken, and the other producers and the director come onscreen to "explain the rationale" behind Dana's demise, and they enlist some of the other cast members to give their thoughts on the topic, including Erin Daniels, the actress who played Dana. The shocking thing about it all is that the cast (including Erin) obviously had no idea that Dana would be killed off; it was presented to them as some random decision. They were totally unprepared for it. Kate Moennig (Shane) actually openly stated her displeasure in the decision, while Ilene Chaiken only remarked, "sometimes the stories write themselves". Carmen de la Pica Morales (Sarah Shahi) Carmen is Shane's current girlfriend, who is the cast's resident "Latina". Oddly enough, Shahi is of Persian descent. I'm not discounting the actress's skills, but I find it strange that the producers could not find one qualified latina actress (even if she wasn't Mexican-American). The problem lies in the fact that they often have Carmen speaking in Spanish, and it is obvious that Sarah Shahi doesn't speak the language. Also, in scenes where she is with other family members, Shahi looks noticeably different from the latino actors who play her relatives. The difference is glaring. Moira/Max (Daniela Sea) Moira/Max is the newest character, who started out as a butch lesbian from the Midwest (who moved to LA with Jenny), but is now a female-to-male transgender person. Viewer empathy for this character has been dismal, mostly because of the questionable acting abilities of Daniela Sea, but also because of more unbelievable plotlines. Moira appears to only suddenly want to become a man after hearing it suggested to her by a gay male character, Billie Blaikie (Alan Cumming). After facing some discrimination because of her butchness, Moira decides that changing her gender will lead to an easier life for her. She begins to take illegal hormones, (with Jenny's help) and tries binding her breasts and wearing a dildo to make herself feel "more like a man". Once Moira declares that she is now "Max", he is determined to live as a man, and consults a doctor about getting surgery to remove his breasts. The most offensive part of this storyline, besides the show seems to be conveying a message that butch lesbians want to be men, is the fact that Max seems to have a warped view of what "being a man" actually entails. As Moira, the character is annoying, and confused to the point of being imbecilic, but as Max, the character is gradually becoming more lucid and more confident. In a scene where the cast goes to a wooded area to memorialize Dana by spreading her ashes, we see Max take the lead, analyzing the map for the women, and helping all of the women through the uneven terrain. These scenes are hard to believe, because most of the women do not like Max (this originally started as a class issue, something else that the writers chose to abandon), and they are all able-bodied and confident enough to make their own way through the woods. In the memorial scenes, it appears that the women are almost deferring to Max, because he is the "male". The other senseless plot device related to Max's character involves a love scene in which he has sex with the gay male character Billie Blaikie. Max, when he is caught in the act by girlfriend, Jenny, says, "Having sex with Billie makes me feel 'like a man'." Many viewers were left wondering how a person who had only been shown to be attracted to females could suddenly have sex with a man and say that it made him feel "more manly". It seemed as if the writers had begun to research the topic of trangender personalities, but stopped before they were able to write anything about it in the show's script that would make any sense. Many viewers are hoping that Season 4 will be better, but with the creator saying things like, "all kinds of things can happen", who knows how many of them will be watching to see exactly what will take place?

Video Vixens: Victims of Exploitation, or Using Feminism to Their Advantage?

2006-03-19T17:48:00.000-08:00

PopMatters compares the modern day video vixen to the Hottentot Venus: Black women, you see, have a special sensitivity as to how their womanhood is portrayed in mass culture. They've had to contend with centuries of being labeled promiscuous whores, hardwired for animalistic sexuality — and not much else — by that blasted jungle DNA. It has been a battle for decency and dignity at the most intimate, personal level. The victories in the battle have been so hard-fought, the wounds still so far from healed, that it doesn't take much to call all that pain back to the surface. The ravages against black womanhood are legion, but with big butts on endless display in videos and "bitch" and "ho" all but commonplace in hip-hop lyrics, one particularly sad and disturbing case comes to mind. Sarah Baartman (1789-1816) survived the slaughter of her people, only to be exploited for centuries hence. She was born in what we now call South Africa as a Khoikhoi, and enslaved in Cape Town by wealthy Britons. Her exceedingly large rear end, especially prominent on a short 4-foot-7 frame, gave associates of her enslavers the idea that there was money to be made. So Baartman went off to London, where she was christened "Hottentot Venus" and put on public display. She was marketed as the freak show to end all freak shows. She was made to bandy about in a cage, her derriere in full and barely clothed view, and would be told to perform a song or dance for the leering, jeering patrons. The spectacle became a smash hit, inspiring bawdy parlor songs. Baartman actually enjoyed a brief measure of dignity in her downtime from "performing", but such luxuries were a thing of the past by the time the enterprise made its way to Paris. Have we really progressed much since the days of Sara Baartman? If it were just the discreetly marketed magazine, calendar, or DVD where such images were available, it would be a slightly lesser deal (though no less bothersome for many). But the pervasiveness of rap videos stringing together shot after shot of such women shaking what their mommas gave them became too much to ignore. Having a scantily clad honey or six in the video became de rigueur, just like shots of the entourage making gang signs and rented luxury cars. Such images all but drowned out any other representation of women in rap videos, especially considering the relative paucity of female rappers that can command big budgets for videos (and the even skimpier number of women directing videos, developing artists' marketing plans, or deciding what gets added to the TV rotation and what doesn't). Of course, the fact that these videos often illustrate songs that refer to women as "bitches" and "hos" hardly helps matters. It got so bad that BET, the network that relies on black pop videos for much of its programming, relegated the raunchiest of them to BET Uncut, airing at 3AM — away from the reach of the youngest, most impressionable minds (at least, those such minds without VCRs or Tivo). One of the most notorious Uncut favorites was Nelly's "Tip Drill" video, which featured various shots of men swiping credit cards down a woman's butt crack. Needless to say, folks felt emboldened by the cordoning-off of territory for soft-core porn with a funky beat, and started making videos specifically for broadcast on Uncut. Most of the "video vixens" themselves (with the exception of Karrine "Superhead" Steffans) purport that their work is empowering to women. According to Melyssa Ford: "I am the highest-paid video girl to date. I've endured all the snide comments and ignorant remarks from people who presume to know me because I'm on their television screens and in the pages of their magazines. But I'm not the promiscuous twit I'm often mistaken for. I am a businesswoman who has used videos to launch a multimedia career. My product is me. "Besides being the lead girl in hip-hop and R&B videos, I am a sex columnist for a men's magazine. I star in my own DVD. I've hosted television shows, and I've produced my own calendar, which I sell on the Internet. My job is to sell fantasy and perfection. When the cameras go on, I detach myself and play the sexy vixen who will turn a nigga out." All this, from a woman who had once aimed to become a forensic psychologist. From her description, she even makes herself sound like a porn star. Which is the better role model for women? The student working toward a professional career, or the video vixen/model who, with mainly her good looks working for her, is two steps away from pole dancing at the strip club? Aside from rap videos, the only places you're likely to see these women are in strip clubs (where lots of rappers apparently enjoy spending spare time and money), and in the pages of the aforementioned XXL and Black Men, plus their competitors King and Smooth (which has its own spin-off Smooth Girl). Just as the granddaddy Players, the hip-hop leaning Fish-n-Chips, and various other titles exist in a racially parallel porn universe from Playboy and Penthouse, so do these black laddie publications chronicle women hardly ever seen in Maxim and FHM (now there are laddie mags for those who like their cheesecake with Latino and Asian flavorings — another sign, apparently, of their emerging consumer clout). Are these women really clever at marketing themselves? Or are they being exploited by the richer, more famous men they work with/for? They say that feminism has made it possible for them to gain notoriety and make a lucrative career from exhibiting their bodies. Melyssa Ford and her peers try to demand respect for the careers that they have built, but who really respects a woman who uses her body to get ahead? "Modern Day Hottietots" (PopMatters)

Whatever Happened to Winona Ryder?

2006-03-19T13:38:00.000-08:00

It seems that Winona something in common with Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey-- she seems to be stuck in an unending period of adolescence: Asked to free-associate about her inspirations and influences, Winona predictably enough namechecks Timothy Leary, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, John Lennon, Patti Smith. First up, though, she wants to look backwards. "I'd include the script for Heathers in the category of literature. It said so much about society. There is an assumption when you're young that things don't mean as much or aren't as painful. But first love is the most devastating of all. Society will always look down on teenagers - parents and teachers don't seem to pay enough attention to kids when they are at their most painful age. Most of the great writers were outcasts ..." Most of the great writers, however, were not teenagers. In fact, discounting Rimbaud and Chatterton, none of them was. And there's a reason for this: to be a great anything, you have to grow up. Winona's appearance here is truly disturbing. She remains little Miss Voice-of-a-Generation but at first sight it appears to be a generation 20 years younger than her own. In the high-gloss photographs, gothy and bloodless in vintage lace, she comes across not as a grown-up Lydia from Beetlejuice, but as a potential Miss Havisham, still stuck forever at 20 minutes to nine on her wedding day - aka the set of Reality Bites, 1994. This isn't just about a Hollywood actress facing the looming perils of 40. For Winona Ryder, but also for anyone her age, the question is this: how, if you are a product of youth culture and nothing but youth culture, do you grow up? Trying to grow up, it helps to be involved with something difficult, something which takes a lot of effort but which eventually rewards that effort. In other words, a craft. Parenting is one kind of craft. Acting, though it pains me to say so, is another. An actor of 35 has to learn to act 35 - and this Winona has never done. On screen, her default mode is to slouch, play with her hair, wince and look winsome. Winona has become the female version of Ralph Macchio, who even though he is 45 years old, is still only seen as "The Karate Kid". It's hard to believe that she is actually older than Angelina Jolie, but when you compare the two, it is obvious to see that while Angelina has evolved, Winona just makes you remember her old movies. "Girl Uninterrupted" (UK Guardian)

A New Dating Remedy for the Shy Guy...

2006-03-19T10:16:00.000-08:00

... who doesn't want to end up with the resident lush at the end of the night... This just sounds like something to make a perfectly innocent shy guy look like a creepy predator: Wingwomen are professional matchmakers who escort men to bars or clubs and use light chat to break the ice with groups of females before introducing their “friend” — the client — and then stepping back out of the limelight. “It’s based on personal experience,” said Shane Forbes, 31, a former computer programmer who founded Wingwomen in New York two years ago. “Women trust men who are accompanied by other girls a lot more than a couple of men.” At the very least, wouldn't most women question why a guy who is already with a woman would try to pick up someone new? It's natural for a guy to be hanging around with other guys. A guy trying to pick up women when he already has an attractive woman on his arm is really suspect. Couples who approach women in an attempt to set up a menage a tois typically do this. And that is always creepy. Don't pimps use this techniques to lure new workers? The wingwomen, whose services cost $150 (£85) a night, are not allowed to “fraternise” with clients, although they do accept drinks. So far they have helped about 1,000 men to pick up an attractive stranger in a public place — or at least get her telephone number. What if a wingwoman were to indulge in one too many drinks and one thing led to another? Would that count as fraternization? The wingwomen are trained to infiltrate groups of fellow females, striking up conversations with questions like “What a great blouse — is it Armani?” or “What is in your cocktail?” before moving on to: “Would you like to meet my friend? He’s smart, kisses well and dances even better.” It is then up to the man to live up to the billing. This is so obvious. Why would a woman want to date some guy who doesn't have the self-esteem to talk to her himself? And what type of woman would hire herself out for this? And for the man who doesn't have the balls to dump his girlfriend face to face: Arriviste Press, a small Boston publisher, has set up a “virtual wingman” service which can send witty notes to objects of desire. It also acts as a “virtual break-up buddy”, dumping “unwanted baggage” with a tender and remorseful e-mail. "Wingwomen Show Shy Men a Good Time" (London Times)

Sunday Sundries

2006-03-19T09:31:00.000-08:00

Natalie Portman goes all out for a role, even if it is an empty one. (Independent)

Another interview with Natalie can be found here. (Popwatch)

Interview with Hugo Weaving, the man behind the mask. (LAT)

Zadie Smith takes a swim in the fishbowl named Hollywood. (Seven)

McSweeney's can be clever sometimes.

Interview with Vanessa Redgrave. (UK Guardian)

Hilary Duff continues to ride on the cotton candy cloud of teeny bopper fame. (Seven)

NYT covers sex tapes and lawsuits.

Anyone Can Be a Model

2006-03-19T09:02:00.000-08:00

For those times when sex isn't used to market a product or service: Many model agencies in town have "real people'' components, but the field seems to be heating up. "The public has become more and more skeptical of what's being sold to us, so the more believable, the more like us, the people in the ads are, the more convincing the advertisements are,'' says William Delzell, owner of Blue Sky People, a San Francisco online real people casting service. The Web site, www.blueskypeople.com, was introduced two months ago. These companies look for people whose images can be used to sell a myriad of popular products, many of which are far removed from the world of high fashion and the upscale market, which typically uses professional fashion models or celebrities. She may not be the face of Lancome, but Jennifer Frisch is one of the faces on the Nancy's Petite Quiche boxes in the frozen food section of your supermarket. All she had to do was grin madly for a day and take home $800. Maybe you could too, if you strike the right balance between sexy and approachable, as she does. Or maybe you're a middle-aged guy with a comb-over and a couple of chins, like Jay Baumgard, a menswear sales associate at Macy's. In his other life, he's the poster boy for the Blackwell Files (www.blackwellfiles.com), the largest San Francisco casting agency specializing in finding everyday people to be featured in advertising and promotional campaigns for all kinds of products. Like many of the "models'' at Blackwell, Baumgard was scouted on the street one day by a staffer with a digital camera. "You'd be good for a Compaq shoot,'' she told him, and took a few photos. "I looked at her like she was crazy,'' he said. But he signed a release form and gave her his number... His comb-over is real. He's 48. He's not fit or trim. "Advertisers think most Baby Boomers look like me, I guess," he said. "I'm just the average Joe on the street.'' Technology companies love him; he's appeared in ads for Yahoo, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Veritas and Best Software, as well as a goofy American Cancer Society ad for prostate cancer exams, where he wore a nurse's uniform half undone. What a revolutionary concept! Using average people doing regular things (or not) to sell a product! Who would have ever thought that sexless marketing would ever work? Could this be strike 2 for the girls on Tyra's Top Model show?

News and Nonsense

2006-03-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

Is Tom Cruise a "celebrity terrorist"? (Movie Blog)

Now that Adriana Lima has announced that she is a "virgin until marriage", we can just count down the days until a Scientologist bachelor gets his hooks into her. (ONTD)

Brangelina gets "not married" again. (London Times)

If there is any information that you want the world to know, just tell Eva Longoria. (CNN)

Interview with Kate Winslet. (London Times)

I was really hoping that "Snakes on a Plane" was a metaphorical title, and not a literal one. (Movie Blog)

Mario Lopez joins the cast of The Bold and the Beautiful for a "career boost". (ONTD)

Interview with Harrison Ford. (London Times)

Damon Dash shows us, once again, that a wallet full of cash is the most attractive thing about a man with a bulge in his trousers. (Corsair)

Interview with Jon Heder of Napoleon Dynamite fame. (NYT)

Why Black People Tend to Turn Down Free Cruises

2006-03-17T16:10:00.000-08:00

Is this person a functioning member of society? Who knew that they let idiots who would publish, let alone say something like this out to mingle with the regular people? ... slavery... was the ticket to America for black people. I have long urged blacks to consider their presence here as the work of God, who wanted to bring them to this raw, new country and used slavery to achieve it. A harsh life, to be sure, but many immigrants suffered hardships and indignations as indentured servants. Their descendants rose above it. You don’t hear them bemoaning their forebears’ life the way some blacks can’t rise above the fact theirs were slaves. Besides freedom, a job and a roof over their heads, they all sought respect. But even after all these years, too many have yet to realize that to get respect, you have to give it... And in order to be thought of as an intelligent individual, you have to exhibit at least a limited amount of logic, which is sorely lacking in this woman's case. (link via TMFTML)

The New Sex and the City

2006-03-17T15:48:00.000-08:00

Sex and the City meets K Street... Or rather, "Sex in the District", or how about "Hookers on the Hill"? Look out, all you Washingtonians who ever had sex with Jessica Cutler, proposed having sex with Jessica Cutler, discussed sex with Jessica Cutler, or ever brushed up against Jessica Cutler -- the infamous Senate aide whose sexual antics scandalized/enthralled our fair city a couple of years ago. HBO is plowing ahead with a sitcom based on "The Washingtonienne," the D.C.-set novel inspired by Cutler's blog of same name in which she discussed her exploits with a boatload of men around town in such glorious detail. I'll bet that the main character in this series will make the Sex and the City girls look virginal. (link via Bookslut)

Friday Flurry

2006-03-17T15:25:00.000-08:00

Alex Blagg writes an open letter to Britney Spears. (BWE)

Vin Diesel needs to learn that sometimes the less said, the less gay it sounds. (Rod 2.0)

Jessica Simpson momentarily appeared to exhibit the ability to process some higher level thoughts, but it was all a mistake. (Defamer)

Damon Wayans lost his bid for the most outrageous trademark registration attempt ever. Unfortunately, he has plenty of alternative possibilities. (SOHH)

Interview with Tommy Lee Jones. (Telegraph)

The Final Word on the Brokeback "Conspiracy"

2006-03-17T15:04:00.000-08:00

In an interview with After Elton, Roger Ebert dispels the ridiculous notion that Brokeback Mountain lost the Best Picture Award to Crash because of some great wave of Hollywood homophobia: I think a lot of people voted for [Crash] because they thought it was the best picture. Some people voted for it because [unlike Brokeback Mountain] it was a Los Angeles production, and in the business, that actually does control votes. And there were probably some people who voted against it because they don't like gay people... The membership of the Academy, and the working population of the Hollywood branch of the industry, is less homophobic than almost any other group you could name. But they are xenophobic. And given the choice of a movie that has dozens of actors in it and was shot in Los Angeles with union crews, and what is perceived as a runaway production [Brokeback Mountain], [that] didn't even shoot in Wyoming, but Canada, there are people who might have voted for the local picture because they are thinking of their own paychecks and [wondering] why should all that money go in Canadian pockets? ... Here is the thing that confuses me: All of the awards that Brokeback won would seem to indicate that those people were not homophobic. Did they become homophobic when it came to the top category for the Oscars ? They were able to vote for Best Director, but then they became homophobic when they got to the next category? I don't know. My two primary positions are Crash was the best movie, and you are not a homophobe if you think Crash is the best movie. (link via BGP)

Sour Notes

2006-03-17T14:28:00.000-08:00

Interview with Pink. (Guardian UK)

Will Three 6 Mafia be able to pull an oscar out of a paper bag to get out of this lawsuit? (BBC)

Speaking of the Oscars, you just knew that Kanye West would decide to break into movies. He has to be able to stir up controversy by announcing the idea that he deserves to win in every category. (Davey D)

Bono has finally come up with a way to edge Bob Geldof out of contention for the Nobel Peace prize.

For the umpteenth time, half of the former Spice Girls rule out a possible reunion, while the other half beg for one.

It's a wonder that LeToya Luckett wasn't made to perform with her mouth taped shut during her stint in Destiny's Child, so that she wouldn't upstage Beyonce. Too bad they couldn't have done that for Michelle. (Prodigal Sun)

When gospel music goes pop. (Guardian UK)

Madonna's patent on shock value has apparently expired. (Queerty)

When did Bubba Sparxxx ever get enough clout to pull off crap like this? (AHH)

Shirley Manson is working on a solo album. (Billboard)

Peers give their thoughts on B.B. King. (Guardian UK)

Hell has frozen over: Tommy Lee, Jason Newsted, and Gilby Clark will form a reality show band together. (MTV)

News and Nonsense

2006-03-15T17:27:00.000-08:00

Cate Blanchett will play Elizabeth I again. (BBC)

Hollywood's oldest teens. (LAT)
It's been a good week so far; Madonna pledges never to act again, and Jessica Simpson considers shelving her singing career, because modeling is so much easier. (Queerty)

Meanwhile, Kevin Fertile-line continues to disappoint us by announcing that becoming a stripper is his fall-back plan (in the event that his burgeoning Hip Hop career fails to take off). (WLC)

Movie theaters are so desperate to increase revenues that they are considering jamming cell phones in theaters. Now if only they could put gags on those annoying people who insist on talking to each other during the movie.

Don Cheadle is being considered to play Miles Davis in a new biopic.

Someone must be trying to punish Daniel Craig.

Random Ruminations

2006-03-15T16:43:00.000-08:00

Someone needs to tell Vin Diesel not to mention Marlon Brando when he is trying to compare himself to uber-masculine silent straight types. (Towleroad)

Michael Jackson seems to have forgotten that he still owns Neverland Ranch, and someone probably needs to explain that he's never owned the people who work there.

If an airline charges more for aisle seats, would it be ethical for aisle seat passengers to charge a fee every time a middle seater or a window seater has to get up to go to the loo? (Boing Boing)

Daniel Craig's father says that the actor is perfect for the role of Bond, because "when he was younger he would play with a toy gun like any other boy". (IWS)

Puffy gives us TMI about his hygiene regimen, his "romantic moves", and his man purse. (3am Girls)

It's easy to break a glass ceiling in Hollywood when your back is on the casting couch and you're wearing spiked heels.

Speaking of Sharon Stone, it seems that everyone else tried their best to upstage her at the premiere of Basic Instinct 2.

In order to quell the rumors of their marital troubles, Madonna has reportedly put husband Guy Ritchie on a curfew. He has to be home with the kids by eleven, while Madonna gets to stay out as long as she likes.

Wednesday Whirl

2006-03-15T16:21:00.000-08:00

Cuba Gooding has finally discovered what went wrong with his career. The rest of us have known for years. (Defamer)

Alanis Morissette was allegedly singing about Dave Coulier way back when on "You Oughtta Know"... Ew.
Interview with Steve Harvey. (ABV)

On the ills of "designer streetwear"... (EBX)

The Independent has a list of the best movie sequels.

Scarlett Johansson's ex is bitter because she ~~is more famous than~~ chose her career over him.

We should have known that we wouldn't have to wait too much longer for Three Six Mafia to finally meet Paris Hilton.

Imagine that This Was a Better Movie

2006-03-12T12:35:00.000-08:00

The Telegraph interviews Lena Headey, star of the new film, Imagine Me and You, and asks, "Is this Britain's answer to Brokeback Mountain?" Brokeback Mountain vs. Imagine Me and You

Brokeback: "a love story"
Imagine: "a love-at-first-sight story"

Brokeback: 2 macho [male] sheepherders (Ennis and Jack) fall in love
Imagine: a lesbian and a straight woman (Luce and Rachel) fall in love at first sight [at the straight woman's wedding]

Brokeback: we see that Ennis and Jack are passionately in love with each other, through their dialogue and their actions
Imagine: Luce and Rachel never exhibit any type of behavior to show us that they even know each other's last names, let alone love each other

Brokeback: has some intriguing dialog, but half of it is obscured by Heath Ledger's mushed mouth delivery
Imagine: has a lot of terrible dialog, which makes you wish Heath Ledger had been in this film

Brokeback: the spouses are angry and resentful about Jack and Ennis's affair
Imagine: Rachel's husband gives her his full blessing in embarking on her new "relationship" with the lesbian she fell in love with when Rachel first saw her as she walked down the aisle at her wedding

Brokeback: focuses on the two main characters
Imagine: has a bevy of side stories and extraneous characters to make the unbelievable plot even more confusing

Brokeback: you have to suspend disbelief during a 2 minute lubeless love scene between Ennis and Jack
Imagine: you have to suspend disbelief through the entire film (and there is no love scene-- in fact, there's only one kiss between the two "enamored" characters)

"Flower Girl of Primrose Hill" (Seven)

Sunday Sundries

2006-03-12T11:41:00.000-08:00

The iPod is really revolutionary because it provides a foolproof way to block out all those annoyingly loud cellphone conversations. (SFgate)

Naomi Campbell is planning to write an autobiography, to save her the trouble of slapping any would-be unauthorized biographers around. (Gabsmash)

Spoof: "America's Next Top Product". (Adrants)

Will V is for Vendetta show us that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"? (Telegraph)

The only definition one needs for the term "Chicksdiggim" is to know that Adam Levine is the first thing that comes to mind. (BWE)

Apparently, people think The Gap is just an extra space they have to walk past before they get to the stores they actually shop in. (Slate)

Now someone has made the "Poor Man's Version" into a blog. (via Thighs)

Profile of Terry Pheto, lead actress from Tsotsi. (London Times)

Home may be where the heart is, but is there any room for the brain?

2006-03-12T11:18:00.000-08:00

The perks of being a housewife, as told by a woman who gave up a full time career to find fulfillment in her home: Once you start bonding with your home, spending time with your kids, enjoying the pleasures of a healthy marriage and paying attention to your needs as well, your life transforms. You can almost have it all. Yes, something has to go — for me, it was my career. But I found a way to keep my brain going — I wrote a book while the kids were napping. It's a good thing that she did find something to occupy her mind, because raising children is such brainless tedium. "There's No Place Like Home" (London Times)

Jamie Foxx is no Kanye West

2006-03-12T11:06:00.000-08:00

NYT profiles Jamie, discussing his Oscar win, his new album, and his strategy for maintaining a successful career: "When I won the Oscar, I realized that the worst thing I could do was act accordingly," he says. "I always think, It's as if you've won the lottery and kept your job: you're rich, but you still work at the post office. You may take an extra 15-minute break, but you don't forget who you are... But that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the ride." "... players, no matter how great, are never going to be bigger than the game. I learned that from the beginning." "After you have success, you realize that everybody isn't happy for you. I've learned to keep my success to myself. If you look too thirsty, people let you know. I gave my Oscar to my manager, Marcus King. I've been with him for 17 years, and after I won, everybody told me to get better representation. But you can't let the Oscar beast in. The moment you do, the game just ends." "All the Right Moves" (NYT)

Sour Notes

2006-03-12T10:08:00.000-08:00

Wafah Dufour dropped the "bin Laden" from her name, yet she keeps reminding us that she is Osama's niece. (Billboard)

Missy Elliott shows us why you shouldn't do interviews when you're high. (Arjan)

The name "Lil John" doesn't exactly make for a great porn title. (Boogie Tonight)

We might as well get used to it; older rock stars are never going to retire. (Guardian UK)

Luther Vandross is being posthumously outed by his friends, for the benefit of the few people who didn't know that he was gay. (Queerty)

MC Hammer has a blog now, which, I guess is worlds better than him having a MySpace page.

Profile of Raul Midon. (Seven)

Terry McMillan: Still Trying to Get Some Payback

2006-03-12T09:29:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you just don't get a return on your investment. You just have to be grateful that you're no longer in a losing situation. Apparently, Terry hasn't figured this out yet: I’ve never had a problem selling books in the past. I sell millions of books. Why would I tell the media my husband is gay to sell books? I haven’t even sold 300,000 copies, which is probably the lowest I’ve sold since before Waiting to Exhale. You know why? People got to watch the live reality show, so why buy the book? That’s what his lies have done... Everybody is a pimp these days! Real pimps will probably want to change the name of their "vocation" because everybody and their cousin either claims to be a "pimp", or is accusing someone else of "pimping": He wants to be famous. He’s pimping my fame. He’s dumb, but he’s not stupid. He wouldn’t have been able to pull all this off if he was stupid. He wants the spotlight. He wants men to line up and take a number. He’s looking for a sugar daddy... He lied to me. He deceived me. And the only thing the gay community knows is "Oh poor Johnny, he was locked in the closet" as if I put his ass in there. Looks more like Terry's pimping him as payback for his cheating... You'd think Terry would be working on getting her groove back, but instead, she's still harping about how her ex-husband did her wrong. Maybe she'll make an appearance on Jerry Springer, so she can really express herself? (link via Rod 2.0)

News and Nonsense

2006-03-12T08:43:00.000-08:00

What will Sharon Stone do the next time she wants to attempt to revive her career? Soft porn? Oh, wait-- that's what Basic Instinct 2 (NSFW) is, pretty much... (Seven, Jossip)

The Wayans brothers are in talks to build a theme park in Oakland-- hopefully this will come through before Damon's trademark attempt. (BBC)

The British version of The Apprentice has to be better than the U.S. version, if only because Donald Trump isn't on the show. (BWE)

Profile of Macaulay Culkin. (via Bookslut)

...and I wasn't even going to ask what else could possibly go wrong on the set of Casino Royale... (Defamer)

Maybe Nick Lachey is just not cut out for entertainment...

Does it really take all this to replace Peter Jennings? Seriously, how difficult is it to read news headlines from a teleprompter? (TV Newser)

Some women are obviously misunderstanding the concept of feminism. (Gawker)

It's funny that they had to go so far back in history to compile a list of "Top 10 Big Screen Beefcakes". Maybe they were really trying to eliminate Jada Pinkett Smith from the list?

R.I.P. Gordon Parks

2006-03-08T08:44:00.000-08:00

In the eloquent words of Anderson Cooper: If you don't know who Gordon Parks is, or even if you think you know about him, chances are you only know one part of his story. Gordon Parks lived more lives and had more talents than anyone else I've ever met. He was a photographer, a writer, a poet, a film director, not to mention a father, a husband, and a friend. Gordon gave so much to this world, even though this world initially didn't give him much of anything. He was born in Kansas to a family that was dirt poor. He was the first African-American photographer for Life Magazine, and later, the first African-American to direct a film for a major Hollywood studio... We live in an age of quick celebrity, where people become famous for not really doing much of anything. Gordon Parks earned everything he ever got. He made countless contributions to art and politics, and through his work and his life was an important agent of social change... Gordon Parks has died. He is gone. Thankfully, his work, his art, his example -- those are things all of us still have to hold onto.

Blogging the Oscars 2006

2006-03-06T12:25:00.000-08:00

They should have called this year's Oscar ceremony the "Daily Show Edition". John Stewart played it safe and stuck to what he was familiar with, which was lucky for the viewers, because the vignettes and other pre-taped sketches were the only entertaining parts of the broadcast. Here's what little I managed to retain in my memory:

Everything seemed to be rushed, but the ceremony was still 3 hours long. All of the winners were provided with 45 seconds of a very distracting musical accompaniment for their acceptance speeches. Some bright person must have decided that it would make more of an impression when the music stopped and the person kept talking, sort of like a pin drop in a silent room.

What was with all those montages? Were they supposed to remind us that movies actually used to be really good? "Sorry last year was so crappy-- Hollywood usually puts out better films that the ones that were nominated this time-- we'll show you what good films actually look like."

The upset of the night was watching Three Six Mafia win for "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp", from Hustle and Flow. Even Queen Latifah, the presenter for the category, was in shock.

Jamie Foxx deciding to name drop during an award presentation was just tacky. "Yeah, Three Six Mafia-- now I know which after-party to go to"-- and I thought Jamie was trying to be unpredictable.

Even John Stewart couldn't help mentioning the fact that the show was montage heavy-- I guess they wanted to show us what good movies actually looked like, since none were nominated last year. If they took all of the montages out, they might have been able to wrap the show up in an hour.

After seeing Zhiyi Zhang read the teleprompter script more smoothly than most of her American peers, I have to say that someone needs to either design a teleprompter with a larger font display or make all the presenters sign a clause that they will either wear their glasses during the show, or agree to memorize the script ahead of time. How difficult can it be to read a prepared script? Isn't that what these people do for a living?

Speaking of new teleprompter design, maybe the Academy should have all of the year's nominees draft an acceptance speech before the ceremony, download the text of each speech to the teleprompter, and then have the engineers cue the correct acceptance speech when the winner is announced. Well, maybe that might not be as easy as it sounds...

It was almost sad to see Reese Witherspoon, in her acceptance speech, lump husband Ryan Philippe in with the kids: "Thank you to my wonderful husband and children-- who should be going to bed..." Maybe it was payback for that overpowering shove he gave her when she got up to accept her award at the Golden Globes?

Taraji Henderson looked really out of place during the performance of "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp". I kept wondering if the dress she wore was the same thing that she wore to the ceremony. She was spectacularly dressed at the back of the stage, while everyone else (the rappers and the dancers) were all either casual, or skanked up. The whole thing was extremely tasteless, but then, that is what I expected.

Dolly Parton's plastic surgeon could probably pay off the national debt all on his own.

Jennifer Garner must be an extremely good actress, if she could carry off her role in Alias without being as clumsy as she was during the ceremony.

I've come to the conclusion that JLo married Marc Anthony because it was a cheaper option than going for the Joan Rivers plan of plastic surgery. With Marc by your side, anyone is guaranteed to be beautiful.

Lauren Bacall either needed her glasses to read the teleprompter, or a good stiff drink...

I was hoping that Dustin Hoffman wouldn't be drunk again like he was last year, and if he wasn't, it was hard to tell...

The producers of March of the Penguins were cute, taking the stage with each carrying a stuffed penguin in matching bow-ties, until they started talking...

Jake Gyllenhaal looked really uncomfortable to be the person who was selected to lecture us on the evils of downloading.

The list of winners can be found here.

Pre-Oscars Link Dump

2006-03-05T13:47:00.000-08:00

"The Lady Vanishes" (London Times)

A few ticket holders search for an escort to the ceremony on Craigslist. (Defamer)

Nominees who definitely won't be winning an Oscar this year. (CNN)

"Victims of the Academy's Genius for Getting It Wrong" (Telegraph)

"Why Costume Designers Hate the Academy Awards" (Slate)

Will this year's films become classics? (Observer)

The story behind the "air kiss". (LAT)

The TVgasm Oscar Ballot, which includes such categories as: Number of Brokeback Mountain jokes, Worst Presenter, Worst Dress, and Number of times the camera will cut to Terrance Howard anytime someone talks about race. (TVgasm)

Sunday Sundries

2006-03-05T12:33:00.000-08:00

Jermaine Jackson must have found a new mealticket, because he's questioning Michael's innocence again.

Aaron Brown blames his firing from CNN on the viewers.

Paula Deen ingests enough butter to serve herself as Thanksgiving dinner. (TVgasm)

Erotica is the new hype. (Observer)

Interview with Sharon Stone. (London Times)

Perkiness is the opiate of the misguided. (SFGate)

What Harper Lee and Boo Radley have in common. (Telegraph)

Even if your man has a girlfriend whom he refuses to leave, you can always take comfort in the fact that you look way hotter in your jeans than she does in hers. Who needs a man for flattery, when a mirror (with the right lighting) can do the same work? (NYT)

Profile of Donatella Versace. (Independent)

Tyra Banks must really want to separate herself from her former incarnation as an underwear model. (TVgasm)

Profile of Reese Witherspoon. (London Times)

You Can Find the Funniest Things on Craigslist

2006-03-03T15:16:00.000-08:00

(Link via Defamer) A new sketch comedy show for Showtime called “D. Underground” is looking for a few women who would be open to nudity in a sketch that will be shot in the month of March. The sketch requires getting a direct shot of a woman’s vagina. To be specific, the role would have a woman walk onto a stage and sit on a stool with her legs open. Her face would not be shown, the camera would only show from the waist down. THIS IS NOT PORN. THERE WOULD BE NO TOUCHING OF ANY KIND. […] We are looking for women of all ages (over 18) and ethnicities. We will be casting three women between the ages of 18 to 30 and one woman over 50. Because the shot would be from the waist down, we don’t need a photo of your face, but we do need to see a photo of your vagina. To be considered for this role please email a tasteful photo of your vagina with a contact phone number. Translation: A new sketch comedy for Showtime (because those bastards at HBO have no comic vision) called "D. Underground" (the "D" is for Damon, as in Damon Wayans) is looking for a few women who would be opening their legs in order to provide the nudity in a sketch that will be shot in the month of March. Since other ventures we have been working on have stalled at present, we are hoping that this new show will prove to be even more groundbreaking than any of our previous projects. The sketch requires getting a direct shot of a woman's vagina*. Yes, like Sharon Stone's famous scene in Basic Instinct, only closer**. To be specific, the role would have a woman walk onto a stage and sit on a stool with her legs open. Easy enough, right? Many women do this naturally anyway (Paris Hilton comes to mind). Just imagine doing it without underwear, like Lil' Kim. Her face would not be shown (because that's ~~never~~ not important); the camera would only show her from the waist down (because that's ~~always~~ all that matters). THIS IS NOT PORN.*** Showtime would only let us go so far with this, because they've already been getting enough flack for the wild storylines/sex scenes on The L Word. THERE WOULD BE NO TOUCHING OF ANY KIND. At least, none that would be included in the final edits of the show. We are looking for women of a range of ages and ethnicities. You must be over 18, because we don't want this show to be shelved before the pilot episode even airs. We are barely getting away with this as it is; the network wasn't really paying attention when we pitched this idea for a sketch, so we need to wrap things up as quickly as possible... We will be casting 3 women between the ages of 18 and 30, and one woman over 50. So, if you are 31-49, you need not reply to this posting. Most women between 31 and 49 tend to be focused on starting/raising a family. Many married, family-focused women tend to put less care and attention into their bodies in general, so you can imagine what their vaginas would look like. Since they have already snagged their man, many feel that they can "let go" of everything else. We need to be able to clearly tell that your vagina is indeed a vagina, so only those in good condition need apply. "Au naturale" vaginas are not wanted, as this may cause some confusion. We will make allowances for some surgical enhancements, but only light touch ups (no gender reassigned vaginas will be accepted). Because the shot would be from the waist down, we don't need a photo of your face, but we do need to see a photo of your vagina. Trimmed, landing strip, bikini wax, or Brazilian wax are all welcomed to respond; if a specific look/style of grooming is desired, it will be determined at the time of the shooting. And of course, if you are chosen, we would need to verify that your vagina matches the one in the submitted photo. To be considered for this role, please email a tasteful photo of your vagina with a contact phone number, so that we can promptly contact you after we have weeded out all of the unacceptable bushes. *Apparently, whoever wrote this ad doesn't realize that what is being described here is actually called a vulva. ** It would actually be pretty challenging to get a good picture of the vagina without the help of a gynecologist. *** If they really do want shoot a woman's vagina, then I think this would be labeled as porn.

Loose Ends

2006-02-28T21:22:00.000-08:00

Ben Affleck isn't very good at sneaking out of movie premieres. (Defamer)

Nelly is expanding his Apple Bottom brand to outfit more ample bottoms than ever before. (AHH)

Daniel Craig is making it hard to defend him against those lunatic Bond fans. (WWTDD)

Madonna is a little too perfect these days. (ONTD)

Undressing Madea. (Jasmyne Cannick)

Fametracker muses over future Oscar hosts.

Sour Notes

2006-02-28T20:02:00.000-08:00

Farnsworth Bentley shows us that kissing ass can take you a long way; you just have to find the right one to kiss. (MTV)

Speaking of Puffy, he needs a new hobby, one that will keep him out of the studio... (SOHH)

Usher is accused of abusing a photographer; you'd think that her having to look at his face long enough to get a picture was abuse enough.

Clay Aiken's fans are upset; not because Clay is a crappy singer, but because they've just discovered that he's gay. (Towleroad)

Somebody felt so sorry for Mariah that they decided to put her in another movie. (Shallow End)

Judging by his backstage rider, John Mayer must have chronic halitosis. (ONTD)

Has NY fallen off the Hip Hop map?

Metallica is working with Rick Rubin now, because they want their next album to actually sell. (SFGate)

Master P goes from being an inspiration to being just another statistic. (MSN)

Interview with Crystal Waters. (Queerty)

Hopefully, George Michael's only habit is being arrested for making embarrassing mistakes.

Alice in Chains is attempting a comeback.

How many degrees of talent, or lack, thereof, separate Justin Timberlake and Kevin Fertile-Line? (ONTD)

Poor Ron Anthony, his career won't be going far with Ashanti's mom taking control.

Random Ruminations

2006-02-28T19:08:00.000-08:00

Victoria Beckham is launching her own cosmetics line, for the woman who likes to revel in her homeliness. (3am Girls)

Patrick Dempsey has had the same haircut (since 1987) for so long that it's back in style. (BWE)

Interview with David Morse.

More Sopranos? They need to put this show six feet under. (Movie Blog)

The Da Vinci Code film gets extra pre-debut publicity in the form of a copyright infringement suit against the book's publisher.

Stanley Crouch refuses to wait in line; he's the first to criticize Damon Wayans for attempting to copyright "the N word". (Playahata.com)

"Gimmick Lit" is the new hype. (Galleycat)

Is anyone really surprised that there is a "shortage" of female directors in Hollywood? (Movie Blog)

Tuesday Trivialities

2006-02-28T12:11:00.000-08:00

John Travolta is working on his next flop-- not only will he be writing the script for it, but he's also planning to sing the theme song, because if you're going to set yourself up for failure, you should at least make it a notable attempt. (Movie Blog)

Is a "chicksdigger" a woman who is intriguing until she opens her mouth [to speak]? (BWE)

Vida Guerra is "burning up the Internet" and a bunch of rough palms. (TMZ)

No matter what character she's playing on Will and Grace, Britney Spears will be sure to invoke the ire of several groups. (Hothouse)

Continuing this new trend of "let's dump on Jennifer Aniston", a former friend has written a "tell-all novel", but of course, even after the whole Brangelina thing, people are still too bored to muster much compassion. (Gawker)

Since most novelists aren't as physically attractive as celebrities, they don't have the luxury of behaving like assholes. Kissing ass sells, as opposed to showing ass, for celebrities. (via Bookslut)

Advice for parents who want to know how their daughter's favorite tween idol suddenly morphed into being a sexpot. (PopPolitics)

Celebrity Mugshots: a game. (TMZ)

Tyra Banks "does more than talk" on her talk show; she cries, she grandstands, she walks her personal "runway", she vents, she does makeovers, she whines... (MSN)

When Paris Hilton's acting coach told her that she has a "similar style" to Charlize Theron, I think he was alluding to the fact that they are both blonde and tend to wear low-cut dresses pretty often. (WWTDD)

Monday Musings

2006-02-27T06:23:00.000-08:00

Interview with Philip Seymour Hoffman. (Observer)

Taking American greed and turning it into generosity. (NYT)

LA Times states the obvious about the historical/factual inaccuracies of most of the Best Picture nominees.

If we all lived in Chloe Sevigny's world, chocolate could save every troubled relationship from infidelity. (ONTD)

Interview with Rachel Weisz. (NYT)

Shaun White proves the theory that a little fame and a lot of money can actually be better than some strategically planned plastic surgery. (DListed)

Interview with Guy Pearce. (Independent)

Wackiest street names. (SFgate)

Prince Charles to give up his personality for the crown. (Observer)

Solving the Alpha Mystery

2006-02-27T05:53:00.000-08:00

Can a beta male maintain a solid relationship with an alpha female? Or is everything doomed to failure? Dr Linda Papadopoulos, author of The Man Manual and reader in psychology at London Metropolitan University, says the causes are simple: “When you are attracted to someone different, it’s because you need something of them in your own personality. It’s comforting to have a man who relaxes you, who says, it’s okay, it’s time to stop. But the danger is that people become polarised in relationships, we become caricatures of ourselves. She becomes an extreme version of herself, trying to achieve for both of them, while the man compensates for her overachieving neurosis by becoming even more laid-back.” ... A leftfield male novelist, who is married to a ballbreaking advertising exec, says he is comfortable having no money to offer the relationship. “I accepted long ago that I was always going to be poor. In fact, it’s nice to play the supporting role, it takes the hassle out of my life.” What does emasculate him, though, is that, “she brings pig business mannerisms home with her. When she gets in from work, she is still, metaphorically, on the phone negotiating when she is talking to me. If you are second-in-command and have relinquished control, then that’s a sacrifice that needs to be respected. This is something my wife finds hard to do. If I do anything badly, I’m criticised. If I do something to please her, the gains are too narrow. She complains that I don’t do enough, but the fact is, she does everything better than me”. Is there any hope for the Guy Ritchies and the Nick Lacheys out there? Can they survive being constantly overshadowed by their more prominent wives, or will they be crushed by the widespread opinion that they are "less than men", because their mate is in control? "Married to an Alpha" (London Times)

Sour Notes

2006-02-26T18:07:00.000-08:00

KFed looks for street cred on the wrong block by duetting with The Game.

Christopher "Play" Martin from Kid N Play (the "suave" one) has become a "Christian" rapper. (ONTD)

A profile of Dusty Springfield. (Independent)

Is Morrissey on Dubya's shit list? (BGP)

The Sex Pistols flip the bird to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

I thought Luther Campbell had already been retired from rap? (Davey D)

James Blunt is the new Chris Martin (from Coldplay).

Downloading has reached an impressive milestone. (Independent)

Queer music from the 60s.

Nee-yo came up with the most appropriate title for his debut single. (BWE)

Hip Hop invades the Smithsonian. (Davey D)

Earrings get caught in your headphones? Here's a solution. (Boing Boing)

"Unschooling": a Kid's Wildest Dream

2006-02-26T17:36:00.000-08:00

When these kids grow up, do they get to do this magical thing called "unwork", where they get paid to do whatever they want, and they don't have to show up if they don't want to? Welcome to the world of "unschooling" -- an educational movement where kids, not parents, not teachers, decide what they will learn that day... An extension of home-schooling, "unschooling" is when parents give their children total freedom to learn and explore whatever they choose... There are no mandatory books, no curriculum, no tests and no grades... The term "unschooling" was first coined in 1977 by John Holt, an education reformer, the founder of Holt Associates and author of the book, "Teach Your Own." Holt felt traditional home-schooling didn't go far enough. He believed parents should not duplicate schools in their homes. He favored an education more freewheeling in nature, one that depends on the child for direction. The expectation is that along the way they will get an education. "No School, No Books, No Teacher's Dirty Looks" (CNN)

Some Surprising Celebrity Secrets

2006-02-26T16:43:00.000-08:00

Gwen Stefani admits that she's had only two boyfriends in her life: No Doubt band mate Tony Kanal and husband Gavin Rossdale.

Early in her career, Whitney Houston sang the jingle used in commercials for Bounce fabric sheets.

Keira Knightley was Queen Amidala's decoy in Star Wars: Episode 1 though the film was promoted as if Natalie Portman played both roles.

In 1993, Jessica Simpson tried out for the Mickey Mouse Club but panicked after watching Christina Aguilera audition. "I froze and forgot everything" she says. She lost out to both Christina and Britney Spears.

Tom Cruise admits that he still does the Risky Business underwear dance when he's at home alone. He calls it his "dance of freedom".

Mariah Carey was nicknamed "Mirage" in high school because she never showed up for class.

Comic actor Jack Black is the son of rocket scientists. His mother worked on the Hubble telescope, and his father worked on "some stuff that i can't tell you about," Jack says.

Paris Hilton has size 11 feet! "All those super cute shoes like Guccis and Monolos look like clown shoes on me".

Madonna is related to both Gwen Stefani and Celine Dion. Gwen's great aunt's mother-in-law shares the same last name as Madonna Ciccone and an ancestor of Madonna's mother was married to a distant relative of Celine's dad.

Heidi Klum is an avid painter and several of her works have appeared in US art magazines.

Both Olsen twins had to wear fake teeth during the later years of Full House because their smiles began to look different.

American Beauty star Thora Birch's mom acted in 21 adult films including Deep Throat under the name Carol Connors before retiring in 1993.

Halle Berry used to date New Kid on the Block Danny Wood. They broke up because the band thought she was a groupie.

The entire list can be found here. (ONTD)

News and Nonsense

2006-02-26T16:11:00.000-08:00

Denzel denies the rumors that his marriage is on the rocks.

The best and worst moments of the Olympics. (ONTD)

Bono and Bob Geldof have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. (PopWatch)

Sheryl Crow has received treatment for breast cancer, and thankfully Lance Armstrong lends his support.

Does a Paris Hilton lookalike do everything that Paris does? (ONTD)

Will there be a Desperate Housewives boycott? Or do enough people still watch the show to care? (Defamer)

Wikipedia + "How To" = wikiHow.

The NAACP Image Award winners have been announced. (LAT)

Bode Miller spends the Olympics having a kegger. (SFgate)

More witt from Ann Coulter-- oh wait, that's an oxymoron, isn't it? (ONTD)

It's Been a Year: The Personal Post

2006-02-22T17:31:00.000-08:00

I've managed to keep this blog up for a whole year. I'm not as much amazed as I am worried that a whole year has gone by so fast (time flies faster as you get older). I'm afraid that one day I'll blink my eyes and 3 weeks will pass by... Anyway, I've been slacking here lately. I've just gone through a career change, which, oddly enough, leaves me with more time to blog, but I've been busy doing other things. While I probably won't be posting on a daily basis (as I did long ago), I will attempt to post several times a week. Thanks to the 3.5 people who leave comments from time to time. It's nice to know that someone out there finds this blog amusing on some days. Keeping it snarky in 2006, dParker2.0

The Blond Bond Controversy

2006-02-22T15:40:00.000-08:00

Some people take some things way too seriously. Yes, Daniel Craig is funny looking, annoying, and has questionable acting skills... but, hasn't that been the case for most of the actors who have played James Bond? Even Pierce Brosnan got this same treatment when he became Bond. People didn't like Timothy Dalton, but they didn't want Pierce. Pierce was only chosen because the other actors who were recruited turned down the opportunity. Some people even wanted to put Sean Connery back into the role, but Sean showed us all back then that he's no Harrison Ford... You're not supposed to take James Bond seriously. He's too good to be true. A suave, sophisticated, sexy, super spy? Most real spies are not much to look at, and are quite unassuming; this is how they manage to remain successful at their trade. So, of course, 007 is a fantasy. Who knew that people would get so upset about something so frivolous?

Musical Musings

2006-02-22T14:34:00.000-08:00

The Observer profiles Prince.

Lauryn Hill still hasn't gotten over herself.

Profile of Rick Rubin can be found here. (Guardian UK)

Kevin Fertile-line sure does know how to recycle his 15 minutes.

The producers at the Brits decided to edit all the bullshit out of Kanye West's acceptance speech. (Seven)

Cheryl "Salt" James is finally releasing her "urban inspirational" album. Meanwhile, Sandy "Pepa" Denton is preparing for the latest VH1 celebreality show. (Boogie Tonight)

Since her album isn't selling itself, Toni Braxton will tour this spring.

Terrance Howard won't pimp himself at the Oscars, but he will pimp himself for people who pay cash. (SOHH)

Has Madonna exchanged her sex drive for the constant rush of an adrenaline high? (Slate)

Kid Rock takes pity on the public by trying to stop the release of his porn tape which also stars Scott Stapp. (BWE)

Wednesday Whirl

2006-02-22T13:58:00.000-08:00

Lucy Liu apparently thinks that being politically correct is more important that being logical.

What does it say about America when most of our newscasters are blond? (Slate)

Is it even possible to market wifebeaters in a tasteful way? (Adrants)

Donald Trump believes that other people should take responsibility for their actions, but of course, he's above all that himself. (Defamer)

Americans aren't into foreign films, because it's too challenging to listen to dialogue and read subtitles at the same time. (Newsweek)

Samuel L. Jackson wants to pull a George Clooney.

Getting all this Brokeback business straight. (Defamer)

Shani Davis likes to give hugs. (Towleroad)

Did Johnny Weir drop the D from the end of his name? (Dan Renzi)

Freegans: Taking "Extra Crunchy Granola" a Step Further

2006-02-20T18:17:00.000-08:00

Those dumpster divers that you see hanging around in the alley might not be homeless; they just might be freegans: Under the cover of night, I stealthily lift the lid of the dustbin and shine in my torch. It's below zero and my hands are shaking as I rummage inside. I'm on the hunt for food. But I'm not homeless and I could certainly afford to go to the shops if I wanted to. So, why am I doing this? Quite simply, I'm living as a freegan. Dining on food from a dustbin may have once been the preserve of tramps, but for many it is now becoming a lifestyle choice. Freeganism - a combination of the words "free" and "vegan"- is a movement whose devotees take responsibility for the impact of their consumer choices and find alternative ways of meeting their everyday needs. This includes housing, clothing and, most surprisingly, food. Around 17 million tons of food are buried in British landfill sites every year, four million of which are edible. Sometimes, disposal is the cheapest option available to the food industry. "Freegans: The Bin Scavengers" (Independent)

Monday Musings

2006-02-20T18:02:00.000-08:00

If Jennifer Aniston did a nude scene in a film, would people be tempted to leave the theaters to go home to watch Angelina Jolie movies instead? (Movie Blog)

NYT reports on the fashions, or lack thereof, in the Olympics.

This guy wasn't looking for a wife, he was looking for a slave. (via Bomani Jones)

Isaac Mizrahi promises to grope women and ask embarrassingly intrusive questions at the Oscars, too. (CNN)

Catherine Deneuve expected Americans to be too homophobic to make Brokeback Mountain a success. She doesn't need to worry; the "gay cowboy" fad will be over pretty soon...

When did Carrot Top start to look like Bozo the Clown on steroids? (DListed)

The rules of getting a tattoo, and the difference between a tattooist and a tatoo artist. (SFGate)

Are special effects making the kung fu star extinct? (HHM)

Spike Lee seems to have conveniently forgotten that there were a few shootings in movie theaters when Do the Right Thing came out.

Nick Lachey needs alimony to tide him over until the next ~~mealticket comes along~~ his solo career takes off. (WWTDD)

Sour Notes

2006-02-13T10:38:00.000-08:00

Even if Mick Hucknall wasn't rich, he'd still be an asshole. (Observer)

Introducing the Hip Hop bus tour. (NYT)

Another Hip-Hop-has-jumped-the-shark argument. (Davey D)

PopMatters profiles Lewis Taylor.

Interview with Jody Watley. (Rod 2.0)

Behind the Brit Awards. (Independent)

As if we weren't exposed to enough shitty music from the mainstream, MySpace exposes us to even more. (EBX)

While the LA Times tries to figure out why American Idol still gets top ratings, NBC invests in a clone.

Is Kanye West's outrageous behavior a desperate bid to boost dismal album sales? (HHB)

The Plight of the Trophy Wife

2006-02-13T10:16:00.000-08:00

Is this the plight of the successful golddigger? Is this what most party girls ultimately aspire to be? Being a trophy wife means signing up to a life of emotional neglect. The kind of man who wants a trophy wife is, by definition, busy making money, and only interested in what he needs to keep him fit for making more. Not only is he never around, when he is, the understanding is that he has paid not to have to listen to any of the boring details of her life (though she may cutely try on clothes for his approval). Trophy wife exists to soothe him after a stressful working day, to keep him in sleek condition and to showcase his wealth and good taste. If the boiler exploded earlier on, rich husband doesn’t want to hear about it. If trophy wife’s mother is seriously ill, rich husband doesn’t want to be bothered. The deal is that she is supportive, compliant, endlessly cheerful and pleasing to look at, and makes no demands on rich husband whatsoever, other than via his chequebook. Gastric flu in the night? Move to another floor, girl, sharpish, and make sure you shake it off before it starts to affect his life. Depression? Double the Prozac dose, and on no account let the smile slip. What's the point of being able to buy all the nice clothes and expensive jewelry you could ever want if your husband is too preoccupied with making more money to take notice? Maybe some of these women could empower themselves by following Kimora Lee Simmons's example: spend your husband's money creatively. "Hard Cash: Maybe Trophy Wives Deserve All the Money They Get Their Hands On" (London Times)

News and Nonsense

2006-02-13T09:38:00.000-08:00

Gwyneth Paltrow thinks Brits are more intelligent and cultured, yet she doesn't want her daughter to talk like them.

Dick Cheney shot a man; why does this news not sound shocking? (The Bosh)

European TV commercials never cease to be edgy... (Adrants)

While American ads are more often found as the newest plot device in your favorite TV show. (LA Times)

Has Oprah cloned herself? How could she possibly have time to do one more thing?

John Stossel is the poor man's Bill O'Reilly.

Is Kevin Powell the only Real World alum who has actually done something with his life? (Davey D)

Further proof that there is nothing new under the sun: sequels to My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Are We There Yet are in the works. (Movie Blog, IWS)

Sharon Stone would rather be nude than wear push up bras, because what's the point in leaving anything to the imagination?

70 is the new 50, and 50 is the new 30. 20 is still 20, though... (NYT)

Madonna Gives Up Reinvention to Rehash Her Own Past

2006-02-12T22:51:00.000-08:00

Is it time for Madonna to retire? And I don't mean retire like Cher and Tina Turner did, by continuously touring for five years after the announcement. Judging by her performance at the Grammys, and her new/old style and music, should she just give up trying to be the top diva? Madonna used to be all about paving new ground, constantly reinventing herself to make us watch in wonder. "What is Madonna going to come up with next?" used to be the burning question. Now, it seems to be more of a question of "Why did she decide to come out with this?" In the past, the only question on our minds was "How?", now, more often, it's "Why?": ...and here she is, spinning on her head and turning up everywhere in the old leotard and fishnets combo. Granted, she looks fantastic. And we all know she works hard at it. But it seems to me that there’s something a bit desperate about the whole get-up. It looks needy and hungry for approval, and if there’s one thing we don’t imagine Madonna to be it’s needy. She was never a supplicant and yet here she is, urging us all to marvel at how fabulously hot and up to speed she is, for a woman pushing 50. Why? It’s an odd policy from someone so canny. Her natural fan base — those people who have been interested in what she was up to since the early 1980s — are no longer spring chickens themselves and are more likely to be interested in her views on childcare than in the pertness of her ass. Those who came in later may love her most recent CD, Confessions on a Dance Floor, but they’re perplexed by her hyper-teenage gyrations. My son, for example, is 13, and finds her bewildering. I was watching him watching her contortions on MTV recently and asked what he thought. “She’s old, isn’t she,” was the unflattering reply. Most of us of a certain age have seen most of there is to see on Madonna, and yes, we know she is still beautiful and sexy. Oddly enough, Madonna's decision in recent years to leave more to the imagination was actually a successful one. Yes, we still poked fun at her tweed suits, her faux-English-country-house airs, and her manufactured pseudo-posh accent, but it was something new. Newness is what made Madonna famous. Now that Madonna's current version of "newness" is akin to the concept of a "new used car", will people still continue to be fascinated with her innovations? Or will they just write her off as the next has-been? "Act Your Age Madge" (London Times)

Sunday Sundries

2006-02-12T22:25:00.000-08:00

Morgan Freeman wants to be Satan. (Independent)

"Luxury" sex toys? Is it safe to say that "it's not how much you pay for it, but how well you use it"? (SFGate)

Interview with Kiefer Sutherland. (Seven)

Steve Martin continues to work the Hollywood system. (Slate)

If poker can be classified as a sport, maybe dominoes can be, too. Another sport for the sedentary people out there. (LA Times)

More proof that Americans are the laziest people on the planet. (NYT)

How the E-List makes a living. (SFGate)

Interview with Joaquin Phoenix. (Seven)

Marlon Brando was bisexual, among other things… (London Times)

Let Them Don their "Freedom Caps"

2006-02-12T22:13:00.000-08:00

Again, those hideous berets for the U.S. Winter Olympics team: ...the beret has become the official headgear of American Olympians. For this we can blame Canada. Roots, a Canadian apparel company, has been outfitting our team since 2002. At that year's Salt Lake City Games, the company introduced the Roots Team U.S.A. Beret, a dowdy fleece hat with a tight-fitting brim and poufy crown. It was neither attractive nor particularly flattering. But it was a hit. After the hat debuted in the opening ceremony, the Roots boutique in Park City took in $10 million. The proprietor of a Utah flower shop called Roots got so many inquiries about the hat that she stopped picking up the phone. All told, Roots sold more than a million of the things. ...The difficulty with the beret is deciding how to wear it. Do you pull it up at the center (à la Bonnie, of Bonnie and Clyde)? Or do you wear it to the side? If so, which side, and how far over? Men sometimes tilt their berets back, but the effect can be very Che Guevara or very Joe Pantoliano—you have to know your limits. Even the men who serve in our special forces—implacable in the face of gunshots, spiders, and torture—tremble when faced with their first beret. This training manual lists the tools you'll need to break one in (stain guard, razor blade, scissors, seamstress) and common beret-wearing mistakes, such as the "Swiveled Beret," the "Pancake Beret," and the "Giant Forehead." Whichever way it's worn, the Torino beret is hideous. Why can't they just have the team wear baseball caps? How much more American can you get than that? "Wrongheaded: The Return of the Awful Olympic Beret" (Slate)

When Did the Olympics Get to be so Boring?

2006-02-12T00:02:00.000-08:00

I remember when I was a kid, I was all into the Olympics, even watching the sports that I knew nothing about. Just the idea of the entire event and the meaning behind it was enough to get excited about. Now, though, all of it is just boring, even the (few) sports that I thought I liked. At first, I thought that maybe excitement over the Olympics might just be strictly a "kid's" thing, but then I remember that my parents would get all into it too... maybe this is one more thing that I've become jaded about. After the spirit of the competition lost its appeal, then there were those annoying personal profiles, where we got to hear about every single athlete's hard-luck story. For a long time, it seemed as though a person couldn't get a spot on an Olympic team unless they'd grown up as a starving, destitute orphan. They showed more of these profiles than they would show of the actual competitions, which is nice when you're watching a TV movie of the week, but if I wanted to see something like that, I'd watch Lifetime. After enough people complained about the "Olympics-as-a-series-of-biographical-vignettes-with-a-little-sports-coverage-thrown-in", we got to see more of the competitions, but only if Americans happened to be competing. This jingoistic coverage was odd, given that the whole point of the Olympics is to bring different countries and cultures of the world together. Now watching the Olympics was just like watching the news: we got to see the same 4 stories repeated numerous times, while the rest of the world was turning, and learning about everything else. The opening ceremony last night was -- words can't really describe it, but I think "cheesy" comes to mind. It didn't seem to be smoothly thought out. I guess I've grown used to the commentators explaining every little detail about such things, so when I was forced to watch the proceedings with no inane commentary, I thought I'd lucked out, but then I realized that maybe I actually needed the "Olympics Opening Ceremony for Dummies" to help me through the odd costumes and the confusing dance routines. I guess I'll end up watching more, if there's nothing else on. I typically keep the TV on for extra light and noise, or as my daily radiation supplement.

Blogging the Grammys 2006

2006-02-08T23:47:00.000-08:00

The 48th Annual Grammys was actually a better show than I've seen in recent years. Although we had to wait two hours for things to finally get interesting, it wasn't as bad as some of the ceremonies have been. The broadcast was performance-heavy, which was a good idea; after so many acceptance speeches, the mind starts to wander, and the fingers start to tingle with an urge to change the channel. Some of the more hyped performances fell flat, while others were surprisingly good. It was a long night, but I managed to stay awake through the whole show. Madonna/Gorillaz/De la Soul "Don't believe the hype"... Madonna's performance was boring. The Gorillaz were more entertaining, and they sounded better. Madonna didn't actually start singing until halfway through the song, when she finally began to huff and puff along with the backing track. I kept wishing that the performance had been limited to De La Soul and the Gorillaz. Alicia Keys/Stevie Wonder They did an a capella version of "Higher Ground", which was actually nice. Alicia was overly deferrential in an annoying way, calling Stevie, "Mr. Wonder" (which sounded jarring every time she said it), but Stevie was good humored enough to tease her when she tried to play a few notes through his harmonica, "Don't you put no spit in my harmonica, girl!" Coldplay ...Yawn... John Legend He performed "Ordinary People", and really sounded much better than usual. I guessed that he might have been taking voice lessons, because the horrible raspiness of his that makes him sound like he drinks a 5th of vodka every day was kept to a minimum. U2 and Mary J. Blige U2 performed "Vertigo" and then Mary J. came out to duet on "One", which is my favorite U2 song. I'd been really interested in hearing the combination, but I was sorely disappointed. Mary did her trademark growling and screaming, and totally ruined the song. Maybe if she'd sung it alone it wouldn't have been so bad, but with Bono singing wonderfully beside her, the screaming just did not work. Mariah I've finally come to the conclusion that Mariah needs to warm up before she starts to sound good-- and I mean during the performance, and not before-- She started with "We Belong Together", which sounded awful (her backup singers had to take over for her), but she finally came into her own for her next selection, a gospel number, where she brought the house down. And thankfully, she was completely covered up (even her cleavage was covered by her hair extensions). Maybe Mariah should always travel with a church group, to save us from seeing all of her naughty bits... The Sly Stone Tribute I never thought that I'd ever see so many people that I absolutely hate onstage together all at the same time. Joss Stone, John Legend, Fantasia, Will I. Am... thank goodness someone had the good sense not to have all of these people singing at the same time. Joss Stone, John Legend, and Van Hunt sang together (how did Van Hunt get invited?)... Adam Levine looked like he felt sorry for Ciara as he watched her make some squeaky noises in the microphone. I think she gave up trying to sing at one point, and just stood there looking at Adam and the others... she was obviously clueless to what was going on... some guy named Randy Lima had the challenge of not straining his vocal chords while trying to yell through all of Fantasia's squawking... Randy Jackson from American Idol, Robert Rudolph, and Patrice Rushen were in the band... Aerosmith joined in, too... all of this before someone pulled Sly out of his sarcophagus and let him come out for a few minutes to sing two bars and play a little keyboard (in his platinum blond mohawk)... Sly soon left the rest to continue making noise by themselves. Jay-Z/Linkin Park/Paul McCartney It sounds odd, but this was one of the best performances of the night. I was surprised how well "Encore" actually mixed with the Beatles' "Yesterday". And the two younger artists held their own with Paul; you'd have thought that the end would have been all about Paul, but it was a nice blend. Kanye West/Jamie Foxx This performance of "Golddigger" had to be seen to be believed. Kanye and Jamie did a whole marching band/School Daze meets Drumline type of spoof, and oddly enough, it worked. It was campy, but very entertaining, especially the step sequences from the "Golddiggers" sorority and the "Broke Phi Broke" fraternity. Herbie Hancock and Christina Aguilera Christina proved what I've been saying all along: she makes beautiful music with the right people. All she needs is a stylist, and the right producers, and she could be another Mariah. The rest of the show was pretty ho-hum, but that was to be expected. I don't know anyone who could stay riveted to one show for 3+ hours. And with the addition of the preshows (anyone who watched the one on E! now knows for certain that Ryan Seacrest is an idiot), it would take a lot of dedication to sit through the whole thing (without the advantage of TiVo). Here is a complete list of the nominees and the winners.

Random Ruminations

2006-02-08T18:09:00.000-08:00

Jesse Martin to play Marvin Gaye in a new biopic. (IWS)

Jessica Simpson actually grosses some people out. (Adrants)

The L Word ignores diversity in more ways than one. (After Ellen)

10 Signs of a golddigger. (Davey D)

Movies "with meaning" are all the rage. (Independent)

Is Matthew Goode being groomed to become the new Hugh Grant? (Fametracker)

We probably won't be seeing too many red dresses on the red carpet after this. (Defamer)

How much does your laugh say about you? (East Bay Express)

Sarah Jessica Parker complains about the cult of celebrity and how it distracts from "important issues", but have we seen her doing anything "important" lately? (A Socialite's Life)

Amazing Race has learned not to ruin a good formula. (MSNBC)

A neat man trap game that could also work as a means of binding and gagging any man you want to shag snag. (Gawker)

Who would ever have thought that Heidi Klum just might uphold thinness as an ideal?

Typical BET, skipping the important stuff to show crap instead.

A Lance Armstrong biopic? Sounds like something for the Lifetime Network. (Defamer)

A public pillowfight is an interesting idea... until you think about the fact that people used to use pillows as silencers for their guns... (SFGate)

It's hard to blame Harry Hamlin for being pissed right now. (The Big Gay Picture)

News and Nonsense

2006-02-08T17:15:00.000-08:00

It still pays (and pays well) to be pretty. (Forbes)

Could Paris Hilton be mean, spiteful, and vindictive? No!

Is it really true that "Three girls in a bed is a bedful of girls, but two girls in a bed are lesbians"? (I thought that depended on what they were doing....) And who made Tom Ford an expert on women? (The Bosh, HotHouse)

This is why some celebrities shy away from their fans... (A Socialite's Life)

Instead of shelling out tons of money for a psychologist, celebrities now rely on their hair stylists for advice and coping strategies. (NYT)

There's still no hope for teenaged girls. (Gawker)

Typecasting pays the rent, at least, for Kim Cattrall, it does. (BWE)

As if we needed another Ocean's Eleven sequel, George Clooney is working on a television series based on the films. This may be the first thing of his to tank in years (pardon the pun).

Ha. (Adrants)

Wednesday Whirl

2006-01-25T13:03:00.000-08:00

The Olsen twins hope to market the "wet blanket" look to the masses. (Jossip)
The "absolute best blonde joke ever".
Something that Sarah Jessica Parker would be pissed to see... (City Rag)
How the big names in Hollywood get paid. (Slate)
Maybe deciding to have an open relationship would be the best thing for Jude Law and Sienna Miller. I'm sure that Will and Jada Smith could give them some advice. (Bosh)
Top grossing (as in ,"money making") gay and lesbian movies from 1980.
Sundance is the new place for indies to sell out. (Telegraph)
Courtney Peldon is still struggling on her long, slow climb toward the Hollywood C List. (Perez Hilton)

Prostitutes are the New Black

2006-01-22T20:09:00.000-08:00

Prostitutes, apparently, are all the rage: “Prostitution,” opined one female observer recently, “is being rebranded as an extension of the entertainment industry.” Gone are the days when the main way that one could purchase sex was to pick up a streetwalker from the corner. Prostitution has a new face; it's no longer the last resort for women who have no other option to make money. Some women are even using it as a leg up (pardon the pun) to get themselves through school, or to finance other expensive endeavors. Is this just individual liberation and the free market getting it together? Or is it, too, decadence — little better for taking place behind doors than in the street? “We are very confused about sex and prostitution,” said Dr Petra Boynton, a London-based sex researcher. “On the one hand you have people saying it is dreadful, all these poor women being used on the street. Yet others are offering lucrative publishing contracts to women who write about being upmarket hookers. The government wants a clampdown, and Hollywood’s just released a blockbuster about a geisha. There’s a dichotomy — and we’re not sure what to do about it.” Prostitution is okay... as long as it's tastefully done. For younger men the erosion of sexual shame, fostered by the likes of GQ and other lads’ mags, is a main factor. “There’s not the stigma attached to (buying sex) any more,” said Neil, an IT technician in his thirties last week. “I’ve been on stag weekends abroad and it’s almost de rigueur to have some sort of experience with a prostitute. “There is a culture of ‘you only live once, this is something you’ve got to try’, so long as people are discreet about it. It is talked about and written about, and there’s a genuine element of curiosity.” Buying sex is akin to paying for a horseback ride. It's the new "thing" to be bragged about at dinner parties, instead of being limited to lurid locker room talk. The prostitute is the ultimate sex toy; you can rent one by the hour, she cleans up her own messes, and you don't have to worry about storage. A few months ago GQ, the style guide for men, carried an enthusiastic account of a bisexual young woman called Denise who decided to hire a high-class call-girl with her partner Mikey while on a trip to Paris. “When we got home,” the article ended unabashedly, “we collapsed on the sofa, utterly exhausted, spent, elated. ‘We’ve got to do that again,’ sighed Mikey. I’m pretty sure we will, too.” Prostitution has been so glamorized in books and in films, that it may seem as if its negative aspects have been forgotten, but do we really look kindly upon the women who do it? Even if some enterprising women use it to further their education, or to move to a "better station" in life, these women are rarely admired for their entrepreneurial prowess; we tend to question their character. Who would trust a woman who is willing to sell her body to get ahead? "Focus: Selling Sex the Middle Class Way" (London Times)

News and Nonsense

2006-01-22T18:30:00.000-08:00

GLAAD seems to be alone in complaining about Isaac Mizrahi's behavior on the red carpet at the Golden Globes. It's understandable to see him poking and pulling on women's dresses, he's a fashion designer. And it's just as understandable to hear him asking Eva Longoria about her pubic hair, since it happens to be one of her favorite topics of discussion.
What else is Tom Cruise trying to hide? (ONTD)
Did Rosie O'Donnell just out Atallah Shabazz?
Gillian Anderson tries to fight typecasting. (CNN)
A new movie that's bound to be banned in some theaters in America.
Playboy without nudity? Maybe in India. (LAT)
Why foreign films are becoming scarce. (NYT)
Heather Mills-McCartney doggedly fights against fur in fashion. (Observer)
Usher's new fling is reportedly causing drama in the family. (ONTD)

Sour Notes

2006-01-22T18:08:00.000-08:00

Brandy dumps her mom for new management, which is probably a good thing, judging by the current state of her career. (SOHH)
Keith Sweat is releasing a book of his favorite backstage snapshots. Hopefully he's better at photography than he is at singing.
50 Cent may be getting sued for copyright infringement, but Luther Campbell will never get a dime. (AHH)
LAT covers the death of the drum solo.
Jon Bon Jovi says that rock stars are exempt from scrutiny when it comes to sleeping around.
Has Mariah hired Naomi Campbell to be her bodyguard? (ONTD)
Raz B braves the criticism by reaching out to his gay fans. (Rod 2.0)

Steven Soderbergh tries to stay ahead of the curve

2006-01-22T17:46:00.000-08:00

Isn't it just typical that big name Hollywood directors would be against the simultaneous release of films in multiple formats? (link via LA Times) Jonathan Demme: "Would I rather see 'Munich' in the comfort of my home? Hell, no! Doesn't it seem like the movie business is devouring itself because it can't wait to get to home video?" Tim Burton: Director of last year's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and the animated "Corpse Bride," called the notion of simultaneous release absurd. Obviously, he said, cinema is a business, "but everything should be done to treat it as an art form — it's a visceral medium." Ron Howard: "Viewing in a theater is the optimum experience," he said. "It needs to be preserved…. But, at the end of the day, technology and viewers are going to tell us what they really want." I guess most people would oppose something that might potentially take money out of their own pockets.

Sunday Sundries

2006-01-22T16:29:00.000-08:00

Tony Kushner and Steven Spielberg explain, again, the message that Munich is supposed to convey. (LAT, London Times)
Paris Hilton has arrived at Sundance, Utah; condom supply expected to be depleted before the end of the week. (D Listed)
You'd think that cruise control was named for Tom.
Will Jason Schwartzman be the new Adrien Brody? (London Times)
Some Oscar nomination predictions...
Germaine Greer changes her mind on "the C word". (Independent)
Interview with Angelica Houston. (London Times)
Dakota Fanning meets a rabid fan. (ONTD)
Scarlett Johansson stays true to her word when she says she isn't attracted to actors; that's why she's dating Josh Hartnett.
Speaking of Scarlett, Woody Allen apparently wants to be her ~~new boyfriend~~ stylist. (D Listed)
Alannis Morissette recommends that everyone should try shagging a woman at least once in their lives. (Gabsmash)
Now that Sienna Miller has given up the boho chic look, hopefully everyone else will, too. (London Times)

Just Why "He's Just Not that into You"

2006-01-22T12:41:00.000-08:00

Women, if you've ever had a relationship or an affair with a married man, take note: men can always tell. Like gay people have gaydar, men have an extra sense that allows them to pick out the women who are wasting their lives waiting for some married man to leave his wife and children for her. At least, Jonathan Gornall says so: Women who go through this process are ruined. No other man will want them because it will have reduced them to pitiful, bitter, angry, depressed, shrunken versions of the woman they once were, and could still have been. Besides, they won’t want other men: some part of them never quite lets go of the hope — the belief — that, one day, he will come back to her (and stay longer than one night and some of the next morning). Gornall says that these women get all torn apart about the futility of the affair because they can't win. The desire to compete is a regular part of the human experience, and because the "Other Woman" can never win her man, she becomes frustrated, bitter, and and empty shell of a person. According to Gornall, men never really have to bother about such things, because their competitive urges are satisfied with sports and video games. And it’s about competition. Women, by and large, don’t have football, or darts, or video games to help them to blow off steam. As a result, they can’t just shag somebody else’s husband; they have to try to take him away from her. How many men do you know who have put their lives on hold in the hope that a married woman they are shagging will give up her hearth and home to be with them? That’s right, none. Because men, generally, have PlayStations. Men will never do this. They don’t have the patience, or the attention span (except for video games). A woman, on the other hand, is prepared to wait it out, to lay siege. She knows it won’t happen overnight so she gets in emotional supplies, a pile of weepy movies and microwave popcorn (and perhaps a self-help book or two) and digs in on the perimeter of the chosen man’s life. She has her friends to support her, but soon they get put off by the whiff of self-pity and the endless self-deception — not to mention the tedious, one-track conversations. He admits that it still takes two to tango, and illustrates the man's role in the clandestine relationship: The man’s not innocent, of course. He leads her on, of course; throws her scraps to feed the fantasy. He likes that when he turns up she is never up to her elbows in dirty dishes, never exhausted after a hard day and half asleep on the sofa, never in the middle of changing the bag in the Hoover or helping one of the kids with their bloody homework and never handing him the dog’s lead as he walks in. He likes that he can walk in and, if he feels like it (and he almost always does feel like it, because, let’s face it, that’s why he is there in the first place), lift her dress, pull her sexy panties to one side and do it hard and fast right there in the hallway, up against the wall, without any libido-sapping bikes or school bags or bloody dogs in his line of sight to put him off his stroke. And then, if he wants to rush away immediately afterwards, leaving her flushed and panting, to run back, wracked by guilt and self-loathing, to his wife and family, he can. He likes that too. He likes the change in scenery, but does he really like the woman? And she, refusing to understand or recognise the guilt and self-loathing that rises in him even faster than the sap he has just expended, likes it too, because this is what she insists — to her own ruin — on mistakenly identifying as his unrestrainedly animal passion for her. And if you are one of these women, here’s a flash that (who knows?) might even be vivid enough to shock you out of your sleep-walking state. Are you ready? Are you sitting down? Got enough biscuits? Okay, here it is: he will happily screw you but that doesn’t mean that he likes you very much. Physically, he probably doesn’t even find you that attractive (this won’t stop him wanting to shag you). He might even be embarrassed to be seen in public with you. Mentally, ditto. Personality, likewise. Well, I’m sorry, but I thought it best that you knew. For such a man, almost the worst aspect of his fear of being found out is the moment his wife claps eyes on her non-rival — and the extreme, weird depth of his perverse extramarital excursion is exposed in all its plain-Jane entirety. Most women would breathe a sigh of relief if they could see their “competitors”, and realise they are no more a rival than a blow-up doll would be. Perhaps less. If he feels this way about his mistress, why would a man bother to continue the relationship? He doesn’t set out to be cruel, but sooner or later he will tell her he loves her (because, after a while, it just gets embarrassing if you don’t) and, once she starts putting on the pressure, he will say almost anything to forestall the dawning of reality. He is torn because although he can see that he is becoming everything to this woman (and he, of course, has absolutely no intention of leaving his wife and family), part of him has become addicted to the snatched, sordid, heavy-breathing sex and the endless, filthy e-mails and text messages that bring him to the boil when he is sitting at his desk and should be concentrating on whatever it is someone is paying him to concentrate on. And he is attracted to the danger because it makes him feel alive. The bottom line: What sustains you through all those long, lonely, anxious, jealousy-riddled nights is the thought of the future you might, one day, have together. But can’t you see now how that’s never going to work? If he really cared about you, do you think he could bear to see you suffer? That’s why he always goes back to his wife. He loves her, and he couldn’t bear to see her suffer. Your suffering, however — no problem. "Memo to All Mistresses (Stop Fooling Yourself: He'll Never Leave his Wife)" (London Times)

Saturday Stream

2006-01-21T09:12:00.000-08:00

Apparently, no one likes to be told that they've been wearing Kirsten Dunst's leftovers. (A Socialite's Life)
George Clooney may be more talented at pissing off conservatives than he is at acting. (BBC)
It seems that Eva Longoria likes her private life to mirror her work life. (3am Girls)
Star Jones says that Dubya and Osama bin Laden are just having a prolonged, nasty spat: "You know what? At some point, one of these men has to put it back in his pants and zip up the zipper." I think the real problem may stem from the fact that neither of these men gets enough chances to pull it out in the first place. (D Listed)
Frances McDormand doesn't like fans to take photos of her; if anyone is bold enough to try, she'll pelt them with anything that's handy. (A Socialite's Life)
Even if Justin Timberflake decided to pull a Bobby Brown and reunite with the other members of N'Sync, there would still be no hope for the group. (BWE)
Christopher Lee has a good idea about how Hollywood should cast movie roles, but he seems to be forgetting the fact that the public likes to look at pretty faces. (PopWatch)
Keira Knightley got into the Golden Globes ceremony by feeding the less fortunate: the starving, overworked security guards.
No city on Earth is big enough to contain the egos of Robbie Williams and 50 Cent at the same time. (3am Girls)
It took Sharon Stone a while to realize that Basic Instinct would have been a family movie if only her character hadn't been bisexual, because sex is dirty, but violence is okay.

Sour Notes

2006-01-20T14:17:00.000-08:00

If Cam'ron shouts out a diss to Jay-Z, and Jay ignores it, will anybody care? (AHH)
50 Cent might be fooled into thinking his movie is popular because his entourage is big enough to fill the theater. (Rod 2.0)
The best thing about Madea's Family Reunion will most likely be its soundtrack. (Billboard)
Is American Idol homophobic?
James Blunt is the new hype. (PopMatters)
Kevin "Fertiline" has big plans for Britney Spears's money. (AHH, Gabsmash)
Maybe Puffy's ads for his new fragrance would be better if they just took him out of the pictures. (SOHH)

Loose Ends

2006-01-20T13:51:00.000-08:00

Scarlett Johansson's mother, like the rest of us, must have been suprised to see Pamela Anderson with her twins all bound and gagged at the Golden Globes.
Hooter's billboard tips over; no reports on whether the restaurant chain will require waitresses to wear weights on their ankles to prevent a similar accident from occurring in the future. (Adrants)
Paris Hilton has yet to learn that she can't pee in every place that she sits down; maybe she needs to pay more attention when she takes her dog to his training course. (Cake and Ice Cream)
Ryan Phillippe and Chad Lowe have a lot in common. (Corsair)
Apparently, all redheads look alike. I don't know who would be more insulted, Lindsay Lohan, because it implies that she looks as old as Julianne Moore, or Julianne, because it implies that she looks like a drug ravaged skank? (City Rag)
Amanda Bynes remakes Just One of the Guys.

Friday Flurry

2006-01-20T13:02:00.000-08:00

Kanye West to carry on the legacy of Carlton Banks by naming his new fashion line "Pastelle". (AHH)
Ew. (A Socialite's Life)
Mariah Carey is joining the celebrity fragrance bandwagon. I wonder if hers will smell like junk food? (3am Girls)
NBC orders the pilot for Sex and the City 2.0, giving Candace Bushnell the mistaken impression that she should keep using the same idea over and over.
Jodie Sweetin, the "middle sister" on Full House, is reported to be recovering from methorexia. (Perez Hilton)
Vera Wang is finally sick of making wedding dresses. (Queerty)
Ricky Martin's words have come back to haunt him. (The SF)
Something Eva Longoria probably already has... (SFGate)
Somthing to break Michael Jackson's heart... (BBC)
Top 10 gay celebrity breakups. (Queerty)
David Duchovny isn't even lucky enough to really be in Hulk 2. That was just a rumor. (Movie Blog)
Ryan Secrest got Kathy Griffin fired from E!. They obviously opted for beauty over brains. (Queerty)

Musical Musings

2006-01-20T12:19:00.000-08:00

Jamie Foxx does Unpredictable, in the most predictable way possible. (NYT, Slate)
Axl Rose rips from Queen on the new (if you can call 10 years old "new") album he promises to release at the end of the year.
Lenny Kravitz must be looking ahead to the years of legal troubles his daughter will probably have. (BWE)
Profile of Dave Matthews. (Independent)
Bobby Brown set to take over New Edition again. (Perez Hilton)
Janet Jackson's new album will probably have to wait until she loses her weight. (Boogie Tonight)
Kelly Clarkson caves in to American Idol. She must have dreamt that she might end up on But Can They Sing? in a few years. (CNN)
Profile of Anthony Hamilton. (Newsweek)
Is Kanye to 50 Cent as John Kerry is to George W. Bush? (Guardian UK)
Pink carries on where she left off; since Avril Lavigne is ditching her faux-punk image, someone has to represent the wannabe-punk community. (MTV)
Tom Waites is probably the only music artist left who isn't willing to sell his soul to the highest bidder. (NYT)
The rebirth of Jenny Lewis. (Independent)
Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony to cause symptoms of nausea at the Super Bowl. (Perez Hilton)

News and Nonsense

2006-01-20T11:25:00.000-08:00

Maybe Paris Hilton is not as dumb as she seems; she's smart enough to know that she can make tons more money off of marketing her own body than she would by settling for the paltry million or so that Playboy could afford to pay her.
Hip Hop greeting cards: for those who those who find that Hallmark is too flowery, the perfect little something for that special bitch or ho in your life. (AHH)
Catholic group ensures that the "Da Vinci Code" film will make tons of money.
Bobby and Whitney aren't getting a divorce, because it would make it even more difficult for Bobbi Kristina to raise them both if they lived apart. (City Rag)
Wilson Pickett has passed away.
Jennifer Beals, who you'd think would be sensitive to the whole "labeling" thing, outs one of her castmates in an Advocate interview.
John Singleton to direct the newest film from one of Tom Clancy's books. (Movie Blog)
Jerry Springer passes up another political run for office, because politicians don't get paid to embarrass themselves on TV like entertainers do.
Hopefully, none of the "graphic sexual content" in the Basic Instinct sequel involves Charlotte Rampling or David Thewlis.
Harrison Ford wants the new Indiana Jones movie to be finished before he is. (Movie Blog)
For some unknown reason, the Queer Eye guys (who knew they still had a show?) are scouting for a young protegee. Maybe 10-18 year-olds are the only people who are still watching. (Queerty)

"Gay/Lesbian" as a Genre of Music

2006-01-20T11:01:00.000-08:00

"Gay musicians aren't marketed to the mainstream as, 'Hurray! Here's a new lesbian band, aren't they cool?' Instead, we are the subject of painstaking scrutiny and strategising to figure out how to overcome our image," [Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls] wrote in a blistering essay several years ago. "Being gay is not considered an asset at most record labels, indie or major. When the record label finally takes advantage of the gay press, it's because the mainstream press won't touch the band." The argument is similar to the one that gay and lesbian writers have. Should their work be set apart and categorized under the "Gay and Lesbian Interest" label? Or should it be intermingled with other books of the same genre? While the distinct label does help consumers to discover these artists more easily, when their work is grouped in a category with a more general label, they tend to get lost in the shuffle. Will it actually help to market musical acts as "gay/lesbian", or will they lose out because their work is set apart? Will it just help homophobes to exclude and villify these artists, or even deter the average music fan who might have been looking for something new, by making him more hesitant to investigate a new band just because it has been labeled as a gay act? "Gay Artists Sing Out" (Independent)

Wednesday Whirl

2006-01-18T23:00:00.000-08:00

Sanaa Lathan finally gets a career boost: a nasty rumor.
Beyonce is lauded for not going crazy... at least for now. (A Socialite's Life)
Gillian Anderson must realize how bad things are for her and David Duchovny's careers.
Jared Leto must be aiming for an award. (D Listed)
What do you say to a person who tells you, "I just bought William Shatner's kidney stone"?
Kathleen Turner is disgusted with Hollywood, now that she'd have to get plastic surgery to get a movie role. (Guardian UK)
Laurence "Don't call me Larry" Fishburne fires his assistant for getting pregnant. Hopefully, he's not the baby's father.
Macaulay Culkin unloads his childhood problems in a book; we'll have to wait to see if a chapter on Michael Jackson is included.
Giada de Laurentiis shows us how she manages to cook all that Italian food and still stay so thin. (SFGate)
Will "Walk the Line" see the same success as "Ray" come Oscar time? (VV)
Hopefully, Victoria Beckham won't find it too challenging to write a children's book; she has her own kids to help her if she has trouble with any of the words, since they probably read better than she does, anyway.

Why the Skeletons Keep Creeping Out

2006-01-18T22:28:00.000-08:00

It seems, these days, that celebrities do all sorts of crazy and unexplainable things. We read everyday about some famous person doing something outrageous. One would think that many celebs didn't care what their fans and the public thought of their often strange behavior. Public Relations representatives and publicists used to work diligently to preserve a given celebrity's crafted image, but that rarely seems to happen now. What has changed? It seems that the PRs are now losing their control of what the public does and does not get to hear - and a wave of panic is hitting Hollywood. In the latest Vanity Fair, the other end of the scale from the gossip sites and supermarket rags, actress Lindsay Lohan, 19, reveals her darkest battles: anorexia, bulimia, drugs, an abusive father and daddy replacement fixations on older men ('Johnny Depp, because he looks dirty'). Unlike those staunchly private icons of yesteryear, whose dirty laundry was not picked through until long after their stars waned, Lohan says of a photograph of herself in Star: 'My arms were disgusting. I had no arms. I looked at it and was like, "Jesus Christ". My sister was scared, my brother called me crying.' [...] But now Lohan has issued a statement decrying the articles as 'lies' - although she said she loved the pictures. She then spent Wednesday night carousing with Kate Moss at a strip club, pole-dancing and kissing. As it became clear how much Lohan had revealed to VF's Evgenia Peretz, who has the interview on tape, Zelnick openly wondered how she was going to 'spin' it - the perfect example of a publicist who refuses to accept her power has waned. For the publicists once ruled. A few years ago Jennifer Aniston's spin-doctor forced the magazine Allure to recall copies from newsstands when he deemed the cover shot of her unflattering. Publicists made deals left, right and centre: don't say this about him and you'll get access to her. Ask outside the approved question list and you will never talk to our A-list clients ever again. Pat Kingsley had an infamously iron reign. When Tom Cruise let her go, she was said to be stunned. And post-Pat, Tom Cruise did go into meltdown - he jumped up and down on Oprah's sofa and picked a fight with Brooke Shields. Would it have happened had Pat been at the helm? Yes. But not on tape. The show would have been re-recorded. So many stars have decided to go without the support personnel that they have traditionally relied upon to keep their careers on track. What else would explain anything that Britney Spears did last year? A lot of celebrities, especially the younger ones, have failed to realize that money can't cure everything; sometimes a good publicist can work wonders (when there are too many people to pay off to keep some embarrassing story quiet). "Fall of the Hollywood Spin Doctors" (Observer)

What makes the difference between Tom Cruise and C. Thomas Howell?

2006-01-18T21:58:00.000-08:00

The Independent makes this query, focusing on today's young actors. Which will forge a successful acting career, and which will fade into obscurity? And what determines the destiny of a young actor? ...Brokeback Mountain is serving as a focus to the intriguing crop of very young male actors who are taking over our screens. In a way, I think, that's a trend that began with Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic. Nine years ago, that epic went from being a dreaded failure to a blockbuster in a matter of weeks - and as business experts pondered why, they reached the conclusion that teenage girls were going back over and over again to see Leonardo. Notice that that passion has hardly lasted: his following diminished drastically with Gangs of New York and The Aviator. Neither of those films was as romantic as Titanic. But Leo had clearly aged - and being a teenager doesn't last very long. Still, the industry knows demographics now if it knows nothing else, and the trend was plain in TV, in the burgeoning world of arty fashion magazines and in movies, that "girls" got off on ogling pictures of young guys in very much the same way, for decades, men had made an industry out of wanting to look at women. And every four or five years, you've got a whole new generation of teenagers. Young actors today have different obstacles to face than their predecessors: Every one of the kids knows how tough it is to keep in place. They are all loners, without the support of studio contracts, and promoted largely by agencies that have a hundred other pretty boys on their books if one "star" goes out of fashion. This is the cruel condition that was once felt most forcibly by young actresses who were told to make an impact very young, be obliging and obedient and pray that their looks lasted until 30. In other words, these young men are under terrible pressure to make the right choices - which means, be in the right films. The recent history of Hollywood is littered with movies that introduced a whole team of very young talent. Remember Francis Coppola's The Outsiders, from 1983, with this cast list - C Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, and Tom Cruise. It's not quite that everyone else has faded away, but 23 years ago I don't think Cruise would have been the automatic favourite to survive. That he did win out has something to do with his screen presence and his grin, but rather more with his instincts as a businessman and a career-maker. George Clooney, despite his less-than-stellar early career, is sited as an example for young actors to follow: ...Clooney will only be 45 this year. I know, he seems older sometimes, and in part that's because he winces a little at having been a pretty boy himself once in those years when he was a big attraction on ER and not much else. He had some very routine years, smirking his way through bad pictures, and flopping in anything more adventurous. But then something happened: moviegoers began to realise that they liked him, or trusted him. And then he branched out suddenly and made a very adventurous film, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. It didn't do too well, but it was clear that Clooney knew how to direct. Well, in 2005 he has had a better year than Heath Ledger - acting in and directing Good Night, and Good Luck, and acting in Syriana. Sure, he can say, with his grin, you have to make a few Ocean's 11 pictures to be able to do Good Night, and Good Luck. But that's how the real business has always worked. And George Clooney knows something that every kid is going to have to learn - that you might as well take full responsibility for what you make. "The Crop of Young Male Actors Taking Over Our Screens" (Independent)

Sunday Sundries

2006-01-15T21:51:00.000-08:00

Sting must finally be burned out on all that tantric sex.
Mariah should try for the world record for sucking her gut in and holding her breath. (Egotastic)
A Russian politician finds a nasty way to call Condi Rice a robotic spinster. (Queerty)
How to be flat and fabulous. (London Times)
How many people could $500 million feed?
James Frey is not only a faker, but he's unoriginal to boot. (Bookslut)
Is Katie Holmes recruiting? (Just Jared)
Mary J. Blige wants to inform PETA that she is not to be messed with.
Is Jessica Simpson addicted to plastic surgery? (Perez Hilton)
Terrance Howard is no stranger to crime.
What will we call the Wachowski brothers now? (Queerty)

Sour Notes

2006-01-15T20:26:00.000-08:00

K-Fed gets prophetic about his life , in a nonsensical sort of way: "You know, it's not like everybody knows who I am and you see this picture of me and it says this and da da da and that's not true and I'm this other person over here. So, now it's time to let everybody know." (Just Jared)
Benzino and David Mays finally get the boot from The Source. (HipHopMusic)
Ashlee Simpson's new album is so crappy, that it's already priced for the clearance shelf. (Perez Hilton)
Sony is starting a new label to inundate the public with obnoxious club tracks and whiny folk songs. (BBC)
Interview with Carly Simon. (Independent)
The Game is still having issues with closure. (LAT)
Interview with Shakira. (London Times)
Beth Orton's new album comes out Feb. 7. (NYT)
Will I. Am is so fond of making noise that he's started his own record label. (Billboard)

News and Nonsense

2006-01-15T19:59:00.000-08:00

You can take the boy out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of the boy. (Perez Hilton)
I guess some lesbians actually do suck cock. (Queerty)
Bobby Brown still finds this attractive? Oh, yeah, she's got a really fat bank account. (D Listed)
Can Clearskin Dunce stay sober long enough to make it to Spiderman 4? (Movie Blog)
I must have missed the memo about the day that women stopped wearing slips. (NYT)
Shelley Winters passed away. (Independent)

Random Ruminations

2006-01-15T17:36:00.000-08:00

Will Thandie Newton be the next Bond girl?
Shirts have very deep meaning for Ralph Fiennes. (NYT)
Jerry Bruckheimer would have to change his name in order to get critical acclaim for any of his movies. (CNN)
Alicia Keys should stick to playing the piano.
Interview with Rosanne. (Guardian UK)
So that's what happened to Kathleen Turner... (ONTD)
Now the question is, what happened to Kevin Bacon? (Perez Hilton)
Interview with Neil Jordan. (Independent)
Now teenagers can get skank at the club without bothering to get a fake ID. (NYT)
Ziyi Zhang learned English from watching Eminem's music videos.
Starbucks should think about changing its name to Barnes and Noble.
What makes some people decide to fake it? (Independent)
Stephen Baldwin has taken to stalking porn shop workers. (ONTD)

...at least she's not working the street corner

2006-01-15T15:52:00.000-08:00

(image via Just Jared) All that coaching and grooming from "America's Top Model" finally paid off...

Musical Musings

2006-01-11T17:28:00.000-08:00

Pearl Jam will be releasing a new photobook. (Billboard)
List of Brit Awards Nominees. (ONTD)
Kelly Rowland doesn't know how to function without Beyonce. (3am Girls)
In the same alternate universe where Chris Brown is apparently "the future of R&B", Ciara is "the next Beyonce". (ONTD)
10 most influential Caribbeans in Hip Hop culture. (Davey D)
People have decided that "The Inc." is just too squeaky clean of a name for Irv Gotti's record label. Or maybe they still call it "Murder, Inc." because Ja Rule's voice is murder on the ears. (MTV)
Some random weird facts about James Brown. (SF Weekly)
Interview with Juvenile. (AHH)
The Isley Brothers have suffered from the influence of R. Kelly. (Billboard)
The transformation of Fergie. (Perez Hilton)
Interview with MC Lyte. (Davey D)

News and Nonsense

2006-01-11T16:13:00.000-08:00

Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson's marriage was reportedly just an arrangement for Nick to get more publicity and exposure. Boy, it really helped his career to flourish, didn't it? (A Socialite's Life)
Cuba Gooding, Jr. remakes "Training Day". (Movie Blog)
Awards shows are so prevalent that they have their own "season" now.
News that we all could have predicted: Britney Spears was the worst dressed celebrity of last year.
If you want an expensive lice infestation, you can bid on Russell Crowe's razor stubble.
Michael Eisner to spend the first year of his retirement from Disney in the obscurity on CNBC.
Now that Brangelina is officially preggers, will the paparazzi band together in an Ocean's 11 type of operation to plan their strategy for getting the first baby pics?

Wednesday Whirl

2006-01-11T15:31:00.000-08:00

Kimora Lee Simmons channels her inner Mariah Carey with her new book cover. (Gawker)
The alleged true story behind the Colin Farrell sex tape fiasco. (Jossip)
Lil' Kim gets her own reality show, where we get to "meet Kimberly Jones as a person, but not as a public icon", which means we get to see Kim's inner skank.
Linguistic experts discover that Agatha Christie's novels are so popular because they are actually readable.
Maybe there should only be 45 degrees of Anderson Cooper. (Slate)
Billy Crystal is too busy to host the Oscars this year, because he's already scheduled to bore people to tears elsewhere.
Quentin Tarantino is still suffering from delusions of grandeur.
Al Reynolds was so fascinated when he first saw his wife, Star, because he thought she was the perfect drag queen. (D Listed)
Is this restaurant trying to find a clever way to avoid pest control? (A Socialite's Life)
Will Blockbuster soon go the way of the VHS cassette tape? (Slate)

Sour Notes

2006-01-09T23:21:00.000-08:00

Interview with Mary J. Blige. (AHH)
Hip Hop has even taken over the world of ringtones. (Adrants)
Beyonce is putting music on hold to concentrate on her movie career. (Billboard)
Bringing indie and foreign music to the masses over the internet. (NYT)
Avril Lavigne gives up the faux-punk look and goes glam. (ONTD)
Britney Spears shows us why some celebrities need handlers. (IDLYITW)
Jermaine Dupri is working on an autobiography.
Is Chris Brown supposed to be the next Usher, or the next Tevin Campbell? (SOHH)
LL Cool J says that Lou Rawls taught him how to be humble.
Some music predictions for this year. (Perez Hilton)
Being famous is apparently really exhausting. (MTV)
Interview with Kanye West. (AHH)
Sia Furler's album will be available soon. (Billboard)
Who would ever have thought that we would see someone like Master P on a show like "Dancing with the Stars"?
Is it just me, or does Lauryn Hill look like the girl on the Morton's Salt box in these pics? (ONTD)
Obie Trice acts as if getting shot in the head is an everyday thing. (Davey D)

Random Ruminations

2006-01-09T22:25:00.000-08:00

After leaving his wife and kids for Sheryl Crow, Lance Armstrong has decided to dump her, too.
Will Nicolette Sheridan need a new set of front teeth after this painful looking event that some people are trying to call a kiss? (Dlisted)
Why gay guys tend to be catty. (Queerty)
Crispin Glover + Courtney Peldon = Creepy Critters. (Perez Hilton)
ABC continues to perpetuate sexism with its evening newscast. (NYT)
If kids could choose their role models, who would they pick? (ONTD)
Hopefully, Melania Trump's spermination went as quickly and as quietly as possible. (Jossip)
Steven Spielberg defends Dakota Fanning's honor against big, bad, old meanies like Kathy Griffin. (Dlisted)
Catherine Zeta-Jones is trying to reinvent Michael Douglas's life by inserting herself into his past.
How does Jamie Foxx get around with 1000 $1 bills? Does he carry a briefcase or something? And does he carry such small bills to ward off muggers? Or does he just like to be prepared for a spontaneous date at the strip club? (SF)
Isn't plastic surgery supposed to make you look younger? (Perez Hilton)
The Independent profiles Terrance Howard.
Adrienne Curry says that when the cameras are turned off, Tyra is "Naomi Campbell, in your face". (ONTD)
Sienna Miller admits that getting naked is what she does best.

News and Nonsense

2006-01-09T21:25:00.000-08:00

The Observer profiles Naomi Campbell.
Chad Lowe will have to go back to being known as "Rob Lowe's brother", because he won't be Hilary Swank's husband for much longer. (SFGate)
Why bother bringing The Da Vinci Code out in paperback? Is there anyone left who doesn't have a copy yet?
It looks as if Oprah will have to stick to the dead authors for her book club. (Metafilter)
Boner pill ads during the Superbowl have finally gone the way of Nipplegate. (Adrants)
Prepare for the Brokeback clones. (LAT)
Gwen Stefani will put her skills at crafting blindingly ugly fashions from leftover scraps of fabrics into designing baby clothing.
Will Smith is considering putting acting on hold to give Jada time to focus on her "music career". (Movie Blog)
R.I.P. Lou Rawls. (Independent)
Star Jones has won the record for the shortest-lived blog in history. (ONTD, Just Jared)
Hollywood goes grassroots. (Observer)

The Rom-Com as Sexual Foreplay

2006-01-08T23:02:00.000-08:00

Too bad we all can't write such eloquent articles as this one, and get them published in the NYT. But I guess there are only so many name-dropping, sex-starved, unfulfilled, and underachieving housewives who have the talent to carry it off. I wonder if the author ever thought that she would, one day, be able to add "writing about my nonexistent sex life in the NYT" to her resume? Technically I'm not a soccer mom - my kindergartener and second grader prefer sports involving leotards and little skirts - but I could pass for one. Despite graduating summa cum laude from college and attending an Ivy League law school, I now spend much of my life in a dented minivan driving little bodies to ballet, gymnastics and an occasional tennis lesson. I spend so much time being a mother that sometimes I forget to have sex. But my husband doesn't forget; sex is always on his radar screen. I need visual aids to get me going. To cut to the chase, this woman doesn't use porn to get herself in the mood-- no, she likes to watch inane romantic comedies. You know, the ones that usually feature people like Meg Ryan, Reese Witherspoon, or Sandra Bullock. Because her husband is so unappealing, and so unromantic, she has to get herself all wrapped up in some movie fantasy in order to be able to face him in the bedroom. I feel like Pee-wee Herman as I sit alone in the theater and watch two-dimensional stock characters; listen to surging, predictable scores; and eagerly anticipate the money shot in which the couple come together in a passionate embrace. Far from the seedy adult theaters, however, the movies I watch are more likely to be PG-13 than XXX. Others can have their porn; romantic comedies are my erotica. It took me a while to figure it out. Soon after the arrival of baby No. 1 my husband started joking about the 42-day countdown until the various sore and stretched-out parts of my body could return to recreational use. I responded by clipping countless articles about the national epidemic of sexless marriages, thinking I just had to lower his expectations. Obviously this woman either needs some counseling, a divorce, or a new husband... I joined a book club. I had dinner with friends. Which I enjoyed, of course, but it hardly filled me with longing for my husband, sexual or otherwise. Then one night I just needed the immediate gratification of a date movie: the witty banter, the great clothes, the happy ending. So I went, without the date. I got in my car and drove to the closest multiplex to see "You've Got Mail." Alone... Even the previews had me swooning: every one was aimed at my middle-aged, romantic-but-romance-starved female demographic. Then the feature started, and I found myself immediately engrossed in the fantasy of this imaginary world where the quest for love was elevated to the status of a holy pilgrimage. I knew the characters in all these movies were complete fantasy. I knew Meg Ryan wasn't really as klutzy and needy as the rest of us. I cared not. She still had a fabulously decorated New York apartment, owned the perfect children's bookstore and got to make out with Tom Hanks after months of building sexual tension. Since when did making out with Tom Hanks become something to fantasize about? Just as almost every Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie dances through the heady repartee of pursuit and courtship without crossing the threshold into the more somber marriage waltz, modern romantic comedies abruptly end where monogamous commitment begins. It's as if the entire entertainment industry knows that marriage can be a drag and that you had better stop the movie before reality hits. And of course, sigh, I understand. Marriage may be love, but it's not romance. Romance is about getting a sense, an impression, a notion of another person. There's the tension and thrill and not knowing what the other person really feels or whether you'll end up together. Love is about knowing all the facts - good and bad - and caring about the person anyway. Where romance is nuance, love is encyclopedic. I guess marriage would be boring, if you are married to a guy whose favorite time of year is "the official beginning of summer, when his father put away the long-sleeve dress shirts in favor of short sleeves." (Short-sleeved dress shirts? How tacky!) Maybe Tom Hanks is sexy... comparatively speaking.

A New Day for BET?

2006-01-08T21:58:00.000-08:00

What's new for Black Entertainment Television? LA Times interviews new Entertainment President of the network, Reginald Hudlin: Hudlin formally took over June 28, and he's starting to put his team together, hiring former CNN pop culture correspondent Touré; Selwyn Hinds, former editor of the Source magazine; and writer and filmmaker Nelson George to help shape a revamped version of BET News. He's looking for a director of animation. He's bought popular syndicated shows such as "In Living Color." In addition to pouring more resources into "College Hill," the reality series based at black universities that is BET's most popular offering, Hudlin this March is launching "Season of the Tigers," a reality series revolving around the football team and marching band of legendary Grambling State University. He's also interested in creating a Sunday evening version of "Meet the Press" that would feature black religious leaders instead of journalists discussing the issues of the week. But Hudlin cautions: "It's going to be years before BET is able to fulfill everyone's dream, just as it would at any other network. Don't call me up mad next time you see BET because 'that video' is still on. It takes a long time to develop shows. And we're going to do the right shows." The rest of the article can be found here.

Sour Notes

2006-01-03T16:22:00.000-08:00

A short documentary on the bad things that "bling" represents can be found here. (Byron Crawford)
How morbid. (HHB)
50 Cent gloats over his European tour, but doesn't mention how the women ignored him at a party thrown for him in a Paris nightclub.
Pras Michel says that comparing the Black Eyed Peas to The Fugees is like comparing Oasis to The Beatles. Now we know why he is rarely quoted. (HollywoodTuna)
Speaking of music stars with faulty logic, Will.I.Am says that he won't release another solo album unless it takes less than a week to record. If only he'd use that strategy for BEPs albums. (MTV)
Nellie McKay really is the new Fiona Apple... sort of. (NYT)
#1 hits are fleeting things these days.
"Yupsters" are reviving indie rock, according to Newsweek.
Is Angela Winbush thanking her lucky stars that she divorced Ron Isley?
Someone mistakenly told Ray J that he has "vocal skills".
Rob Thomas needs to stop using up other people's 15 minutes. (Stereogum)

News and Nonsense

2006-01-03T14:43:00.000-08:00

Jude Law is banned from the set of Sienna Miller's new film, because "the producers want her to concentrate on her acting"-- is memorizing lines from a script and pretending to be someone else really that complex? (3am Girls)
Terry McMillan pulled a Sienna Miller while her ex-husband Jonathan Plummer was laying his pipe on the down low. (Galleycat)
Does Coco from SWV supplement her royalties with this? (Adrants)
How movie theaters really make their profits. (Slate)
If Macaulay Culkin wouldn't give up secrets about his childhood friendship with Michael Jackson in a court trial, what makes the producers of "Big Brother" (UK) think that they can get him to reveal anything on the show's new season?
SF Bay Guardian looks in detail at the year (2005) in film.
This 16 year-old must have been really annoying, if he could disappear for 2 weeks and his parents didn't notice. (Jossip)
Unraveling the mystery of box office estimates. (Slate)
Ana Marie Cox is leaving Wonkette... funny, I thought she'd left ages ago. (Sploid)
Does this mean that Paris Hilton is into golden showers? (ONTD)
Is there something shady about MySpace's origins? (Adrants)
Are Superhead and Bill Maher getting engaged? And do his Hip Hop friends laugh at him behind his back? (DListed)
Is Woody Allen making movies in Europe in order to avoid the bad press caused by his marriage to his step-daughter?
Does Barbie promote bisexuality? (Towleroad)
Should a guy who qualifies for a senior discount still be doing his own stunts? (NYDN)
Can Star Jones keep avoiding the rumors about her husband Al after this? (Crunk and Disorderly)
If Ashlee Simpson can make it on, well, on nothing, then why does Jessica feel that she needs to keep getting plastic surgery? Ashlee should be her inspiration, showing her that you can be untalented and funny looking, and still make it big. (IDLYITW)

And Hopefully They Went Away with the Old Year

2006-01-03T14:01:00.000-08:00

Some of the most annoying things of 2005: (link via Thighs Wide Shut)

THE BLACK EYED PEAS: These hacks are bigger sellouts than the XBOX 360. Please enjoy their upcoming CD “Songs That Will Be Used to Advertise Crap” next year. Also their song, "My Humps" rivals "Hollaback Girl" as one of the year's most irritating. You know, if you have lumps, you should really get a mammogram instead of bragging about them in a song.
NICK AND JESSICA: 1,000 years from now, archaeologists will look at our news publications and figure that this celebrity duo must have been king and queen of the world. Why anyone is interested in these empty headed no-talent morons is a mystery to all mankind. I’m against The Patriot Act, but I’d be willing to sacrifice our civil liberties a bit to permit the government to put anyone who ever bought a Jessica Simpson record on a special island and do some bomb testing. Not only would you collectively increase the nation’s IQ, but you’d stick it to Wal-Mart by getting rid of 80% of their customer base.
CEDRIC THE ENTERTAINER: Why hasn’t somebody sued him for false advertising yet?
LOWERED STANDARDS FOR CELEBRITY STATUS: Remember when being a celebrity meant having something more than a tryout for an Old Navy commercial on your resume?
50 CENT: Nothing says gangsta like your own flavor of Vitamin Water. Maybe it's better to die tryin’, after all.
AUTOMATED CAMPAIGN CALLS: Also known as “robo calls” these pre-recorded messages from politicians and celebrities pollute answering machines across America during election time. I never thought I’d see the day when I missed telemarketing calls.
ASHLEE SIMPSON: I can understand people with no singing talent getting record contracts based on looks and sex appeal, but Ashlee Simpson doesn’t even have that going for her. It makes you wonder if someone at her record company lost a bet.
RUBBER COMMEMORATIVE BRACELETS: Whoops! The yellow dye in those LIVESTRONG bracelets causes cancer. Sorry, folks!
HOLLABACK GIRL: I liked this song better the first time, when it was called “Hey Mickey!”, but it’s about the best song featuring fecal matter and bananas since Lobo’s ‘70s hit “Me and You And a Shitty Banana Named Boo”.
MEDIA COVERAGE OF ARUBA KIDNAP VICTIM, NATALEE HOLLAWAY: The media was never more racist than it's coverage of the missing white Alabama teen. News channels covered her disappearance round the clock, while Hispanic woman Carmen Sandiego remains missing with no media attention whatsoever.

Random Ruminations

2006-01-02T17:08:00.000-08:00

Apparently, Orlando Bloom is not going to be the next big thing. (NYT)
Internet searches mirror real life; while women want health info and religious guidance, guys want sports stats and porn. (CNN)
How different would entertainment be if Paris Hilton didn't exist?
"Munich" is the movie that Spielberg filmed knowing that it wouldn't be a blockbuster hit. (Independent)
If you shook Nicole Richie's hand, would it break instantaneously? (DListed)
Some snarky celeb quotes. (ONTD)
Naomi Campbell says that "black don't crack", which is what someone should have told Lil' Kim and Vivica Fox. (3am Girls)
What's the use of dieting, when you could save money and just have it all sucked out, lifted, and reshaped? (Observer)
Speaking of plastic surgery, it must be pretty bad if someone offers you a free boob job.
What was Becks thinking? What in the would would Posh do with a chocolate cascade machine? (SF)
Maybe Luke Wilson just needs to buy bigger pants... (ONTD)

Celebrities Say the Dumbest Things

2006-01-02T16:48:00.000-08:00

Some regrettable quotes (one would hope) from 2005:

Seventy-year-old actress Eileen Atkins told reporters last summer that Colin Farrell, her co-star in the upcoming "Ask the Dust," repeatedly asked her to sleep with him, but she turned him down. "I spent 2 1/2 hours saying no," she explained. "But it cheered me up fantastically."

Saying she had given up on dating other actors, "Fantastic Four" star Jessica Alba explained: "I have decided I am too high-maintenance to have another relationship with an actor. I do not need somebody who wants as much hair and makeup time as me."
After it was discovered that Russell Simmons' Phat Fashions firm had made only $14.3 million, not the "$350 million" in sales he had publicly boasted about, the rap entrepreneur explained, "It's how you develop an image for companies.... You give out false statements to mislead the public so they will then increase in their mind the value of your company."
Bruce Willis said he would give a $1-million reward to anyone who turns in Al Qaeda terrorist chief Osama bin Laden, saying: "I want to live in a world, and so do the Iraqi people, where they cannot have to fear being killed. Who doesn't want that?"
When Michael Jackson was in the midst of his child molestation trial early last year, Britney Spears said one of his friends should get him to loosen up, explaining, "He needs someone to be like, 'OK, let's give you a mustache, let's rough you up, let's go to a bar, let's get drunk and be a man.' "

The rest can be found here:

"Acting Up Just Goes with the Territory" (LAT)

Sour Notes

2006-01-02T15:49:00.000-08:00

Maybe Toni Braxton is considering posing topless for Playboy because her album sales have been dismal. I thought we'd already seen everything there was to see on her; I guess there are some things that only a gynecologist should be exposed to...
Charitable work is nice, but according to the members of U2, making music is much more important.
Apparently, a whole lot of tipsy people woke up with a hangover, and proceeded to forget all about J-Kwon. (Cake and IceCream)
K-Fed's crappy album hasn't even debuted and he's already got a beef with someone. (ONTD)
How to make a "hip End of the Year Albums list". (My Blog is Poop)
Akon aspires to be Fiddy 2.0.
Speaking of Fiddy, he's got a cousin named 25 Cent, and a new beef. Who's going to be next? A skanky niece named "Penny Candy"? (ONTD)
Obie Trice gets shot "while driving".
LOGO, the new gay and lesbian tv network, plays more videos than MTV, which isn't a difficult feat to accomplish.
Interview with Jamie Foxx. (CNN)
Tom Jones gets knighted, thereby raising the social status of half of the population of Wales.
I'm sure that Mariah could wake up in time for snowboarding lessons if she were allowed to hit the snow in a figure skating outfit. (ONTD)
"Why Women are Fed Up with Hip Hop". (HipHop Music)
John Mayer decided to give co-writing credits to the winner of his lyrics contest, in order to avoid a new year filled with litigation. (Billboard)

...Because Silicone Keeps the Body Warm

2006-01-02T15:35:00.000-08:00

How else can you explain why people like Mariah and Victoria Beckham seem to be immune to the cold weather? Or maybe implants are better kept at cold temperatures... who really knows? (Image via We Love Celebs!)

All in the Family

2006-01-02T14:46:00.000-08:00

Being famous just by being your celebrity sibling's accessory for the night seems to be the trend these days:

Solange Knowles, 19: The former backup dancer for Destiny's Child didn't shine as bright as her bootylicious big sister Beyoncé when she released her own album "Solo Star" in 2003. Instead, she spent the following year focusing on family, marrying college football player Daniel Smith and giving birth to son Daniel Julez. With a role in "Johnson Family Vacation" tucked under her belt, Solange was recently cast in the cheerleading franchise "Bring It On 3." Still hopeful for a musical destiny, she is slated to perform on Kelly Rowland's upcoming album.
Ray J, 24: Brandy's little brother has been packing punches with his new single, "One Wish," released on his own label, Knockout Entertainment. Now a full-fledged heartthrob, he has overcome the awkwardness of adolescence and battles Usher for best abs. In a twist, he signed Brandy to his label last year.
Ali Lohan, 12: Lindsay look-alike Ali will soon hear whether or not she landed a spot hosting a kids' show for Disney, and is about to record a 2006 Christmas album. She's not even a teenager yet, which means there are plenty of sweet, sugarcoated years before this plucky soccer player from Long Island falls prey to body-image issues, well-publicized catfights, confessional lyrics and Wilmer Valderrama.
Haylie Duff, 21: The actress' career has blossomed since lil' sis Hilary became a certified hottie. With a regular gig on television's "7th Heaven" and six films slated for next year, Duff senior may deliver true talent - or just pose in her knickers for lad rags like Maxim - she's their January cover - to win fans.

Now, the questions are:

Will Haylie Duff become the more famous sibling, since Hilary seems to be starving herself into oblivion?

Is Brandy embarrassed by the fact that Ray J's blowing up these days (after all of his persistence-- it must have been difficult to keep getting into VIP events and other gatherings without a real invitation.

When the Knowles family gets together, do they forget that Solange is there? She seems to have been forgotten for their Christmas commercial for Walmart (her baby was there, but she wasn't). Apparently, Kelly Rowland felt sorry for her, and decided to let her "help out" on her new solo album.

Link via ONTD

News and Nonsense

2006-01-02T14:08:00.000-08:00

Bobby Brown says that he's the reason that Atlanta is hot; because drug dealers are finding it hard to stay undercover with famous crackheads like Bobby and Whitney living there. (Crunk and Disorderly)
It seems that Beverly Peel, who used to be the poor man's Naomi Campbell, found identity theft to be more lucrative than her long-dead modeling career. (ONTD)
Since Lindsay Lohan decided to give up her place as one half of the Skeletwins, Hilary Duff is hoping to take her place. (Adrants)
Richard de Angelis (Col. Raymond Foerster on The Wire) passed away.
Some predictions for Hollywood for 2006. (Slate)
I wonder what happens to the women who don't end up winning this new reality show? Can you add something like "placed Runner Up on the 'Can You be a Pornstar' Reality show" to your resume?
Elizabeth Hurley had an acting career? I guess her real acting talent can be reflected in the way she's managed to keep smiling through all of her hellish relationship problems.
Pimp My Ride leaves MTV to join the trashtastic tv lineup on the Discovery Channel.

The Year They All Disappear

2006-01-02T13:41:00.000-08:00

Will Halle Berry's movie career make it past 40? Or will she suffer the same fate that Michelle Pfeiffer, Melanie Griffith, Angela Bassett, and countless other Hollywood actresses have experienced? With Berry seemingly still in her prime, stunningly good looking and much in demand, perhaps she will prove an exception to the rule. But Hollywood is littered with tales of aging starlets who see their careers take a nosedive after they pass the big 4-0. "A perfect example would be Michelle Pfeiffer," says James Parish, a Hollywood historian and author of Katharine Hepburn: The Untold Story. The 47-year old Scarface and Batman Returns actress has not had a leading movie role in years. "She does very few films - not because she's not talented, not because she's not pretty in a mature way, but just because there aren't many parts for women over 40," says Mr Parish. "Particularly when you're known for playing a sex kitten it's very hard to play that part when you're in your 40s." Halle could end up having a lucrative post-40 career like Susan Sarandon, one of the few actresses who still gets good roles and is still seen as a sex symbol. If she can pull herself out of this post-Oscar slump... "Growing Old in Hollywood" (BBC)

A New Kind of Rejuvenation

2006-01-02T13:15:00.000-08:00

Will we eventually be subjected to fashions for the masses that show off new work such as this? Pubic hair is out; the ubiquity of so-called Brazilian waxes, once the domain of porn stars and movie actresses, has ensured that this mossy covering is deemed no more than an aesthetic hindrance to the unfettered male gaze. Which leaves the one part of the female body formerly not available to harsh scrutiny now glaringly on display, held up to culturally defined aesthetic standards undreamed of by the smut-obsessed author of "My Secret Life," borrowed as they are from centerfolds and online pornography. Sagging groin skin and limp labia are going the way of crooked noses and post-nursing breasts, courtesy of new cosmetic surgeries focused on this once-neglected hinterland of female beauty. As recently noted in an article in The Wall Street Journal, vaginal plastic surgery is one of the field's fastest growing sectors, and its high priest, one Dr. David Matlock of - where else? - Los Angeles, claims that he has a five-month waiting list for women eager to get that Playboy look. What's the point of covering it up? If you paid thousands of dollars to get it fixed, you want everyone to see it, right? Could you imagine Mariah Carey wearing turtlenecks all the time? We are constantly subjected to celebrity foibles such as nip slips-- are we to face a future of "clit slips" (some of which have been pioneered by Lil' Kim and Elisha Dusku?) Really, this new trend is kind of saddening... there are countless young people out there who see a pair of real breasts and complain that there is something wrong with them, because they're not "perfect"... um... maybe that's because it's not natural? Even the concept of "virginity" has been turned out. For those who care about such things, you may not ever know if you're mating with a woman who's lived through several virgin periods... and I'm not talking about the symbolic "born again virgin" movement... Hymen-reattachment surgery, once a desperate stratagem undertaken by young women from Muslim, Asian and Latin American cultures that demonized the loss of virginity before marriage, is now being hawked as a way to enjoy a second honeymoon. If it's unclear whom this procedure is meant for - aging women hoping to catch a flagging penis with the semblance of undeflowered innocence? - it's even more ontologically ungraspable how stitching a hymen back together vitiates the psychological experience of having already lost your virginity. But it is being advertised heavily in print as well as online, and one enterprising doctor who trained with Matlock says he performs about a dozen such operations a month and fields voluminous amounts of e-mail inquiries. Full article can be found here: "Our Vaginas, Ourselves" (NYT)

Sour Notes

2005-12-13T08:05:00.000-08:00

Usher enjoys colonics, but unlike Paris Hilton, he doesn't indulge in anything harder than water. (Rod Online)
Canada decided not to ban 50 Cent, but he's only allowed into the country without his riffraff-- I mean, sans entourage... (Davey D)
Does Victoria Beckham's head turn a complete 360 degrees? (ASL)
Will.I.Am gets down to Monkey Business. (AHH)
Jamie Foxx wants everyone to know that he's no Eddie Murphy.
Foxy Brown has lost her hearing and her mind. (Davey D)
Isn't it time for Kanye West to put his cock back into his mouth? (MTV)
Not realizing that most of their teen fans have grown up, Take That overshoots their target in trying to capture an adult demographic.
John Legend ditches the romantic ballads for protest songs... which is sort of reminiscent of what George Michael did.
Speaking of George Michael, he says that he wishes he could have had Andrew Ridgeley's life, because things are so much easier in the land of obscurity. (Guardian UK)
Moby is the world's most famous beef loving vegan. (Scoop)
Interview with the chavtastic version of Destiny's Child: The Sugababes. (Observer)
Prince goes back into slavery. (MSN)

Michelle Branch Throws a Teenybopper Rant

2005-12-13T07:34:00.000-08:00

I wonder if she stomped her feet while posting this: What I am most frustrated at, I suppose is...I pay money to keep this website up so all of you "fans" can talk about our music. Why would I want to spend the money so the majority of you can sit around and bitch about us? I understand that you are frustrated with the fact that there isn't any music for you to listen to. Don't you think Jessica and I are frustrated too?? We finished this record over a year ago and were sent on a lame ass tour we didn't want to be on. It was a horrible idea to headline a show playing music that nobody had ever heard. Maverick wanted to make a quick buck, and unfortunately, we were obligated by contract to do so. I was 5 months pregnant when we started that tour and believe me...it was the last place I wanted to be. Then I got pushed into doing a Santana song I didn't want to do (I didn't write it either, Shanks wanted me to sing it so bad, that was a bargaining tool), Maverick wouldn't let me do it unless Jess was on it so they would get "free" promotion for a record they didn't even understand or believe in for the most part. The record wasn't released because Maverick didn't want me promoting an album pregnant. they thought it would look bad to my young fans...bull. I guess nobody had heard the songs she played on tour, because nobody bothered to buy her second album... that shitty Santana song scared everyone away. Anyway, she doesn't seem to have any complaints about the royalty checks she's getting from that headache inducing mess of a song. As far as 'biting the hand that feeds you'... I would give nothing more than to play music in a shitty bar and fold clothes at The Gap for a living. My "being famous" has done nothing but ruin my relationship with my parents, mostly my Father and it has made me hate doing what I used to love more than life itself...playing music. I have been pushed around and now most of you see me as someone who I never really was, and most of you can't accept the plain fact that people change and grow up and I'm not the little girl you think I am. I have a family of my own now, a baby...the last thing I could imagine doing is making music. I'm fine financially (although I don't make millions contrary to popular belief.) and being a famous musician has brought nothing to my life besides strife. (Okay, I met my wonderful husband and bandmate because of it.) I have maybe written two songs in the past year. That's ridiculous. This isn't fun for me anymore. I'm sick of sucking dick to get my music heard, putting on a fake smile, and saying things that are acceptable. What did she think the life of a recording artist would be like? Didn't she know that sucking dick is a way of life in the entertainment industry? I guess she hasn't had the chance to work with Kanye West just yet...

Stanley Crouch slaps Richard Pryor with a nasty editorial

2005-12-13T07:07:00.000-08:00

Richard Pryor, in the words of Stanley Crouch: This past Saturday Richard Pryor left this life and bequeathed to our culture as much darkness as he did the light his extraordinary talent made possible. When we look at the remarkable descent this culture has made into smut, contempt, vulgarity and the pornagraphic, those of us who are not willing to drink the Kool-Aid marked "all's well," will have to address the fact that it was the combination of confusion and comic genius that made Pryor a much more negative influence than a positive one... So, in Crouch's view, Pryor was responsible for every half-talented, potty mouthed comedian/celebrity who got any media exposure: In the dung piles of pimp and gangster rap we hear from slime meisters like Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent, the worst of Pryor's influence has been turned into an aspect of the new minstrelsy in which millions of dollars are made by "normalizing" demeaning imagery and misogyny. Of course, Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam is the ultimate coon show update of human cesspools, where "cutting edge" has come to mean traveling ever more downward in the sewer. Crouch manages to paint Pryor as a pathetic creature who never had sense enough to realize what his true talent was: What is so unfortunate is that the heaviest of Pryor's gifts was largely ignored by so many of those who praised the man when he was alive and are now in the middle of deifying him. The pathos and the frailty of the human soul alone in the world or insecure or looking for something of meaning in a chaotic environment was a bit too deep for all of the simpleminded clowns like Andrew Dice Clay or those who thought that mere ethnicity was enough to define one as funny, like the painfully square work of Paul Rodriguez. In essence, Pryor stunned with his timing, his rhythm, his ability to stand alone and fill the stage with three-dimensional characters through his remarkably imaginative gift for an epic sweep of mimicry. Apparently, Stanley was the only person who could see the deeper meaning behind Richard Pryor's comedy routines. Or maybe Richard insulted him at some point during his lifetime. Who knows. Stanley Crouch is known for retaliating in the nastiest ways. (Link via TMFTML)