Miss Wendy's
Texas Love Advice
Plus Some Occasional Comments on the
State of the Popular Culture
L-R: Michael Mazocco, Wendy
R. Williams, Armistead Johnson
Photo Credit: Stephen Mosher
August 31, 2010
So Paris Hilton has
been arrested in Las Vegas for possession of cocaine.
My oh my - she must have been really jealous of
the publicity (Maxim and Vanity Fair covers) Lindsay
Lohan received for staging her jail-and-rehab drama
for the public eye.
Three
Comments:
1. Nevada is a pretty nasty place to do any jail
time.
2. This whole business
is a dichotomy. Las Vegas promotes itself as the
place where you go "to do coke with people
like Paris Hilton." So the casino owners have
a stake in making this business go away. After all,
they don't want hot-little-coked-up-girls to avoid
Vegas.
3. Here is the one
that no one calls: The reason celebrities like Paris
Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Kate Moss use coke as
their drug of choice is because their careers depend
on them staying razor thin and coke takes away your
appetite. As Dolly Parton famously said, "There
is no such thing as natural beauty."
P. S. I am not promoting
coke. It is a nasty addictive drug that will ruin
someone's life (addiction, bankruptcy, jail?). I'm
just calling it as it is.
August 30, 2010
Lea Michelle at the Emmys
August 29, 2010
PR Photos
Here is a You
Got it Going Girl Award to Miss Lea Michelle
who looked stunning at last night's Emmy Awards
in a Oscar de la Renta gown. Dorothy Parton famously
said that "There is no such thing as natural
beauty," and Miss Michelle certainly proves
Parton's hypothesis. Michelle is a naturally pretty
girl who worked like a dog (the gym, the hairdresser
[extensions?], hours of fitttings, posing lessons)
to pull off this stunner.
August 26, 2010:
It has been some
week in celebrity culture:
Lindsay Lohan got out of
rehab early with strict requirements for outpatient
care. It seems she was not as addicted as the tabloids
thought. And this "not being as addicted as
the tabloids thought" might also explain why
she never failed one of her court mandated random
drug and alcohol tests.
Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren are finally divorced
and Elin gave an interview to People magazine and
told the writer that she was incredibly hurt, did
not suspect he was running around and most importantly
of all that she did not hit him with that golf club.
So there.
And the Oksana/Mel
mishegas keeps rolling along. The police are investigating
Mel for domestic abuse and Oksana for extortion.
Wouldn't it be ironic if they both ended up spending
some time in jail? This tale would make a fine plot
for an opera that would end with both protagonists
caged on the stage. Glass houses!
August 18, 2010:
Here is my wade into
the proposed Islamic Study Center for the vicinity
of Ground Zero. The flames of controversy are being
fanned by Republicans, who are trying to create
an issue to rile up their base. A lot of people
in the heartland are envisioning a Mosque right
in the heart of Ground Zero. In fact the Islamic
study center is going to be built in a building
a few blocks away that used to house a Burlington
Coat Factory. According to the Daily
News (in an article titled "Mosque gets
all the press, but area near Ground Zero full of
bars, porn, liquor stores, salons"), right
next to the site of the proposed Islamic Study Center
are "17 pizza shops, 18 bank branches, 11 bars,
10 shoe stores and 17 separate salons where a girl
can get her lady parts groomed." Also in the
same "shadow of Ground Zero" (according
to the same Daily News article) is the "Pussycat
Lounge, a strip club where a photo of a nearly naked
woman marks its location just two blocks from where
the World Trade Center stood....Or the Thunder Lingerie
and peep show next door, where the marquee sports
an American flag above a window display of sex toys
and something called a "power pump." The
hallowed ground known as "the shadow of Ground
Zero" that will be "sullied by a Mosque"
simply does not exist.
Our constitution
guarantees everyone the freedom to worship as they
please and to support this freedom, we must defend
that rights for religions that make us uncomfortable.
And just for the record, Muslims do not make me
uncomfortable. I know there are thousands of different
variations of Muslims and the people who attacked
the World Trade Center and the Taliban are obscure
sects of Islam and Muslims should not be defined
by these extremists anymore than Christians would
like to be defined by David
Koresh or Jim
Jones. Plus I live in New York and I know a
lot of Muslims and because I know them, I see them
as people not as bogey men. It is much easier to
villanize the unknown.
Now about the sex
shops: I believe in freedom of speech but if the
Republicans are hell bent on trampling on the Constitution,
I would prefer they go after the porn first.
The waxing parlors
add another strange twist to this mishegas. The
ladies working those parlors are probably in favor
of the new Islamic Study Center. Muslim women having
been waxing their basement floors for hundreds of
years so they will be good for business.
And for a final
twist: If there had been a large Islamic Study Center
in the vicinity of Ground Zero, perhaps the suicide
bombers would have thought twice before plowing
their planes into the World Trade Center.
Hey this is New York!
Nothing can be explained on a banner.
August 15, 2010:
There is a very funny
article on MSNBC.com
about how the Chinese have reinstated group exercise
at work. Every day at 10AM and 3PM at all government
owned businesses, there is an announcement and everyone
gets up and completes a set of eight minute exercises
together. I say funny, but this is actually brilliant.
Just think about how if we did this, it would reduce
the number of workers who suffer from back problems,
high blood pressure, stress and other ailments caused
by our high pressure but sedentary jobs. If these
ailments were reduced by even five percent, that
would be a five percent reduction in our nation's
health care costs. So kudos to the Chinese, and
let's all say Tai Chi, stand up and hold that pose.
August 12, 2010
The Beat Goes On:
That silly Bill O'Reilly
is trying to start a feud with Jennifer Aniston
because she said that women can have a baby without
the participation of a "known" man by
simply visiiting a sperm bank (see
Daily News). He thinks Aniston's statement is
really bad for 12 year old girls who might be influenced
to visit a sperm bank instead of getting pregnant
the old fashioned way. This is an incredible amount
of fun on so many levels starting with 12 year old
girls being influenced by Jennifer Aniston and then
moving to the vision of randy teenage girls bypassing
the local studs and marching into the sperm bank.
Mr.O'Reilly is obviously trapped in the past when
Dan Quayle railed against Murphy Brown (played by
Candice Bergen) for having a baby as a single mother.
I am sure he knows his audience, but where is he
finding people so sheltered that they do not realize
that 40% of all babies have been born out of wedlock
(New
York Times) since at least 2007, long before
Jennifer Aniston opened her mouth.
August 10, 2010
The Beat Goes On: There is
no truly scandalous news in the world today. Lindsay
Lohan is still in rehab so there is none of her
mishegas to report. Oksana is still using the media
to pummel Mel for the (alleged) pummeling he gave
her, but they have both become BORING. Levi Johnson
has a new reality TV deal where he will "supposedly"
run for mayor of Wasilla. Hey, why not? The bar
seems to be set pretty low for that job.
But this is the summer
of cop TV. There are four great new cop shows: Fox's
The Good
Guys, TNT's Memphis Beat, A &
E's The
Glades and TNT's Dark Blue. TNT's
Rizolli and Isles ranks as a trailing fifth.
(The TNT website is down this morning so I could
not link their shows).
And for your continued
summer viewing pleasure, there is also one knock-out-of-the
park Vampire story, The
Gates. Now normally I am opposed to watching
vampire shows (cultural snobbery), but this one
is simply great.
And of course, there is Mad
Men which is every bit as stylish and mesmerizing
as before. The period details are simply astonishing.
And last but definitely
not least, USA's Covert
Affairs. I did not think Piper Perabo could
pull off the role of a cover operative for the CIA;
I thought she would look cheesy with a twist of
bimbo (the commercials for the show definitely did
not help). But I was wrong. Perabo comes across
the screen as plucky, inventive and fun, and the
show is a great carnival ride.
It is hot as hell
outside, so now is a great time to crank up the
AC, close the blinds and watch all these incredible
shows. We can all pretend we are vampires and not
go back outside until the sun quits scorching the
city.
August 6, 2010
The Beat Goes On: There is
sad news. It seems that Whoopi Goldberg did not
bitch slap Michelle Salahi (the White House gate
crasher now star of The Real Housewives of D.C)
when Salahi and the other cast members were guests
on The View. Oh well. There is always another
day.
August 5, 2010
The Beat Goes On:
There was good news today
in the campaign for marriage equality. A Federal
Judge set aside Proposition 8, the California law
that stated that marriage could only be between
a man and a woman. Mazel Tov!
August 4, 2010
The
Beat Goes On: Here is a big bouquet of kudos
to Donald Trump who has the "getting free media
attention" gig down. "The Donald"
has just told
Page 6 that he thinks it is "tacky"
that "Kathleen Hammer and her real-estate developer
husband, Arthur Seelbinder, [who are] the owners
of Astor Courts, the Stanford White-designed 50-acre
Rhinebeck estate where Chelsea Clinton got married
on Saturday... Before the champagne spills were
even dry, a full-page ad ran on Page 2 of The Post
headlined, "Yes. It's for Sale . . . Home of
Recent Celebrity Wedding" and calling the $12
million property a "National Treasure.""
Trump has a genius for scoring free publicity by
starting mini-brawls. Remember his "fun for
the entire family" feud with Rosie O'Donnell.
The bit where he stated on a talk show that Angelina
Jolie was not beautiful (this one did not work because
Jolie and her camp simply ignored him). And his
recent barbs aimed at Tiger Wood's ex-mistress,
Rachel Uchitel, who decided to sign on for Celebrity
Rehab instead of Trump's show, The Celebrity
Apprentice.
The great fun in
this whole brouhaha is that Hammer and Seelbinder
(the owners of Astor Court) probably don't mind.
They had to pay for the Post ad; this publicity
is free. And to be a little cynical, do you think
the reason the Clinton's keep insisting that Chelsea's
wedding did not cost more than a million, as opposed
to the three to five million estimates in the media,
is that they got a discount on the rent because
Hammer and Seelbinder realized that their property
would greatly increase in value because of this
fame of being the site of Chelsea's wedding.
Anyway, congrats
to all, say Hallelujah and pass the biscuits and
gravy.
August 2, 2010
Ruminations:
Every time I see any of the following people on
TV of in the tabloids, I want to run screaming around
the room until my neighbors complain:
1. Michael
Lohan: He brays away for any camera or microphone
he can find. The real danger of childhood stardom
may be what it does to the parents; especially for
parents who have never managed to "find their
own way." They can become addicted to opining
on Entertainment Tonight the same way a
crack addict is addicted to crack.
2. Gloria Allred:
She flew to COLORADO to supposedly represent the
former Aspen policewoman, Valerie McFarlane. who
was fired for unrelated improprieties after she
arrested Charlie Sheen. But the real purpose (of
course) was to hold a press conference. Does anyone
believe that McFarlane, who is bagging groceries
for a living, had the money to pay Allred a retainer,
much less foot the lawyer bill. Just who paid for
Ms. Allred's airfare and hotel room? Hmm.
3. Mel
Gibson and Oksana Oksana Grigorieva: They
throw fish out after three days and Miss Grigorieva
and her tapes, emails, and text messages need to
get out of the tabloids and into the District Attorney's
office where they might or might not (were they
recorded legally? were they tampered?) belong.
4. Any
of those people on The Bachelor and The
Bachelorette: The file in my brain where
I store low class people is already full and there
is absolutely no room for their shenanigans.
5. The
Kardashians, the cast of Jersey Shore and
The Real Housewives of New Jersey:
For obvious reasons.
Would the Academy
Award girls please come get these idiots and walk
them off the stage.
July 31, 2010
Chelsea Clinton Dancing
with Marc Mezvinsky
2007 School of American Ballet Winter Ball
Photo Credit Katherin Wermke
The
Beat Goes On: It has been a wild week in
celebrity culture:
* It is confirmed:
Chelsea Clinton is marry Marc Mezvinsky tonight
in Rhinebeck, New York. Congratulations to both!
Click here
for more information about the wedding and here
to see the photos New York Cool photographer Katherin
Wermke took of Chelsea at the 2007 School of American
Ballet Winter Ball (Chelsea was a junior chairperson).
Also, click here
for photos of Chelsea at the pre-ball party at the
Tuleh showroom.
* Someone named Snooki
(Obama
does not know who she is either) was arrested
for disorderly conduct and released. Click here
if you would like to know who Snooki is; there is
nothing like being "in with the in crowd."
*Lindsay Lohan is
not out of jail yet, but our hearts are fluttering
in anticipation of her release. There will be twenty-four
hours of tabloid heaven (Will she see Samantha?
Will her father bray for the cameras, AGAIN?) before
Miss Lohan is dumped back into rehab. How will we
stand it if she turns into Drew Barrymore?
*Lohan's father Michael
is still addicted to publicity, doing everything
he can to get in front of the camera and opine about
his daughter Lindsay (who quite understandably refuses
to see him). Lohan's behavior is like that of deer
who have become addicted to eating campfire food
and have forgotten how to forage. I normally cannot
stomach Dr. Phil's washing someone's dirty laundry
on television. But Michael Lohan desperately needs
a Dr. Phil intervention and Lohan will certainly
not mind that his intervention is publicized for
the world to see.
The advice would be simple:
1. Do not ever mention
your daughter's name in public again, ever.
2. Make something
of yourself on your own merits; don't expect breaks
for being Lindays' dad.
3. Get some class.
* The Portland DA
has declined to prosecute Al Gore for inappropriate
sexual conduct. Click here
for the Associated Press article about the Portland
Da's decision to not prosecute and the reasons he
made that decision. Did anyone other than the most
avid Fox News addicts not see this one coming?
July 30, 2010
The
Beat Goes On: Every day we are treated to
another recording of the Mel Gibson/Oksana Griogorieva
mishegas. And the one aspect of this horror that
no one in the media is covering, is the affect this
will have on their daughter Lucia and Mel Gibson's
seven other children who will now grow up a world
where everyone knows that their father flew into
a rage and (allegedly) physically and verbally abused
Lucia's mother. Now no one thinks this type of abuse
should be swept under the carpet, but in the end
Miss Griogorieva will gain nothing from this notoriety.
She will have seriously damaged her chances of finding
yet a third Baby Daddy to support her; right thinking
men will avoid Miss Griogorieva like the plague.
And Mel Gibson will supposedly "never work
in this town again," seriously damaging him
financially and perhaps his ability to support his
EIGHT children in the manner to which they have
become accustomed. And for what gain? Does Miss
Griogorieva truly think she will be able to get
sole custody of the baby? Isn't it much more likely
that the courts would order probation and counseling,
but he will still have visitation and eventually
joint custody. And that outcome will be negotiated
in family court, not on Radaronline. "Hell
doth have no fury like a woman scorned," but
when soon-to-be-separated-or-divorced couples conduct
a public brawl, the gun is always pointed at their
own feet.
There is a reason
our mothers always told us to "Never wash your
dirty laundry in public."
On the bright side of this
mess: Tiger Woods, Elin Woods and Al Gore
are sincerely grateful to Miss Griogorieva for catapulting
them away from the eye of the tabloid storm. But
not so much Lindsay Lohan whose hair extension in
jail are still headline material.
July
27, 2010
Paloma Faith
Cartier International Polo Day Match at Windsor
Park
July 25, 2010
Photo Credit: Landmark / PR Photos
The
Beat Goes On: Here is a hoot of a photo that
just floated across the pond. No one but the English
can pull of a look like this. Can you imagine the
planning that took place to come up with this level
of frumpiness? But this is the kind of frumpiness
that spins the dial and becomes terminally cool.
Nevertheless, I would not copy this look for a Hamptons
polo match.
Cyndi Lauper The Early Show Summer Concert Series
CBS Plaza in New York City
July 20, 2010
Photo Credit: Janet Mayer / PR Photos
Here is one of my
You Got It Going Girl awards for Miss Cyndi
Lauper. The fifty-seven year old Lauper is still
rocking it and looking good.
It
has been another strange week in celebrity culture;
schadenfreude
is riding high:
A. Lindsay Lohan is in jail and the world is being
fed tidbits from impeccable sources like recently
released inmates of the LA County Jail.
B. The National Enquirer is now stating that there
are two other masseuses who think Al Gore is a naughty
boy. These masseuses have no names, the incidents
have no dates and there are no alleged locations
other than a hotel in Los Angeles and a hotel in
Tokyo. And none of them are being represented by
Gloria Allred - YET.
C. Charlie Sheen is trying to work out a deal with
the Aspen prosecutor to be placed on probation instead
of serving jail time with no cigarettes. He might
want to rethink this one. If he is sentenced to
probation and gets in a bar fight or drives drunk,
he can be thrown in jail for a long sentence. And
since Sheen has such an addictive personality that
he cannot go without cigarettes for 30 days, the
probability of him getting into additional "trouble"
is high. And then he might have to spend a lot more
than 30 days in the slammer without cigarettes.
D. We are being daily
regaled with the Mel Gibson tapes and strange photos
of his ex-ladylove, Oksana Grigorieva, with missing/broken
veneers and a baby with what looks like a pimple
on her chin. Attorney Lisa Bloom, Gloria Allred's
daughter and Michael Lohan's legal eagle, is salivating
over every detail on The Insider. If those
tapes are authentic (since Mel has not denied them,
they probably are), Mel is a very bad man. Miss
Grigorieva may very well be a domestic violence
victim but she is no saint either. And this sordid
tale is a cautionary tale for any man who contemplates
playing out his middle age crazies by leaving the
mother of his seven children to become a baby daddy
for a Russian gold digger.
E. And two more fashionable
lawsuits have been filed: Gloria Allred is representing
an extra from the TV series Bones, Kristina
Hagan, who alleges that Bones star David
Boreanaz sexually harassed her and promised a recurring
role on Bones that never materialized but
that a different bone did pop up. And Casey Affleck
is being sued for sexual harassment by a producer,
Amanda White, who worked on his new film about Joaquin
Phoenix, I'm Still Here: The Lost Year of Joaquin
Phoenix. But in a strange twist, only Hagan
is being represented by Gloria Allred.
Comment on The Popular Culture:
With all this carrying on by pass-the-kleenex-lawyer
Gloria Allred and her celebrity-chasing daughter
Lisa Bloom, just how soon will the musical hit Broadway?
We have two heroines and a dancing chorus of wronged
women, all that is needed is a musical score and
a few tap dance numbers.
July 18, 2010
Amy Winehouse
Psychosis London Premiere
Prince Charles Cinema, Leicester Square. London
July 13, 2010
Photo Credit: Landmark / PR Photos
The Beat Goes On:
Here is one of my Courtney
Love Hot Mess Honorarium for Miss Amy Winehouse.
Hey Amy, if more than one person tells you that
you need to go to rehab, you need to go to rehab.
The vast majority of people in the world never have
anyone tell them they need to go to rehab; the subject
simply never comes up in conversation.
And to dear Lindsay
Lohan: Check out this look. This is what you will
look like next year if you don't clean up your act.
And decadence doesn't mesh well with freckles.
July
14, 2010
Ruminations: Has
anyone figured out what those Russian agents were
actually doing? Could they have simply been planted
years ago and forgotten? Of course, none of us can
know the true story, but if the newspapers are to
believed, this spy ring was more comical than treacherous
and was not capable of supplying Russia with any
information not readily available through Google.
The real question is when we will have the TV movie
and who will play Anna Chapman?
July 11, 2010
It has been an interesting
week in celebrity culture. Lindsay Lohan, Tinseltown's
favorite train wreck, has been sentenced to 90 days
in jail and 90 days in rehab for violating her three
year probation for drunk driving. She was supposed
to attend "Alcohol Education" classes
on a weekly basis and she missed sessions nine out
of a twenty-seven week period. Charlie Sheen, one
of Tinseltown's perpetual train wrecks, now has
an August court date where he will make arrangements/
be sentenced to go to jail for approximately 30
days for a domestic violence incident in Aspen,
Colorado last Christmas. Both Lohan and Sheen are
doing everything they can to keep from having to
go to jail, while the public snickers, jeers and
pontificates that they need to "man up"
and take their licks. Schadenfreude
sure can be a bitch.
But there is a bit
more to these stories. Both Lohan and Sheen are
two-pack-a- day-smokers and they will be entering
jails with no smoking policies. And going cold turkey
off cigarettes is thought to be like getting off
heroin (New
York Times article). (I quit over twenty years
ago and the reason I never started up again is that
I was deathly afraid of having to quit again.)
If Lohan and Sheen
can complete their sentences and leave jail nicotine
free (and alcohol and drug free?) they will have
been given an incredible gift, but one can certainly
understand why they would rather not detoxify in
in solitary confinement in a jail cell.
Having said that, I drive on the LA freeways myself
and am in full support of the court system doing
everything they can to keep drunks from driving.
And kudos to the Aspen Court system for sticking
Sheen's nose into the poop for his Christmas Day
brawl with his wife.
Mel
Gibson: Now this is a man who needs to immediately
get a cat scan to find out exactly what kind of
sewer is bubbling in his brain. Oksana Grigorieva,
Gibson's ex-mistress and the mother of his love
child, has (supposedly) recorded his racist/misogynistic
violent rants and leaked these rants to the tabloids,
causing his agents to drop him and seriously endangering
his access to the child he had with Grigorieva.
It is hard to feel sorry for Gibson. He has known
for years that he cannot control his mouth when
he drinks and yet he still continues to drink and
shoot off his mouth.
It is a shame that Jamie Spears, Britney Spear's
father, cannot be cloned. Lohan, Sheen and Gibson
could all use an intervention/conservatorship session
with Papa Spears.
On
to Al Gore: There have been no other masseuses
suddenly remembering that Al Gore is a naughty boy
on the massage table. Unlike the saga of Tiger Woods
and Jesse James, there have been no spectacle of
crying masseuses holding press conferences while
Gloria Allred pats their back and supplies the kleenex.
Woods and James had a bevy of undulating mistresses
vying for tabloid attention within days of the first
National Enquirer story about their misdeeds. So
where are Gore's? Is it possible that there are
none and Gore is exactly what he seems, a nicely
boring wooden nerd?
July 10, 2010
Franck Sorbier Fashion Show
Backstage
Paris Fashion Week Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2011
Sotheby's / Paris, France
July 7, 2010
Photo Credit: Pixplanete / PR Photos
Ruminations: There
is just something about the French. Yes, they can
be frogs but they do hop with tude.
July 2, 2010
The Beat Goes On:
The masseuse who accuses
Al Gore of unwanted sexual contact during a message
session in 2006 has decided to identify herself.
Her name is Molly Hagerty.
So here we go. The National Enquirer has
printed her story verbatim with large accusatory
headlines. But there is not much of a case here.
Even her "pants in a bag" won't work because
there has been a huge break in the chain of evidence
(I watch Law & Order).
And two days from now, the Enquirer will
need fresh fodder and they won't get it from Gore
who has simply denied the incident and will not
speak further. Nor are they likely to uncover other
salacious details about Al Gore's past to continue
to stoke the scandal pyre. He is Al Gore, after
all, and if there had been something, it would have
come out long ago. And besides, who really wants
to know about Al Gore's sex life? So, what is left?
Why Miss Hagerty herself, whose entire life will
now be open to Enquiring eyes. Everyone
she did not get along with in eighth grade will
be interviewed and that is just the beginning. Very
few people live lives that can withstand that kind
of scrutiny.
Ordinary citizens who are suddenly thrust into the
spotlight and courted by fawning reporters should
always look behind their shoulders to see the barbeque
spit the reporters are preparing in their honor.
Miss Hagerty's name will soon be "lunch."
July 1, 2010
The Beat Goes On:
According to The
Daily News, an English woman named Caroline
Cartwright has been threatened with jail (AGAIN!)
is she does not cease making so much noise while
making love that passersby on the street can hear
her. According to the article, "At one point,
even a postman walking by complained" about
her lovemaking sessions which according to court
records could go on for three hours.
If you click on the link
and check out the perps and you can see why the
neighbors were complaining. This sex noise had no
prurience factor because the Cartwright and her
husband are just ordinary looking middle aged folks.
Now if the moaners had been Angelina Jolie and Brad
Pitt, the aggrieved neighbors could have compensated
themselves for their aggravation by selling tickets.
Whenever there is
a story in the news about nude
gardeners or noisy love makers, it is always
just some frumpy-looking blokes. This is the reason
nudist camps have never become wildly popular -
they are all populated by people you would never
want to see naked.
June
29, 2010
The Beat Goes On:
Texas is in the news this
week and not in a good way. Representative Louie
Gohmert stood up on the floor of the House of Representatives
to announce that terrorists were plotting to bring
pregnant "terrorist" women to the United
States to have babies thus giving these "baby
terrorists" American citizenship. These babies
would then be returned to the mother ship to be
raised to become full grown terrorists who would
return to the United States to attack us.
Don't we have enough to worry about without concocting
this far fetched xenophobic plot? We have our hands
full dealing with our own homegrown non/baby brand
of terrorism - Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber, Eric
Rudolph, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of Columbine?
We seem perfectly capable of birthing our own.
It has been a truly
weird week for celebrity culture:
1. Mel Gibson and
the woman he left his wife and the mother of his
seven children for, Oksana Grigorieva, have filed
restraining orders against each other. Now who would
have thought a romance between these two darling
people would end so badly?
2. A "bachelor"
named Jake Pavelka has split from Vienna Girardi,
the woman who supposedly won his heart on the reality
tv show, The Bachelor. It seems that they
have not had sex for the last four months, the lack
of such sexual contact being explained by Jake by
either (1) he is religious or (2) Vienna is difficult.
Somehow, with what I know about men, this does not
pass the smell test. It is possible that Jake is
actually one of what the Victorians used to call
"The Bachelors."
3. Some masseuse
has suddenly recalled that Al Gore asked her to
grope him back in 2006. And she is willing to confide
all the juicy details to the National Enquirer for
$1,000,000. Looking at Al Gore, I am willing to
give him the benefit of the doubt (she told the
police that Gore was a "crazed sex poodle")
and also a piece of advice: From now on pretend
you are a male doctor and have someone else in the
room with you when you are alone with a female or,
for that matter, a male masseuse (Ted Haggard anyone?).
You have the words "big paycheck" tattooed
on your forehead. And with pun intended, some masseuses
may be looking for a really big tip.
June 22, 2010
Jennifer Lopez and Marc
Anthony Puerto
Rican Day Parade
June 13, 2010
Photo Credit Angelo Rivera
The Beat Goes On:
Jennifer Lopez was a guest
of honor at the Puerto Rican Day Parade. And while
"guesting of honor," she wore a white
strapless dress and a BLACK BRA.
Inquiring minds want to know:
1. If this was a
faux pas? Answer, probably not. Lopez spends way
too much on stylists to have not known that the
black bra would show.
2. Was Lopez attempting
to show her Jenny-From-the-Block side in solidarity
with her Puerto Rican brothers and sisters? Hopefully
not or they may have to rise up and bitch slap her.
3. If Lopez was trying
to create a new style sensation a la Madonna and
Lady Gaga? Hmm. As Goldilocks said, "This one
looks just right." Let's check out Marc Jacobs
for Spring 2010 to see if it took.
June 18, 2010
Miley Cyrus Late Show with David Letterman
June 17, 2010
Photo Credit: Janet Mayer / PR Photos
The Beat Goes On:
The latest mishegas out
of LaLa Land is the scandal about how that perennial
eight-grade girl Perez Hilton tweeted a upskirt
photo of Miley Cyrus who was supposedly going commando.
There is a lot of carrying on in the press about
whether Perez will be prosecuted for child porn
even if the photo was photoshopped to appear pantiless.
Well how about this idea: It should be illegal for
anyone to stick a camera up a woman's dress (minor
or not) the same way it is illegal to put a camera
in a woman's bathroom. So what if they are in public.
If someone is getting out of a car, lowering a camera
and shooting up a skirt is utterly disgusting and
should involve some jail time. So there.
Just where are those Iranian morality police women
with their long thin whacking sticks when we could
actually use them?
June 13, 2010
Dear Miss Wendy,
Why do people love
New York and how can you stand to live there?
Sincerely,
Okie from Muskogee
Dear Okie,
The world is divided
into two classes of people (among myriad other classifications
- tall/short, rich/poor), those who love New York
and those who don't. And people instinctively know
to which group they naturally belong. Babies are
born in the hinterlands, open their eyes and take
a quick look outside their cribs and are utterly
horrified to find that they are not in New York.
These misplaced babies (who tend to cry more than
other babies), spend their next few decades plotting
their relocation to Oz.
Transplanted New
Yorkers tell similar tells of how they saw or read
about New York and knew immediately that this is
where they wanted to live (Breakfast at Tiffany's
anyone?). I saw the city for the first time when
I was fourteen years old and I was instantly smitten.
I even loved the smell of the place.
In New York, you never know what you are going to
see next. You turn a corner and there is always
some kind of surprise: new shops; new restaurants;
someone dressed in a new and fascinating way. Thia
noise and confusion turns New Yorkers on.
But this very same
noise and confusion has the exact opposite effect
on non-New York lovers. They prefer calm and predictability,
something they could never have in this city. They
would prefer to think one thought at a time, without
being distracted with thoughts such as, "Was
that purple hair I just saw?" Or, "Just
why are those angry-looking people picketing the
Bulgarian consulate?"
It is impossible
to talk people who don't love New York into loving
it. It would be easier to talk the coke machine
into taking a certified check. So there.
June
7, 2010
Christina Aguilera
2010 MTV Movie Awards - Arrivals
Gibson Amphitheatre / Universal City, CA
June 6, 2010
Photo Credit: Bob Charlotte / PR Photos
Here is a You
Got It Going Girl awards to Miss Christina
Aguilera. Miss Aguilera picked the perfect Versace
dress for the MTV Movie Awards. Her dress epitomized
old Hollowed glamour but with the heavy chain belt,
she was rockin ready. Kudos to the Versace design
team.
June 6, 2010
Ruminations: There
is a very sad article in the Daily News
about how a school in Prescott, Arizona has asked
an artist to "lighten up" the face of
a Mexican student in the school mural because motorist
were yelling racial slurs at the mural - nydailynews.com.
According to the
article, the artists reported that while they were
painting the mural, they heard comments such as:
"You're desecrating our school," "Get
the ni---- off the wall," "Get the sp--
off the wall," were common, Wall said. "The
pressure stayed up consistently," Wall said.
"We had two months of cars shouting at us."
This is sad on so
many levels: people in Arizona yelling racial slurs
at a mural on the wall of an elementary school;
the school believing the proper response to this
blatant racism was to lighten the faces on the mural;
and the Governor of Arizona still continuing to
assert that the new Arizona immigration law will
not be enforced by using racial profiling.
The Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban
Ki-moon, when speaking at a United
Nations reception for artist Ross Bleckener's
project to help children who have been victimized
by human trafficking, said that one of the solutions
was to "name and shame."
The concept of "name
and shame" was and is an excellent idea and
should be implemented here. Shame on you Prescott,
Arizona. A picture of worth a thousand words and
the picture of artists lightening the face of a
Mexican child to make a mural more acceptable to
the citizenry of Arizona is excruciatingly shameful.
June 3, 2010
The Beat Goes On:
Jon Gosselin has a new twenty-three
year old girlfriend, Ellen Ross, who is telling
friends she is not in it for the fame (the chance
to be photographed for Radaronline etc. etc.), but
truly likes thirty-three year old men with eight
children under the age of ten.
And Tiger Wood's
ex-mistress/nemesis Joslyn James truly had her feelings
hurt and needs to hold press conferences to tell
us about how badly she was wounded by Wood's caddish
behavior. And Lindsay Lohan's father truly has her
best interest at heart when he tells all to the
tabloids.
Back in Texas, we
had a saying: "Raise your feet, pardner, the
sh*t is flowing down the trough."
May
29, 2010
The Beat Goes On:
Deputy LA Prosecutor Danette
Meyers has announced to Radaronline
that as soon as she finishes her present death penalty
case, she will focus "all her energy"
on investigating whether Lindsay Lohan violated
her probabation in her DUI case (a misdemeanor).
Someone at the LA district attorney's office needs
to reign this publicity pandering lawyer in and
tell her that it is unseemly for a assistant district
attorney to attempt to raise her own profile by
talking to the tabloids about a celebrity defendant.
Whatever happened to no comment?
May 26, 2010
Ruminations on the
BP Oil Spill: So here we
are, over a month later, and the oil is still gushing
into the Gulf of Mexico at a horrifying rate estimated
to be 210,000 barrels a day and some experts say
that number is way too low.
BP still has not
been able to stop the gusher and we don't know know
when they will be able to stop the flow; they are
trying to stop up a hole that is 5,000 deep in the
ocean.
This brings up the question: Just what were they
doing drilling 5,000 feet into the ocean in the
first place? I know, I know. We have cars and houses
that need heating and air conditioning and office
buildings that need to be lit, heated and air conditioned.
And we have huge trucks moving this to that and
airlines flying over our heads delivering us to
here and there and back again.
It is time to say
Halt and rework our lives so we can live without
putting up with all that craziness in the Middle
East and/or digging holes out in the middle of the
Atlantic and creating the worst man-made disaster
in history.
We need to become
smaller:
1. Smaller houses and apartments that are tricked
out like yachts - built up the walls and super clever.
Quit buying houses to fit your furniture. Buy furniture
to fit a small chic home. Utilize wall units everywhere,
eliminating the need for a lot of free standing
furniture which can use up a entire wall without
using up the entire wall.
a. New homes should
be built with cross ventilation and high hip roofs
so they can be cooled with ceiling fans for a few
months every years. And yes, that does mean we will
need those old iron security grills or alarm systems.
b. Get rid of yards.
Yards require huge amounts of water, fertilizer
and pest killers which pollute the ground water.
They also require energy to mow. Have small decorative
yards with lots of ground cover that can survive
with relatively little water and use the back yards
to grow vegetables. Hey, the dirt needs to start
pulling its weight.
c. Bring back clothes
lines. No, not for all the laundry, but there is
nothing like sheets dried in the sun and it is free.
d. Put high efficiency
window AC units in bedrooms and turn off the central
air conditioning at night during the summer. Ditto
for high efficiency portable heaters in the winter.
e. Use water coolers
in dry climates. They are surpringly cool and cheap
to run.
2. Smaller cars.
A lot of people would be happy to drive those little
bitty cars if they were not worried about being
run over by a SUV. So get the SUV's off the roads
by taxing the hell out of them and create inner
city/town small car zones which do not allow any
cars over a certain weight and mandate that delivery
trucks only deliver from midnight to five in the
morning.
3. Reorganizing our
cities so people can live close to work.
a. Fix the public
school system so all school are good and people
with children are not forced to move to Timbuktu
so their children can attend a decent school. Besides,
we need to fix the schools anyway if becuase we
need a highly educated populace if we are ever going
to solve our problems.
b. Building sidewalks
and bike paths in our newly reorganized cities.
Put bikes racks everywhere and keep the bikes off
the sidewalks and streets for God's sake.
c. Big companies
need to set up satellite offices that are close
to where their employees live. Walking distance
would be good.
4. Rework all office buildings so the windows can
open. Businesses run air conditioning when the outside
temperature is in the 60's because they have to.
5. Put solar panels and wind mills
everywhere and if someone can make wind mills look
nicer, please do that too.
6. Eat produce that is grown locally,
eliminating the need to transport it thousands of
miles.
7. When you fly, take less, saving
your back and reducing the amount of fuel the airline
will need to use. They make these really nice rolling
bags that fit under the seat in front of you. You
won't hurt your back lifting the bag above your
head and the airplane will be lighter.
8. Eliminate as much plastic packaging
and bottles as possible. Those aluminum water bottles
are a good start, but someone needs to figure out
how to get rid of a lot more. I am one person and
every three of four days, I have a huge garbage
sack full of recycling. Ditto to eliminating all
those catalogues that come in the mail.
9. Think. When you buy something, think about what
it will cost the world for you to own it. Will your
new clothes have to be dry cleaned? Will your snow
mobile hurt the tundra and use gas? Think - if I
buy/use this item, will my grand children have to
do without something they really need (like a planet)
because I used more than my fair share of the world's
resources?
10. And last but not least, would
someone please design a pair of dressy sexy women's
shoes that a woman can wear and walk a quarter mile
in comfort. Do it. You will be a millionaire.
May 20, 2010
Ruminations: Miss
Lindsey Lohan has missed a court date (she was supposed
to be in court in Los Angeles on Thursday morning
for a hearing about her probation for DUI) because
she could not get back from Cannes. Lohan has given
the excuse that someone stole her passport so she
could not come home. This excuse does not pass the
smell test. Lohan had gone to Cannes to promote
her new film, one in which she plays Linda Lovelace
of Deep Throat fame. But she left for Cannes
last weekend knowing full well that the Iceland
volcano was still disrupting flights and that the
judge was already "on her case" because
she had not complied with the terms of her probation
by attending alchohol education classes in a timely
manner.
It is easy to feel
sorry for Lohan because her father is such a media
chasing ass, but leaving for Cannes in the first
place was the height of poor judgment. She may have
thought she was promoting her career, but by even
being in Cannes under these circumstances, she looks
like a fool who does not think the rules of the
world apply to her and that is not good publicity.
Lohan is a lady who
would do well to read her own press.
Would you leave for
Europe for the weekend if you knew that if you were
not back in LA by Wednesday to cram in some more
alcohol education classes before your Thursday court
date, you might very well be thrown in jail? In
JAIL, I say? You would really have to be inebriated
to not be utterly horrified by that idea.
So now she has to
wear an alcohol monitoring bracelet and submit to
random drug tests. It is so easy to see where this
story will end. Lohan is one lady who should have
done everything humanly possible to avoid wearing
that bracelet and taking those tests, tests she
is bound to fail.
She may never again
by a movie star, but her life is certainly fodder
for a screen play.
May 17, 2010
Rima Fakih
PR Photos
The Beat Goes On:
Rima Fakih, a beautiful Arab
American woman from Detroit, has won the Miss USA
contest. And now the scandal mongerers are trying
to get everyone riled up because she won a pole
dancing contest that was hosted by a radio station.
Excuse, me. They teach pole dancing at my gym. Just
who is around these days who is so sheltered they
would be scandalized by that story. The girl was
clothed, she is Miss USA not Miss America, and besides
she won the pole dancing contest just like she won
the title of Miss USA.
Ho Hum! Ho Hum! Ho
Hum!
May 15, 2010
Ruminations: Would
people please quit talking about Supreme Court nominee
Elena Kagan's sexuality (Newsweek.com).
It is bad enough that every young Hollywood star
(Heidi
Montag and Lauren Conrad?) and not so young
but still cute (Chelsea
Lately) has a sex tape, do we really need the
visual in our minds of any Supreme Court candidate
or justice having sex? Men and women who are busy
saving the world (and are over 50) do not have the
time to be plastic surgery junkies and gym rats,
so they are totally ineligible to star in the "movies
in our mind." So cut it out already.
Ruminations: Would
someone please revive the The
Surreal Lifeand cast Michael Lohan so he can have something
to do with his time other than bash his daughter?
Here are my suggestions for a superb cast to create
the perfect setting for Lohan: his frenemy Jon Gosselin;
Jesse James's mistress Michelle McGee; Tiger Wood's
nemesis Joslyn James; conservative mouthpieces Ann
Coulter and Glen Beck (to create the necessary conflict);
and media-chasing lawyer Gloria Allred (to file
the lawsuits created by the conflict). They will
all be busy filming and running around town with
new reality friends like Snookie, JWOW and their
twins-separated-at-birth, The Real Housewives
of New Jersey,giving us all a quick break from
their constant braying. Comment
The Beat Goes On:
Gloria Allred, who used to
be a feminist lawyer, has turned into a hoochie-mamma-carrying-ambulance-chaser.
Allred has recently sat at the side of porn-star
and alleged Tiger Woods mistress Joslyn James why
Miss James boohooed about how her feelings were
hurt when Tiger treated her like she was a porn
star and did not apologize for "leading her
on." (Zimbio.com)
Allred is also incensed that the Charlotte, North
Carolina Ritz Carlton Hotel cancelled Miss James
hotel reservation when they realized that she would
be staying in their hotel at the same time as Tiger
Woods who was playing in the Quail Hollow Championship.
(New
York Daily News). Could the Ritz also be treating
Miss James like a porn star?
And
now Allred is helping an alleged mistress of David
Boreanaz settle"her claims." According
to Eonline
Allred called Boreanaz's attorney to discuss "
the possible resolution of my client's legal claims
against Mr. Boreanaz by mediation."
What claims? Unless there is a
child involved, there are no claims to be had. Boreanaz
is a public figure so unless this mistress is both
deaf and dumb (well, she probably is dumb), she
knew he was married.
Hey ladies, your fifteen minutes
are over so would you please fish your panties and
bras out of the punch bowl and go home?
May 1, 2010
The Beat Goes On:
In an effort to stem the
swell of criticism that has been justly thrown at
the state, Arizona has passed an amendment to their
new immigration law (New
York Times): "The changes include one strengthening
restrictions against using race or ethnicity as
the basis for questioning by the police and inserting
those same restrictions in other parts of the law.
Another change states that questions of immigration
status would follow a law enforcement officer’s
stopping, detaining or arresting a person while
enforcing another law. The earlier law had referred
to a “contact” with police. [But] Another
change specifies that possible violations of local
civil ordinances can trigger questioning on immigration
status."
So they gave with
one hand and took away with another. Now law enforcement
have to have suspicion that a crime has been committed
before they can question someone about their immigration
status, but that crime can be an overflowing garbage
can. So from now on, Arizona residents of Mexican
descent not only have to fear being harassed for
looking Mexican if they are stopped the the policie
for a burned out tail light, they must also be sure
their homes don't look "illegal."
The
Beat Goes On: Here is a fun
bit from Radaronline.com.It
seems that Oscar-nominated actress Gabourey Sidibe's
mom (Alice Tan Ridley) sings in the New York City
subways and she has just auditioned for America’s
Got Talent. What a great story!
P. S. If you live
or visit New York, check out the subway performers.
They are incredible - not the illegal ones who perform
in the cars (although sometimes they can be quite
good), but the licensed ones who perform on the
platforms. Check it out.
