The Reluctant Whore

Week #9 In Review


The week that came after the 79th Academy Awards amazingly did so despite of the sheer disappointment that saturated them. Sure, young Jennifer Hudson is adorable and boy can she sing, but an Academy Award nomination? It reeked of an underlying propaganda laced plot to keep Hollywood’s self indulgent inanity alive. Helen Mirren, despite her regal stature and outstanding performance as Queen Elizabeth in The Queen, still managed to freak the hell out of at least me, by ending her speech with, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you The Queen!” which was meant to mean what exactly?

But while the West Coast was focusing on rewarding more or less extravagant displays of talent (give or take a little bit of arbitrary manipulation) producers of Chicago on Broadway this week were biting their fingernails in panic stricken angst as they realized that despite their no doubt exhaustive efforts to rehearse the crap out of Miss USA, Tara Conner, no amount of smoke and mirrors would ever be enough to cover up the fact that she simply has no talent and should be nowhere near a stage, let alone Broadway.

Talented, it became apparent this week, would be a massively un-empowered word choice, in James Cameron’s opinion if you were to attempt to describe one facet of his massed appeal. God-like, might do it but really – the best way for James Cameron to express just how far he has risen in the universe since winning the Academy Award for Titanic would be to demonstrate it by backing a documentary about the burial place of Jesus Christ. When acting as though you ARE God isn’t enough, the next step is apparently explaining to people in detail how God doesn’t exist. - at least the way you thought he did.

Speaking of God Complexes, President Jammeh of Gambia, Africa’s smallest nation, a man who has in the past claimed to have mystical powers announced this week that he can cure AIDS and asthma. In order to cope with the overwhelming need for a cure to both his government set limitations and standards around his talents; a limited number of people can be cured of AIDS on Fridays and Saturdays and the same amount for asthma on Monday and Thursday so get your skates on.

Texans and purpose starved Catholics alike (some were actually Texan purpose starved Catholics but many variants were present) were getting their skates on as they rushed to Houston when word began to spread this week that the Virgin Mary had appeared on a cooking tray and it was also found to be true…that the ancestors of right wing, professional groper Strom Thurmond actually owned the slave ancestors of the Rev. Al Sharpton leaving Sharpton in shock and everyone else saying things like, “well, isn’t THAT interesting…”

Following on from the interesting but harmless coincidence regarding racial struggles and how they have worked themselves out over the past hundred years – the paranoia and guilt associated with saying the word “nigger” accumulated to such a degree that New York City this week went to the extent of symbolically banning the word - a move that more or less meant nothing seeing as everyone was afraid to say the word anyway and anyone who said it was immediately chastised and socially alienated.

Speaking of social alienation, a court case involving a Mormon girl who, several years ago, retaliated to being asked by other students if she had ten mothers by saying, “That’s So Gay” finally went to court this week in a case that stated that her subsequent punishment at high school all those years ago was actually an infringement on her right to freedom of speech and if burning the phrase “That’s So Gay” into the public consciousness wasn’t done effectively enough by the young Mormon girl then the idea that Madonna is designing a fashion line for H and M might be. Especially if you consider the kinds of people she’ll be working with behind the scenes to realize her vision.

And while we’re thinking about Madonna and fashion and consequently; narcissism, a subversive young wannabe model in Switzerland this week submitted semi-naked photos of himself in a mock up ad for Gucci perfume to a high circulation newspaper, told them to send the huge ad bill to Gucci and the paper ran the ad. It stands to reason that it would have been much funnier if he’d actually paid for the ad himself.

And while that young wannabe model could have scored a perfect ten in the subversive manipulation of media but he missed the mark ever so slightly, the hottest chili didn’t miss at all when it was announced that the hottest chili was very definitely no longer the Red Savina which is about 500,000 Scofield hotness units; it’s now the Bhut Jolokia which weighs in at around 1,000,000 hotness units. No one knows this better than an oddly numb Indian woman with a penchant for really hot chili who proclaimed she would beat the word record of how many of these chilis could be eaten in one sitting having been a fan of the killer capsicums for years before she knew they were actually so technically hot.

While eating in LA has never really been a popular past time, it turned out to actually be dangerous this week, especially if you were at any of the 14 parties Wolfgang Puck catered leading up to the Academy Awards when it was announced that there was a likelihood that his food was all infected with Hepatitis A. Puck’s people declined to let it be known which parties were at primary risk.

Every party ever held at McDonalds is at risk due to the shocking garbage they continuously churn out but that hasn’t stopped McDonalds from more or less taking over the world. One person this cultural fact seems to offend is Prince Charles who this week stated that he thinks McDonalds should be banned. Not surprisingly, the higher ups at the fast food corporation weren’t thrilled at his suggestion.

People who were thrilled this week, despite the horror, were the owners of the farm in Sheffield England, who this week discovered that a pig with one head, two snouts, two mouths and room for three eyes was born on their farm and at the other end of the beautiful scale, utterly utterly un-deformed and always sparkling humanitarian über-couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie started inquiring about how they could acquire a Vietnamese baby to add to their litter.

One person who won’t be looking to buy any children at the moment, for the simple reason that she has two and seems to be flat out just trying to take care of herself is Britney Spears who checked back into rehab this week and it was revealed that most of her issues probably stem from the incredibly common and treatable post partum depression.

And while Britney convalesced in rehab, Anna Nicole’s body – despite being embalmed – grew closer and closer to undeniable decomposition as the funeral was finally scheduled for Friday – three weeks after she died. Still, she got thrust into the ground faster than James Brown. The Post revealed that a British Media Organisation is footing the legal bills for Virgie Arthur, the father of Smith’s first son, the also deceased Daniel, has started proceedings to get his son’s body exhumed – at exactly the moment Anna Nicole was finally laid to rest next to him – no doubt causing a sigh of relief from the producers at Entertainment Tonight but certainly not one from Virgie Arthur who – as the funeral procession continued was busy in court petitioning to have the funeral halted. It was also revealed that Anna Nicole may have had lupus according to one of her fame digging friends and just in case we weren’t already certain and in case we wanted to know, right on time, Donald Trump chimed in and said he thinks Howard K Stern is bad news.

Hugh Hefner, it was speculated, is planning to marry one of his three girlfriends – all of who look like Barbie doll robots – and as the notion of monogamy and marriage circle around the notion of Hugh Hefner like some kind of freaky plot twist - at the other end of the sexual spectrum, perhaps even Hugh Hefner’s exact opposite, a 107 year old man in a Hong Kong Village who smokes revealed that the reason he’s still alive is because he stopped having sex over 70 years ago.

Speaking of marrying robots, Chinese scientists claimed this week that they have figured out how to successfully implant a microchip into the brain of a pigeon and then remote control it – which of course inspired a sigh of relief from the rest of the world and finally, all the way on the other side of the world, back to where we started – on the west Coast of the US, Elizabeth Taylor celebrated her 75th birthday.