Today in Extraordinarily Odd

Historian Hubert Erzmann, 75 in Germany has located the oldest recipe for Bratwurst sausage – dating it back 600 years. Following on from that opening line in the article is a comment from the German Bratwurst Museum about how sausage makers were fined if they didn’t use really fresh ingredients. That’s pretty much all that needs to be said about that, however, what I really find either reassuring or mildly alarming is that there is a German Bratwurst Museum outside the US. The US is full of hilarious little museums like that. It’s on account of all the quirky baby boomers who have lived their lives being compliant mundane product consumers and then they retire and realize they need to keep going so they open a museum to obsess over something that forms the central component to their lives. There’s the Creationist Museum which is always a treat, the Burt Reynolds Museum (started by Burt Reynolds) and then there’s this Date Palm Museum in Palm Springs that I went to as a kid with an educational film that dates (ha!) back to the 50s explaining quite convincingly about the greatness of date crystals. Gosh, are they fascinating. That was one hell of a vacation that year. [source]

Peggy McAlpine, a Scottish woman who just turned one hundred decided to potentially break a world record by paragliding off the top of a mountain range in Cyprus. It takes a while for the world records to be figured out and to be certified so it’s not completely confirmed yet but it will eventually be. World Records administration is a little like arts admin. It’s glorified data entry done by people who need you to know just who is in charge but who are too snobby to work for the post office. Meanwhile, good on Peggy. Here’s something interesting though: following on from the last story – it seems Peggy was an accountant all her life which is interesting. No wonder she wanted to jump off a cliff for some excitement. Also, her daughter was apparently in jail for money laundering – it’s nice that the media included that – just in case, as Peggy reads her own press, she had forgotten. [source]


Forty countries have sent delegates to attend the opening of the World Toilet Summit in New Delhi today. As much as the word toilet is always hilarious, there’s a serious angle to this. Apparently 40% of the world doesn’t have toilets. That’s just under half. Just under half the world craps in the street. I mean, that kind of living arrangement isn’t really shocking to me living in Williamsburg. I mean, when you get off the Graham Avenue subway stop there’s like 20 meters of sidewalk in front of the Chinese place and the bagel store that you have to hold your breath for. That’s just day to day for me and I’ve dealt with it. But for other people – man that must be tough. Of course, the other thing here is that the word toilet is funny. The World Toilet Summit. How very English comedy. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the World Toilet Summit broadcasting live from the toilet.” Its pants down humour the whole way. And so on. [source]

When Tom Cruise speaks it’s always gold these days and it’s especially heartwarming gold when he talks about his kids. Female First in the UK reports that Tom Cruise doesn’t treat his adopted kids Connor and Isabella any differently than his actual daughter Suri.

That’s essentially the first line of the article which, we can only assume, means that this is a pressing issue and therefore the main point had to be put out there first. The rest of the quotes in the article dissolve into New Age, Scientologist freak-ass drivel.

This mindless crap, for instance:

“We can look at other people, see what we have in common with them, and celebrate our differences from them."

Oh GOD shut up.

But, Tom Cruise's inanity aside, where the hell ARE the other kids? Did the original family disband like the Reagans? I heard a while ago they were spending the summer at a scientologist summer camp for kids which sounds pretty much identical to the way Suri spent her summer; cavorting all over the world in a private jet wearing Burberry fashions for tots while being relentlessly photographed by international paparazzi. Yeah, Tom totally treats his kids equally. But then, the adopted kids were always a hinderance to his heterosexuality anyway. A real kid trumps two adopted kids in the straight leading man marketing stakes.
Plus, while we’re obsessing: any money Isabella is a lesbian and eventually she’ll come out with a book to rival that of “Mommie Dearest” by Christina Crawford. God, I would totally read that book and I totally don’t buy these celebrity tell-all rapid fire books.

Actually, if Katie Holmes gets out alive she should do a one woman show about being married to a bipolar control freak narcissist human shell. She could start putting it together now in her wing of the Mapother compound. That is, when the watchful, judgemental matronly eye of Cruise’s mother isn’t staring at her through the peepholes in the paintings. Tom Cruise’s mother has teeth like James Coburn. [source]

Ben Widdicombe writes in Gatecrasher that Owen Wilson is potentially dating Jessica Simpson after the two were seen out in some restaurant in LA. Then you have Dlisted.com and WWTDD.com calling him out for being an unhealed mess and tearing her apart for being a ludicrous low self esteem riddled, cheap ass vaginal centric carnival ride for emotionally stunted men in the fly over states. I embellished that last bit of the sentence but it felt right.

But you know, the thing about this is – maybe Owen Wilson isn’t necessarily doing anything entirely stupid here. Maybe dating Simpson is the best thing for him. She’s sort of like a walking anti-depressant anyway once you take away that mistaken expectation that she function like a human. I mean, she’s crafted and programmed to specifically target parts of the brain in straight men and, you know – some rare lesbians – so that there’s a chemical reaction and they buy into the product and ogle her in movies or whatever the hell work she’s doing right now.

Maybe this kind of cheap, highly predictable, utterly brainless sexual robot is exactly what Owen Wilson needs to get his complex ass back in gear. I mean, if he dated some real, intelligent, sweater wearing dark haired NYU student chick people would wonder what’s wrong with her and they’d tear her apart. With Jessica Simpson no one has any expectation that she would ever fulfill the criteria of human as she’s clearly just a product so the entire thing is just about rehabilitation for Wilson.

Plus, the other added bonus for Wilson when it comes to Simpson is that if he ever gets overwhelmed by her incessant need and mindless Southern chatter he can just switch her off and put her away. Easy. [source]

Nothing is going according to plan for J Lo whose entire career is apparently dissolving before her very eyes. Page Six reports that Jenny from the Block’s latest movie, “Bordertown” is about to go straight to video which follows on from the inexplicable failure of her movie “El Cantante” which featured her relentlessly acclaimed husband/accessory corpse Marc Anthony which coincided with the bombing of her last album.

What could possibly be the matter?

J Lo is essentially a failed, aspiring Latin Mariah Carey. They’re actually quite similar in many ways – they’ve both made chronically awful films, had success with music, released cat piss fragrances and have allowed their maddening egos to completely swallow them whole. The thing is, Mariah Carey disappeared for a while and granted she ate so much she blew up to the size of a pachyderm, she wasn't out there relentlessly forcing her sub-standard ballads on us while she wasn't ready to actually believe her own hype. No, she kept it away until the time was right again...sort of.

Yesterday it was reported that J Lo insists on a makeup artist who costs 8000 dollars a day. What the hell kind of makeup are they using for 8000 dollars a day? It's probably some of that golden caviar placenta crap that sucks the old out of your head. Sure, it doesn't exist but it's a useful concept. Maybe someone in the future will find this on a beach and read it and then start to work on it. It could be my legacy.

Oh Jesus...

Anyway, these mega divas are always high maintenance slabs of heavily marinated tuna. Raw, heavily, deeply marinated tuna. Huge slabs of the stuff. Some of them are fatty tuna, some are yellowtail. It doesn’t matter in the end because tuna is tuna. The trajectory is actually quite predictable though. They come from nothing, become stars with the vibrato ballads or big band showstoppers, the gays love them, they become massive corporate products and then their egos explode and they have to either play Vegas and mellow out in cultural wasteland obscurity like Celine Dion does while raking in maddening amounts of money or they become ridiculous relentless travesties propped up entirely by the public’s memory of their once focused talent. Sort of like, dare I say it, Liza.

J Lo needs to move back to the Bronx – the part she doesn’t own. Then she needs to clean house. Literally. Start cleaning some houses and get back to the raw material. And just off the husband. He’s already half dead anyway. I sort of feel like I’m going to hell for that Liza comment. [source]

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

The Northern Chinese city of Zhengzhou has banned use of "seductive" words like "foxy lady", "handsome guy" and "moneybags" in marriage advertisements as part of their campaign to stamp out fraud linked to marriage. I can understand why people would want to defraud their way into the United States or actually, more understandably, France or the UK but I don’t quite get why you’d want to push your way into China. Maybe it’s the tax benefits. Sure, that’s it. The massive tax benefits afforded to citizens of the Republic of China. Wow, it’s all tax write offs and swanning about Shanghai on your tax return when you’re Chinese. Anyway, so – banning these words is supposed to stamp that out. At this point, there’s only really air and children left to ban in China. Which one will go first? It’s so exciting taking guesses. [source]


The EPA has just announced that squirrel meat in New Jersey is safe to eat. Well, that’s a load off my mind. What a joyous occasion it is now that I can finally return to the always entertaining New Jersey and tuck into a hearty plate of barbecued squirrel on the side of the road with some random old drunk homeless guy. Because, let’s face it – who the hell else is eating squirrel besides homeless people in New Jersey and well-to-do inbred hicks in Kentucky. But come on: the only thing that makes a squirrel substantially different from a rat is the full bushy furry tail. Sort of like the difference between a fashion journalist and a celebrity publicist who actually thinks they’re a celebrity. Oh, that’s mean. I can’t be bothered retracting though. [source]




I got this one via DListed.com and it really is a pearler: Andrew Merino, 24 of New Jersey was just arrested for having sex with the corpse of a 92 year old woman. He faces 10 years prison if convicted. The thing is, as dlisted.com points out, he’s actually kind of hot. I mean, he really looks like your classic dumb assed alpha male suburban thug who was destined to obsess over his body building and stupid, gauche hotted up car while standing outside some rancid guido nightclub until he eventually got some ho pregnant and then had to take any job he could find so he could support the kid finding that without the time to work out and play video games he ages rapidly and looks 40 by the time he’s 27 but then, hang on, maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to judge. I mean, that’s what he looks like but I’d never have picked him as a corpse fucker. I probably wouldn’t have ever picked anyone as a corpse fucker though, so you know – so much for that theory. Anyway, isn’t it all just happening in New Jersey right now. Non-toxic rodent meat, hot dumb guys screwing elderly corpses. Look, it’s hard being the Susan Lucci of states, it really is…[source]

It’s all running according to the formula today really, isn’t it? After yesterday’s borderline needless Page Six coverage of Nicole Ritchie apparently smoking in New York, Ritchie’s publicist has shockingly released a statement saying that not only was Ritchie not smoking, she was not even in New York at the time she was meant to be smoking while pregnant.

All I can say is, how convenient for Nicole Ritchie. There’s nothing like the perfect escape from an accusation that could go either way and relies on public opinion to ascertain whether it actually happened.

The blog “I’m Not Obsessed” is quoted as saying:

Thank goodness! I didn’t think those rumors were true. It truly does seem like Nicole has really changed for the better with this pregnancy.

Look, no disrespect at all but what the hell?. The other day INO wrote, in response to the idea that David Beckham was homesick and was potentially going to leave LA:

I hope David starts feeling more at home here, I would be so sad if he left!

What the fuck?

You know what though? Maybe INO is just the polar opposite of this one. Ok, that’s fine. Yin and Yang. Pop Sugar is like that too. All happy and saccharine, corn syrup, prozac goodness. Just like Perez when it comes to Paris Hilton.

Meanwhile, none of this makes Ritchie any more palateable or gives her an actual point. That kid in her is going to be ruined by the time it’s about 5. Yes, at 5 it will be slutting it up like the kid on Keeping Up with the Kardashians. God, there’s a totally pointless show. That entire show exists because of Kim Kardashian’s ass. Does she exist? I mean, it’s not entirely unlikely that they just strapped an easily animated corpse onto the back of a particularly pert set of isolated buttocks that were walking in a field near Hollywood. Ryan Seacrest is a real genius like that. REally out there for the enrichment of humanity. [source]

And here’s something else that isn’t that surprising: Bill O’Reilly sent a camera man to one of Rosie O’Donnell’s book signings and ambushed her, asking questions about her opinions on the causes of 9/11 and he edited the footage and then surrounded it with editorialized comment making her out to be uncooperative and reckless.

The pairing of Rosie with Bill O’Reilly actually makes a lot of showbiz sense. Even, inexplicably, more sense that Rosie and Donald Trump – primarily because why the hell is a real estate omnivore speaking in public anyway? Rosie and Bill make a great screaming couple. She’s able to really relax into her zen, feminine angle and he can be an entitled, bombastic male. It’s almost as perfect as Brad and Angelina.

Obviously not AS perfect as Brad and Angelina. Nothing is as perfect as them…

For some reason I was surprised – even if it was only for a minute – that Britney’s new album “Blackout” (which graciously drops today – “drops” is such a good word) features her bouncing sexually on the knee of a Catholic priest.

Of course it does. Photos that sexualize icons of the church are the only profitably offensive thing she was missing in her galactic equation of relentless pop cultural nausea.

It would absolutely be going too far to say that Britney is a genius for outraging the Catholic Church in return for scandalous acclaim. Madonna was a genius for doing that and she also won there because she wasn’t ever out of her mind insane like Britney. Ultimately, shock horror tactics from Britney aren’t anything new, she’s really no better than Donald Trump or even Chris Crocker at this point.

Still, congratulations are in order to a small extent because she did inspire the following quote from the Catholic League:

"This is all the puzzle pieces coming together. This girl is crashing," said Bill Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League. "She's not even allowed to bring up her own kids because she's not responsible enough. Now we see she can't even entertain."

It’s funny how it’s possible to completely disagree with someone. Fuck you, Donohue. I’m entertained. If there’s one thing that’s completely clear about Britney it’s that no matter how freaked out she gets she’s not crashing and burning. Sure it’s inexplicable but Britney’s not crashing. Furthermore, what the fuck would a member of the Catholic League know about entertainment?

Britney’s ability to continue to operate as a completely unhinged person who can still top the charts with her particular manifestation of totally insincere, plastic pop schmaltz despite herself is a super freaking human feat. Sure, she’s got an army of people behind her but so what? She’s still there, doing it. She’s a walking metaphor for America which is a shitload more than anyone can say about the ludicrously inane Catholic Church.

Outraging the Catholic Church is actually one of the smartest, most strategic and definitely most coherent business moves Britney has made in recent memory. . It actually also indicates a surprising level of artistic maturity from Britney Spears – a girl who has consistently failed to show that she is likely to be capable of anything more than a 5th grade reading comprehension level and maybe 6th grade coloring in. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I would pay to be called a heretic by the Catholic Church. Sadly, I’m essentially irrelevant to them. If only I were an eager to learn eleven year old boy. Well, I kind of am… [source]

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

Upwardly mobile and really hip happening cool cat Christians have decided it’s a good idea to start having church services in a pub in Melbourne Australia. Isn’t that great? I mean, Christian evangelism itself is always really calming and enjoyable but when you mix it with a good solid dose of Australian larrikinism you really are onto a winner. What could be more enjoyable, really, than sitting in a rank smelling bar at 11am next to some rancid old alcoholic asshole who is either crying or semi-conscious (who can hold their breath long enough to really find out for sure?) while you listen to some tragically over styled minister tell you in colloquial English about how Jesus was a “cool dude who would definitely have enjoyed a beer and a surf”. With that kind of crazy, off the wall approach anything is possible. I mean, the mere fact that I was able to use the word “cool” in a sentence with the word “Jesus” has alone shaken my atheism in its boots. Clearly, this is my high school nightmare revisiting me. Shit, everything’s come tumbling down. [source]

Former Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has just released an album of love ballads entitled My Longing for You. Apparently he wrote the songs himself AFTER he was elected president. In many ways, it’s pretty reasonable here to see that the presidency was for Mr Yudhoyono the cultural equivalent of appearing on a reality show like “the Surreal Life” in the US is for a washed up celebrity; there’s an ultimate goal of kickstarting something else with it. I, for one, am so glad that this is where he ended up. If former Attorney General John Ashcroft has taught us nothing else it’s that the unchecked ego of a high ranking public official more often than not makes totally amazing performance art. Sing away Mr. President, sing away. Preferably live and at an awards ceremony as well. Yeah. That’d be great. Wearing feathers. [source]

Georgian athlete Lasha Pataraia, 27 recently pulled a helicopter that weighed close to 8 metric tons with his ear and while he’s not the strongest man on earth, he feels he has the strongest ears. The Guinness Book of Records people were not in attendance so, at the end of the day it’s all heresay but people where there to witness it including media. "It was very difficult, I was very nervous. But I hope in the future with both my ears to move a subject twice as heavy as this one," Pataraia told Reuters Television. Yes, and he’s not the only one. Hope is restored to the weary through feats like this. Incidentally, what a quality freaking week to get back into blogging. There’s the top notch dumb ass Christian story, the enticing president cum crooner story and of course there’s a world record story. All in one day. [source]

Cindy Adams is an hilarious old rambling nutcase but at the same time she’s great because she just throws it out there and moves on quickly. No time to dwell, just facts facts facts. Today’s Page Six monologue explodes with sightings of Nicole Ritchie smoking despite the fact that she’s pregnant. Incidentally "explodes" is a really useful word in this instance.

October 29, 2007 -- MOMMY-to-be Nicole Richie. 3:30 p.m. Pony tail, black jeans, waistcoat. Exits DaSilvano with one young girl, one middle-age lady. On the sidewalk, after checking who's at which outdoor tables, she lights up. They jump into a waiting black Caddy Escalade, Nicole into the front seat. Still smoking.

Then Adams goes on to tear into Ritchie for going to restaurants and not eating and smoking.

Three days later, 7:30 p.m., Nobu. For somebody who doesn't eat, she sure frequents lots of restaurants. She's there with the baby in the bun's father. They leave. Outside she lights up again.

The next line is something about how Adams herself went tiger hunting presumably in her own backyard wearing a pith helmet. If she actually did it in the jungle it would be equal parts distasteful and hilarious.

Nicole Ritchie is pretty hard to write about because she’s so fundamentally pointless but when you frame her in Cindy Adams’ inane stunted rambling she almost becomes interesting enough to mention. Clearly, though, Ritchie is simply attempting to keep the kid’s weight down early on in life so it doesn’t have the soul crushing battle with weight she always had. She probably thinks of it as a kind of gift. Plus, Ritchie is looking a little plump and could stand to lose a few pounds at the moment.

I worked with this woman who smoked throughout her pregnancy and she literally once said (through draws on a cigarette), “Yeah, look, after the birth the placenta was black but the kid was ok…”

I never once worried about that kid again after she offered up such reassuring words. [source]

New reports suggest that, after a hearing in court with Federline on Friday, Britney Spears immediately went out, met up with pro-footballer Tony Romo of the Dallas Cowboys and went to a club. People Magazine reported this yesterday and they seem to be going to great pains to make it all seem really normal and ok.

"[Spears] walked around the restaurant into the lounge where she met up with some people," an observer tells PEOPLE. "She didn't eat or drink ...[It] seemed like she was rounding up people to go [out]. She was very friendly and smiley, in and out."

Oh please, let’s take a wild assed guess as to what actually transpired that night. It’s a given that at some point she took off her clothes, flirted antagonistically with a cute gay man who giggled at how much of an anecdote this would be at work in the shop the next day, danced on table tops with torn panties at her ankles and then puked all over herself in the bathroom. while it's not as likely, we can also entertain the notion that a portion of the vomit remained in her hair and on her left cheek for several hours causing some kind of chemical reaction with her exentions and a rash on her cheek which she scrubbed foundation into to cover it up.

Incidentally, I’ve been forcibly checked out of everything for the past three weeks and part of that meant that I’ve missed out on a lot of what happened to Brit. Checking in now, however, just confirmed my suspicion that you can actually check in and out as you please with the Brit-meister and the deal never really changes. It’s always the same dynamic; something totally understandable happens like state intervention into her status as a parent and she reacts by doing something ludicrous like shoveling botulinum toxin into her lips or guzzling lighter fluid while giggling maniacally and galloping round a field pretending to be a horse. [source]

Following on from reports last week of alleged abuse at Oprah Winfrey’s girls’ school in South Africa, News 24 reports that Oprah has had to return to her school in South Africa twice in a week because of allegations of student molestation and choking by a teacher. Actually, the report refers to teachers as “matrons” which puts a camp 1970s English comedy spin on the whole thing making it slightly more hilarious than it, perhaps, otherwise would be.

Oprah flew down to Henley-on-Klip near Vereeniging, where her school is, and held an emergency meeting during which she was quoted as saying,

"I've disappointed you. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

The news item then goes on to say:

“Oprah's "daughters" have accused Dr Mzimane of failing to take action, although the girls had often complained of being grabbed by the neck, beaten and thrown against a wall, and being sworn at.”

Of course, the irony of this is that while yes, some are eaten whole, that exact same thing is also what happens to interns that work for Harpo when they look Ms Winfrey in the eye and fail to present her with her meals in a timely and appropriate manner. Her meals yes, and also various important documents. Plus, also, if she is disturbed during her secret power rejuvenation procedures. That’s why an internship with Oprah is so useful. If you make it out alive then you can pretty much do anything. [source]

The Reluctant Whore will return on October 29 with a renewed sense of unapologetic, judgmental venom.

A mild haitus is being taken while in limbo/transit.

Also...

Again, sorry about the lack of pics; it's this computer I'm on in San Francisco.

Lohan's cleansing the horror right out of her hair with a predictable sojourn in Africa.

Lohan is back, she's talking to her father and she's also got a mission that is going to clear her record in the public eye: she's going to make a humanitarian visit to Africa in December. Infusing yourself with depth by visiting Africa or some other place where there isn't definitely going to be premium cable is absolutely the best way to show that a celebrity is not just a mindless, drunken addict clotheshorse who manages to churn out a few songs/movies/ass shots despite themselves. I mean, that was pretty much confirmed when ex-zeitgeist, future desperate ironic diva (if she ever figures out what irony is) Hilton leaped on the Brangelina bandwagon and ran with it by saying she was going to Rwanda. So, now all we need is a little trip to say, leukemia riddled Eastern Europe, yeah, no one's been there in a while, from the Spears-meister and we'll have the trifecta again. A slightly hobbled trifecta but the girls'll be back. Who am I kidding, Britney is one klunk on the head away from galloping around a paddock in jodhpurs thinking she's a horse. [source]

Britney's album to be released early. Only because it's a hair trigger of marketability though...

Actually, maybe Britney doesn't need to go on a cleansing trip to a torn out nation. People apparently want her album so badly that it's going to be released ahead of schedule on October 29 rather than Nov 12. I don't think this is about popularity though. This is a delicate situation because the public are still endeared to her but the child custody thing and the way she was so indifferent to giving up her kids doesn't really resonate well with anyone so perhaps time is running out. The relentless drinking and flopping around without underwear on seems to invoke sympathy and concern from everyone but maybe Britney's marketability really is going to be whittled away after a while; the kids were the clincher. THAT'S why they releasing the album; there's freak value in it right now but one more kid dropping incident and the public might turn. God, the public are weird. [source]

So, I'm currently in transit on my way to Sydney from New York and I'm stuck in San Fran - posts are random at the moment.

In the meantime, the rundown of some dumb ass celebrity crap from the Post is as follows. For some reason I can't post images on this computer. Damn everything to god damned hell:

George Clooney, now even more heterosexual.

George Clooney is apparently now making out with women, or a woman at least, in public. Not that this is based on anything but I always thought he was gay. I mean, it's based on what I've been told by people who apparently know - but then, isn't more or less everything? For someone as bankable as Clooney, it seems pretty calculated to all of a sudden be breaking down this barrier. Maybe his people thought it was time to take a little leaf out of the Cruise Corp handbook. Honestly, though, right now my feet hurt cause I'm wearing new shoes. [source]

Miss Universe is above the security threat.

Apparently, being Miss Universe means you can't be a terrorist. The New York Post reports that Miss Universe, Riyo Mori, just had to flash her sash (which frankly, when you boil away all the arbitrary marketing is really just gash) and she was let on a domestic flight from New York to Bloomington, Illinois despite the fact that she has no ID. Good old dumb ass air port security. There's so much maddening emphasis placed on shoes and belts and laptops and nail scissors but you know that the high school educated cretin who is on the ground looking for the day to day threats is as dumb as a box of hair. Consequently, they get dazzled at the sight of something as inane and culturally nauseating as a pageant winner. Good old everything. [source]

Lou Pearlman, now even more alluring an viscerally present. My teeth hurt.

Lou Pearlman, the morbidly obese alleged boyband molester has shot back at Vanity Fair for not checking their facts in the story they printed which stated that he wrestled with young boys wearing a towel that came off in the rumble. It's nice that Page Six gave us that visual image in the first place let alone the fact that they've graciously followed up with Pearlman's side of the story. Pearlman stated to Page Six that he's never owned a towel that could possibly fit around his waist. I'm not sure I've ever felt more like both immediately eating lunch and doing what I can to really visualise what it must be like for Pearlman to shower eah day. Maybe he just has a pile of towels he rolls around in after the shower and then some servant picks them up. That's both calming AND arousing. Also, Lou Pearlman's gut instinct is certain an interesting cultural entity. With his momentus size coupled with the accusations about how he's a fraud not to mention the pederast issues, it seems he's never been served well by it? Go ahead Lou, eat the can of frosting from the tips of the fingers of an Indonesian house boy. Nothing could possible be wrong with that. [source]

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

After a career based on, among other equally crap things, the relentless pursuit and destruction of civil rights for gay people followed by an arrest for apparently trying to pick up another guy for sex in an airport bathroom which then followed on to a humiliating call for him to be sacked or to step down, Senator Larry Craig of Idaho is, without irony, being inducted into the Idaho Hall of fame. So, what does that mean? They’ll have a wax effigy of him on a toilet looking sheepish and they’ll put that next to the potato? I mean, look, I’m saying Idaho isn’t on par with New York or California, for its contributions to culture I mean, who would dare say THAT? What I’m maybe saying here is that Idaho might possibly be able to do better than…ah, than….Senator Larry Craig. Still, it’s nice that he’ll get some good press. Alarmingly, some Republicans don’t think he should be included. [source]

Some douchebag in England named Alan Jenkins just spent 2000 dollars getting the faces of his two daughters and his wife tattooed on his back and then just after he did his wife said she was divorcing him to be with another man. He responded by saying "It's a real sickener. I thought she was happy. I had it because I thought we loved each other - I feel very betrayed." It sure is a sickener. And here’s why: this guy is one of those people who have a pretty average life and remain essentially good natured but simple the whole time, never quite evolving beyond what they do day in and day out and then eventually they do something ludicrous like tattoo pictures of the fam on their back. Psychopaths kill people but these people aren’t psychopaths. There’s nothing essentially wrong with them at all except for general aesthetics. There was some rancid woman I saw who was getting married and she wanted life sized fiberglass cows at her wedding and you just know she drinks Midori and Sprite every Saturday night as she goes out for a (fat) girl’s night out. Alan Jenkins will probably marry that woman. [source]

A rare blue diamond just sold in Hong Kong for 7.98 million US dollars to “Moussaieff Jewellers" in London making it the most expensive gem in the world. So, really, all that needs to happen now is for it to be placed at the top of a crochembouche and sold for 14 million dollars to some douchebag rich kid in New York for their sweet sixteen or bar mitzvah. That’s generally what happens with these maddeningly expensive jewels; they end up in desserts at some hotel. Oh, look, if it makes the kids happy. Why not. It’s not like they don’t deserve it. [source]

Say what you want about the Post. After all that towing the party line and reporting the Murdoch/Bush propaganda not to mention their maddeningly exploitative headlines, they regularly come through in the end with some quality, healthy imagery at the end of the day.
Take today’s story about Christopher Hitchens’ series about self improvement for Vanity Fair.

The Post reports:

Hitchens, who's writing a three-part series in Vanity Fair on self-improvement, visited the J Sisters on Friday for a full male Brazilian bikini wax, which his editor-in-chief Graydon Carter gleefully described four months ago as "the back, the crack and the sack."


Isn’t that enchanting? The image of the sow-reminiscent, chain smoking author whose sweat is probably alcoholic lying on a table naked getting a full Brazillian wax is not just appetizing, it’s a gift to us, the reader. The gentle, unassuming reader who is now scarred. We are no longer as gentle as we, perhaps, once were because it’s this kind of imagery that can harden a person’s soul. Plus, the Post also got in a bit about how Hitchens is still going to hell for criticizing Mother Theresa.

So, basically, what we ascertain from this is that Hitchens is a chain smoking, alcoholic, fully waxed Catholic hater. It would be hard to actually find a more suitable guest for an intimate dinner with the Queen I think. Oh, I kid. I love Hitchens. No one talks enough about how he used to date Anna Wintour. He also taught me how to be an atheist.[source]

Hollywood Rag reports that Britney went out and while she was gone her house was robbed. That’s feasible and everything because in her stumbling fast food needing haze she may very well have left the door unlocked or something.

The part of this story that’s sort of suspect is that the report then goes on to state that the items taken were “ Britney's collection of raunchy homemade sex tapes as well as a selection of the singer's steamiest photographs. Some of the uniforms Britney allegedly wears for kinky sex games and personal pictures of her sons, two-year-old Sean Preston, and one-year-old Jayden James, were also taken.”

Notice how they complete the list with something little and cute so it’s not as easy to consider it just completely ludicrous. It’s just a little too convenient that yet again there’s a massive hemorrhage of Britney Spears as she’s floundering about trying to get by on a diet of preservative packed meat, 32 ounce frappacino milkshakes with 4-5 shots of espresso and this time it’s her ENTIRE collection of sex artifacts.

We weren’t sure that she was really into kink but look, now we know. All that’s left to explore is the contents of her bowels which, considering what she eats, is probably just a hard ball of high fructose corn syrup, plastic and gristle.

So, now what? We’re meant to wait for the bidding war to begin on her sex tapes? Actually, truthfully, K-Fed might be a total douchebag rat faced white trash gigolo who is sort of only surpassed by Spencer Pratt in the manipulation stakes but, unlike Pratt, he’d probably come up well in porn. He may have to sooner or later anyway. [source]

Week #40 in Review

Reports emerged at the beginning of the week that suggested pop star Britney Spears regularly calls the paparazzi to inform them of where she’ll be on any given day to ensure maximum coverage in the gossip rags and so, early on, it promised to be just another week of Britney not hitting rock bottom. Then, a court ruled that she lost complete custody of her two boys Sean Preston and Jayden James and there was essentially no reaction from Britney except to drop by a Carl’s Jr, pick up some fast food, drop the two boys off with Kevin Federline’s security guard two days before her deadline and go and visit a tanning salon. Paparazzi and gossip magazines continued to document Britney’s strange behavior, it was speculated that she has a crystal meth problem and that she was also seen wandering through a hotel lobby giggling at two bickering paparazzi photographers. Despite all this, her single “Gimme More” remained at Number 3 on the Billboard charts, the video for which premiered later in the week.

More spoiler details emerged about the Sex and the City movie which is currently filming in downtown Manhattan with reports on Page Six that characters Carrie and Mr Big get married, comedienne Rosie O’Donnell included in her stand-up routine the line, “When I was fired by Barbara Walters” marking the first time she has strayed from the party line since leaving The View. O’Donnell went on to explain that she and host of The View Barbara Walters had been close at one point, suggesting that Walters once suggested she use Astroglide.

Porn producer Michael Lucas had his publicist announce that he had been found dead in his apartment in Manhattan as a way of promoting his newest porn film, “Gigolo” and then bickered that he was not being tasteless in doing so, former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev was spotted in Miami sending back every dish he was served at the Prime 112 Steakhouse, and In Touch Magazine produced cropped photos of actress Angelina Jolie after they had to can a story that speculated as to whether she was pregnant when photos revealed that her stomach was incredibly thin, instead preferring to suggest that perhaps Jolie had gained weight and only in her chest area.

Actor Brad Pitt hit back at critics who suggested he is merely following Angelina Jolie’s lead in adopting children from around the world suggesting that he does so actually, “because he is a member of the human race”, supermodel Irina Lazareanu announced that she is engaged to Kate Moss’ ex-boyfriend Pete Doherty, comedienne Amy Sedaris went on Martha Stewart’s talk show and had Stewart say the phrase “bong water”, Molly Shannon was announced as the choice to play the character of Kath in the US remake of Australian comedic series “Kath and Kim” and Anna Nicole Smith’s lawyer Howard K Stern filed a 60 million dollar lawsuit against journalist Rita Cosby for her allegations that he and photographer Larry Birkhead were lovers.

A Vanity Fair article reported that not only is Producer Lou Pearlman a money laundering fraud, he’s also a pederast, actor Russell Crowe announced that he has dealt with a substantial portion of his rage and that he thinks a lot of it stemmed from low self esteem, model Pam Anderson and amateur porn actor Rick Solomon applied for a marriage license so they could get married and it was rumoured that there was a sex tape involving Eva Longoria but the tape turned out to be a prank.

In records and numbers news, an original Faberge egg was found in a private collection and is expected to fetch between 12 and 18 million dollars at auction in late November which will make it the most expensive piece of Russian art ever traded, Pat Bertoletti became the world champion grits guzzler after eating 21 pounds of grits in ten minutes and the world championship for Rubik’s cube puzzle solvers kicked off in Hungary with competitors working towards an ultimate prize of $7000.

In the UK and Europe, the Tate Museum in London opened an exhibition of all winners of the controversial Turner Prize from the past 25 years, the Vatican announced the release of a book about the pope written from the perspective of his cat, the Geneva based International Electrotechnical Commission produced a TV show that they aimed to use to measure how much power is used by LCD screens versus that of regular tube televisions and the show was considered the most boring TV show ever. Two students in Austria were in trouble for making tea for their teacher than contained toilet water and disinfectant, and a couple in Prague found out that their new baby was not actually genetically linked to them due to a mix-up at the hospital.

In Asia, the King of Nepal, who is being increasingly shut out of public life in Nepal by the Nepalese government thwarted their plans to alienate him from an important public religious ceremony by walking through the crowds with no security to take part in it anyway despite government efforts to block his access by not arranging adequate security for him, on a visit to North Korea, president Roh Moo hyun of South Korea delivered a present of DVDs that had had been banned in North Korea to North Korean dicator Kim Jong Il who actually banned them himself and in return was presented with 4 tonnes of pine mushrooms.

Meanwhile, in America, hugging was banned at the Percy Julian Middle School by principal Sharts.

“Hugging is really more appropriate for airports or for family reunions than passing and seeing each other every few minutes in the halls,” she said.

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

The World Champion Rubik’s cube championships have kicked off in Hungary today. Who knew they were still popular? Actually, maybe that’s the point. They aren’t really, it’s just that Hungary has only just got them so they’re all mad about them. Apparently the fastest cube puzzle solver is Thibaut Jacquinot of France who did it in 9.86 seconds. That’s not entirely surprising because if you go to France, they are also pretty far behind in terms of pop culture. Like, they’re still dancing to “Stronger” by Britney Spears in the gay clubs and they don’t really have a sense of irony about it. Plus, there are those dorky European guys everywhere who wear their pants too high and who have buck teeth and say they’re out to have a good time because “life is groovy” or some crap like that. Here’s the thing Europe, I’ve done the Rubik’s cube phase so let me let you in on a little secret: after the cube comes those flat puzzle things, they break easily and then you move onto video games and never look back. Once you’ve beat one of those you start to realize that if you don’t go do something else you’ll be fat, pointless and 30 and no one wants that. That’s basically how it goes. Still, good luck and congrats ahead of time to the person who wins the whopping $7000 prize money. [source]

Earlier in the week South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun gave the paranoid and odd Kim Jong Il a package of DVD movies he’d banned, a tea set and a painted screen for his birthday. To return the favour and to be nice after a visit from his southern equivalent Jong Il gave Roh Moo-hyun four tonne of prized mushrooms. I can’t imagine that discussions between the two men were entirely easy going and relentlessly charming but this whole gift giving thing is great. IT’s like this highly theatrical way to be mean. What the hell does anyone want with 4 tonne of mushroom? That’s 4 thousand kilograms of expensive mushrooms. I mean, I guess South Korea could have a freaking mushroom festival but really, is that something they do? That seems more like something a community of retired hippies in Oregon would do. Still, maybe they’ll just keep this going and Roo Moo-hyun can send up a diverse and high quality selection of pachyderms and Jong-Il can send back a chocolate boy. It could go on forever until they run out of stuff and just poison each other. Hilarious. [source]

Rush and Molloy of the Daily News in New York have written that Rosie O’Donnell stood up to begin a stand up set and started in with another sort of tired old reference to her melodramatic departure from The View by saying: "When I was fired by Barbara Walters". That whole thing is starting to sound a little like when that guy from “Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire” went around making reference to his failed TV marriage set up incessantly. It was sort of interesting at first but after a while it became tired. Although, something that is never tired is the idea of Barbara Walters having sex which is probably why Rosie then said that she and Walters used to be so close that Walters was the one who initially suggested O’Donnell use Astroglide. Mmmm, how calming.

This comes hot on the heels of another unnecessarily sexual report about Barbara Walters. The other day on The View Barbara Walters dragged out Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi and spent the first few moments drooling over her husband who was sitting in the front row, mentioning the idea of “doing” him. Video of that is here. Of course, we all had a little bit of a throw up in our mouths, swallowed and then sort of tried to put the sexualized image of Walters out of our heads forever.

Why is America sexualizing the dead and almost dead? Michael Lucas came out with photos of himself through his publicist saying that he had been found dead in his apartment and then said it was just promo for his upcoming porn film and now we’re more or less bombarded with sexualized images of Barbara Walters and she’s so old she may as well be dead. There’s altogether too much blurring of the line between sex and death. Snap out of it …er..America. Yes, that’ll do. [source]

The official music video for Britney’s groundbreaking and vastly successful comeback piece, “Gimme More” is up on youtube and you can also buy it through iTunes if the quality isn’t good enough for you on youtube. Not sure what the difference is seeing as I didn’t pay to see it on iTunes but even though the youtube one looks like some 19 year old taped it with their camera phone, it’s got this kind of graciously abstract quality that masks the back fat of potato face quite well.
Oh, that’s mean. She’s actually never really going to be THAT fat. She’s built to be slim. Sure the face is always round (she has pig face) but even after making foie gras out of her liver through the seemingly endless sorjournes to Carl’s Jr, she’s still more or less the right shape.
Plus, take a close look at the video and you’ll note that there are two Britneys in it – one in blonde and the other in some kind of stringy black. One can only assume that these are meant to represent the light and dark sides of Ms Spears but the interesting thing about them is that both are played by Britney herself. That’s right, I didn’t realize at first either. Her excellent choice and experience in wigs has done her a great service. Thank goodness she shaved her head back whenever the hell it was.

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

An original Faberge egg was found in a private collection and it will be auctioned off in late November for what is estimated will be between 12 and 18 million dollars. This will apparently be one of the biggest sales of Russian art ever. The thing that has always amazed me about Faberge eggs is that they stand the test of time. Not only do they not break despite everything, but they are also always understated and tasteful. They really do suit any home. This one, for example, apart from being priced so diplomatically, contains a diamond-set cockerel that pops up every hour and flaps its wings, nods its head, and opens and closes its beak. Who doesn’t need one of those? I would enter the slave trade for one. [source]

A couple of rowdy and naughty teenagers in Austria are in trouble for making their teacher a cup of tea out of toilet water and disinfectant after the teacher was allegedly quite strict with them. The other day an Australian woman was in trouble for actually serving someone shots of disinfectant in the bar in which she works. Isn’t it interesting how people from countries beginning with “Aust” are all of a sudden forcing people to drink disinfectant. Perhaps this is the missing and unusual link between Australia and Austria that people have been searching for that is separate to American failure at Geography. [source]

Also...

The Insider reports that sources are saying (sources?! The Insider?! And they're presumably inferring that these sources are not their own producers) that Britney Spears, after all that, will not be entering rehab after all. It's good that she's finally faced that fact that she's fine and that she really doesn't need any help. All this endless talk of addiction and a need for therapy and rehab and a license was getting tiring. She got the license already...she probably just needs a drink and a good lie down. [source]

And...

Amy Sedaris went on Martha Stewart and had Stewart say the phrase "Bong Water". There's not MUCH else to do about that besides a hearty round of cheering for Sedaris.

Pete Doherty is engaged to Irina Lazareanu which is great news because it means that the mindlessly unnecessary time during which he has been single ends now thus bringing an end to the maddening catfight that was probably on among English women to nab him.

Gosh, Pete Doherty has given us a lot of reasons to enjoy him hasn’t he? On one hand there’s his prolific, critically acclaimed music career and then of course there’s his way of selflessly forcing cats to be addicted to crack. After that, one can’t help but marvel at the extraordinarily quality of his epidermis. I am unable to put Doherty’s epidermis out of my mind right this second as it happens and have thought of it has been an ongoing source of contemplative calm since I first laid eyes on it years ago.

With Doherty within the romantic clutches of a totally clued in and perceptive, evolved woman, everything is as it should be now but let's not forget it wasn’t so long ago that his tragic and unexpected separation from long time girlfriend supermodel Kate Moss occurred. Thank goodness that adequate time has now well and truly passed and he has healthily moved past his prior relationship and has had time to think about where he’s going.

Now all they have to do is plan the wedding. It should be a breeze. [source]

In Touch magazine was meant to run a story on how Angelina Jolie might be pregnant but when they saw shots of how utterly emaciated her stomach really is, they simply bought those shots, hid them away and then cropped the ones they did have to include only her chest.

"The most striking area of Angelina's weight gain is in her chest, which is why we focused on that area," said In Touch.

Weight gain in her chest? Chest? What the hell kind of crap is “weight gain in her chest”? Chest weight gain is either implants or puberty. You don’t suddenly put on a fat belt of lard under your arms and nowhere else.

Still, when you’ve failed like In Touch have and you’ve been caught out there’s really no rational sounding way to get out of looking like you’re a White House Press Secretary covering up for Alberto Gonzales. So sincere props to In Touch for the “weight gain in her chest” angle. Not only is isolated chest weight gain an extremely common and normal thing to point out but it’s also quite impressive that the magazine spokespeople could actually say that that was their editorial aim without crying at the loss of their last shreds of sincere dignity.

The other thing here is, if In Touch is ready and willing, with their finger on the button, to publish information that is misleading here, then where else have they done it in the past? My entire notion of good and evil is completely skewed now. Completely. [source]

The New York Post ran a sighting of Mikhail Gorbachev in Miami the other day and I thought it was kind of hilarious – really just because the chance to put the words “Gorbachev” and “Miami” in the same sentence don’t come along often. Then today they ran another sighting but put in the added bonus that he was seen sending back every dish he was served at the Prime 112 Steakhouse.

How entirely enchanting for the waiters at Prime 112. After all, there’s got to be no customer more easy to please than an aging, probably mildly senile, Russian ex-President who is somehow culturally displaced in America’s repellant waiting room for death, ordering a steak. Nothing is ever good enough. “No no, steak is too…how you say, “FOOFY”. Take away please now and bring other selection. Please, you don’t fail this time. I kill.”

I have no idea why anyone would leave the charming bitter cold of Moscow to come to the horrific, socially aspirational “white pants and white shirt with sunglasses at night while standing on a rooftop drinking dated cocktails near the bar while trying to chat up a 40 year old tanned divorcee and congratulating oneself for being so successful…looking” Miami. Maybe Gorbachev is a little like Britney; maybe under all that statesman pomp there’s just a Russian trash kid. [source]

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

Kim Jong Il, the paranoid dictator of North Korea has just had a birthday and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun decided it would be a good idea to hand him a collection of DVDs that are banned in North Korea. Frankly, giving the control freak Kim Jong Il a set of DVDs he himself banned is subversive and funny. It’s a great story. In fact, I’m re-telling it right now to my accountant. The thing is, what if he got freaked out and killed a bunch of children or hookers because he thought they were spying on him and the gift pushed him over the edge? That could have happened. Just because you’re paranoid, does not mean that everyone isn’t trying to oust your from your position. Stay freaked out Kim Jong Il – it’s gotten you this far. [source]

A couple in Prague were getting a lot of crap from people down at the pub regarding their new baby. Apparently, no one at the pub believed the baby was truly theirs because it had different hair to them both. So, they went and got a DNA test and found out that the baby was not actually genetically linked to either of them. Here’s what great about Prague. Where the doctors fail you on a momentus level, drunk bar flies will pick up the slack and who can think of anything more comforting than an appendix removal by a drunk 48 year old divorcee who isn’t allowed to see his kids? No one, that’s who. [source]

The Catholic Church really are masterminds when it comes to marketing. They’ve just come out with a book about the Pope that is being marketed as having been written by the pope’s cat. The president does crap like this too. I’ve never heard of a book being written by a dog or cat unless there’s a tremendous amount of international political manipulation going on underneath it. Because that’s the way it works when you’re into massed human manipulation. You have to recruit the new members by pretending to be a cat. If a cat rather than a man of the cloth says, “and if you don’t do what I say, you’ll burn in hell forever…” somehow the message gets across but the cat isn’t being abusive. The story begins, “and it's not every day that a cat can call the Holy Father his friend and write his story. “ That’s right, it’s not every day. It’s freaking never. The cat is a hired actor. The pope has no friends. [source]

I just got an e mail from Bryan, the publicist at Lucas Entertainment, Michael Lucas’ New York porn company, saying that Michael Lucas was found dead in his apartment last night. Knowing how brazenly Ann Coulter-ish Michael Lucas is I’m not convinced that it’s not a PR stunt. I’ve asked Bryan if it’s a PR stunt. No response yet. Here's the photo. It's so melodramatic.

Thankfully, they included the company logo, just in case you forgot...

In the meantime, it must be “photos of dead people” day because the genius blog, “What Would Tyler Durden Do” just posted this calming and elegant shot of Anna Nicole Smith.

Apparently it was taken AFTER she died so you’ve got the vomit AND you’ve got the added intellectual impact of knowing that it’s a dead body. She’s actually got quite a nice tan in that shot and the thin pink strands that go through her pigtails are quite playful, as WWTDD points out. Not quite sure what she had for lunch there though, just from looking at the vomit itself. Sadly, there’s no publicist we can ask to clarify. Oops! Hope you weren’t eating lunch! [source] [source]

It’s been what, ten minutes since we last heard from Larry Birkhead and Howard K Stern? Thank mothering crap they’re back. Howard K Stern has just filed a 60 million dollar lawsuit against journalist Rita Cosby because in her new book Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death, she alleges that Stern and Larry Birkhead were actually gay lovers.

Re. the 60 million dollar price tag, it’s good that the stakes in this are so high in this. On one hand you have the integrity of a journalist who is being moved to write a sensationalist book about Anna Nicole because she’s concerned for the well being of the child. Of course, releasing a salacious tell-all craptastic book is pretty much the only way you could ever prove that a child’s welfare is your primary concern so her hands are clearly tied.

And then on the other side, you’ve got the vastly important public image of Howard K Stern and Larry Birkhead to consider. Isn’t this the Tom Cruise thing as well? Like, where he was outted by the porn star and quickly slammed anyone who even thought of saying his name in the same sentence as the word “gay” with hundred million dollar lawsuits? Way to be calm about the whole thing and keep your hetero-persona intact.

With the amount of pimping, whoring, drug abuse, alcoholism and accidental running into walls that happened in the Anna Nicole household over the past 10 years it would be surprising if you couldn’t argue and conclusively prove that every single person in Anna Nicole’s immediate circle had NOT slept with everyone else. Including however many animals she was holding hostage.
At the end of the day though, it’s good that we’re still thinking about them. I find it calming [source]

Despite the fact that more or less every facet of her life has been aggressively dismantled by Britney Spears herself, except of course for her seemingly endless source of cash and the fact that she now has a license (excellent work, tick that off the “things to do” list), her single Gimme More is at number 3 on the billboard charts. See now, this is the kind of thing that keeps the dear girl moving.

It’s not a surprise that this is the case – no doubt an army of producers worked long into the night scraping away and filling in the blanks of whatever actual recording Britney managed to get through in the months where she was going into the studio to record. What they churned out is more or less the same as all the other work; it’s clean, audibly addictive pop that has been crafted to ensure maximum impact. Nothing Britney does with the help of producers and publicists really sucks, it can’t suck, it’s a highly refined product.

If ever there was an indication that there’s a disconnect between the product and the artist where Britney is concerned then this is it. She’s never really had THAT much to do with her stuff anyway, so a pending complete mental breakdown probably won’t get in the way. This could be the biggest and best re-enactment of “Weekend at Bernies” since Boris Yelsin or possible Fidel Castro – we can apparently never be sure about Castro.

Hell, Britney could probably release a couple of albums even after she inevitably overdoses and goes into a coma. Why not? They could just doctor up the sound of her quiet hospital room breathing and make it into an anthem of survival with plenty of bass in a minor key. Works for me. I really identify. [source]

Molly Shannon is cast to play the Kath character in the US version of Kath and Kim and while the entire idea of an American version is more or less preposterous, at least with Shannon you know she’s got a sense of complex irony and is genuinely funny and weird.
The interesting thing about American adaptations of international shows is that they don’t ALWAYS suck but they mostly do. While it’s hard to actually repress the vomit and nausea long enough to say this, the American version of The Office was admittedly kind of funny even though the only time I ever watched it was when I was on a flight back from Venezuela on vicodin that had been washed down with cheap white wine. When you’re in that state, locked into a small chair for 6 hours, American comedic adaptations can be funny. Especially when the alternative is what? Exactly, there is no alternative in that scenario except to find things funny.
The weird part about this is the descriptions of the original all state that it’s about the dysfunctional relationship between a mother and a daughter but it’s actually not really about that at all. It’s a broad cultural satire before it’s about the characters per se. The reason Kath and Kim works is because it’s just layers and layers of dense cultural commentary that is actually heavily Australian. The mindlessly perky, cultureless, self absorbed, suburban chatterboxes are balanced out by the elitest, silver haired private school mothers so it can be a culturally relevant and essentially balanced satire on white Australian culture. The nuances are what make it worth anything at all.

Apart from the nuances it’s just scripted faux reality TV that lampoons white culture so if you wanted to replicate that in the US, you could but you’d hardly need it to be a copy of Kath and Kim. It could be anything at all.
The fact that it IS going to be Kath and Kim works on the assumption that America has to re-make everything for its own audiences partly because it likes to steal what it deems less worthy ideas from non-Americans and parade them about as being new to the flyover states who would never had had access to the originals and partly because it assumes that foreign humour won’t fly in the US.
The US version of Kath and Kim will be produced by Turner and Riley though so that, coupled with Molly Shannon’s involvement is a good sign. [source]