Plus, here's Dolly Parton's new music video. The more I see Amy Sedaris the more I subscribe to the thought that she's a total genius. Maybe a saint. Yes, she is a saint.

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

Members of a TV production team from a show called “Destination Truth” were researching and filming for an episode of their show that would concentrate on the myth of the Yeti. While filming they discovered foot prints that were quite large which they insist are not a bear’s. They claim that the discovery really does warrant further inquiry which is also coincidentally what their show was about to do. Now look, I’m not saying that they’re publicity whores at all. I’m really not. [source]

Mafia boss Michele Catalano (apparently also known as The Beast) was sitting in his house watching TV in Italy, in fact he was watching a show where the scene on TV was of a mafia boss being arrested. Just then the police burst in the door and arrested him. It’s things like that that would make me completely petrified of ever doing anything again. I mean, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that his watching of that show willed that arrest to happen. That’s how the Secret works, isn’t it? I mean, that’s what someone told me. [source]

A politician in Thailand is in trouble for handing out Viagra to elderly men in the hopes that they’ll vote for him. It’s interesting how insane Asian elections can get when you consider that in Taiwan politicians actually staged a huge physical fight on TV. To be honest I don’t really know what else to say about this because I’m kind of distracted. I do feel calmed by the idea of an army of elderly Thai men afflicted with priapism. It’s calming and it’s also enjoyable. [source]

Britney Spears is running a competition in conjunction with TRL to have a fan create a music video for her single “Piece of Me”. It’s nice that several weeks after the album has come out with Britney doing no promotion of it at all that they’re trying something.
But really, isn’t this just a way of getting a million people to make music videos that poke fun of her porcine figure, less than gourmet culinary tastes and mildly questionable parenting techniques?
Plus, will she actually sit in a room and watch them? Isn’t being aware of the way the public react to her of little importance to Mademoiselle? If it were wouldn’t she be a little cleaner? I mean, she’d probably go out and buy an apricot scrub and remove that encrusted vomit from her face before leaving the house etc. I mean, I am pretty much sure I would. There is no doubt in my mind that Madamoiselle won’t even watch these videos, she’ll just let someone choose the final two and then she’ll throw a quesadilla at the tv screen that is showing the one she likes.
But anyway – people will enter from the fly over states I’m sure and they’ll be all earnest and crap. This is going to be a vehicle for a hundred thousand Chris Crocker copycats too. Good, I’m totally hanging for this actually. Come on Arkansas, show us what you’ve got. [source]

Sharon Osbourne is going through what a lot of satellite celebrities go through at the moment and that’s the unmistakable horror that comes when the black dog of cultural irrelevance starts lurking at your back door. So, what does she do? She starts in at Courtney Love again about how Courtney Love gave Oxycontin to her son Jack Osbourne and he later became addicted to it.

There’s really no way you can decide which person is telling the truth in this situation because both are saying the complete opposite of each other but you can probably make sense out of it by figuring out who in the equation needs the attention more.

Courtney Love has been baiting Madonna recently but I actually think that underneath the spelling errors and cracked out tangents she usually has a point. Sharon Osbourne is a professional groupie who leveraged it to an extreme amount and she knows how little value she actually has as a media personality. She’s sort of a bit like Posh Spice in that way but more petulant, annoying and with even less talent.

Overall, it’s good though because the only thing better than someone like Hayden Pannetiere letting the mask slip for a bit on the red carpet is a fully fledged knife wielding middle aged rock star woman on the desperate rampage. They let it all out and that’s amusing to me. [source]

Darren Hayes did a really genius acoustic cover of Britney Spears’ “Gimme Gimme” on Wednesday night at the Canal Room in New York. I had great seats and was actually astounded at his performance and I’m intolerant of basically anything that isn’t Meryl Streep so that's good for me.

I’m also fairly confident in asserting that his cover of Gimme Gimme, even WITH the crap sound in this video is better and contains more soul than Britney’s original.

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

Greenpeace is running a survey so that the public can vote for their favorite name for a whale and the list is pretty long. It’s full of those island names that always feel foreign to white people in the west like Kigai and Paikea. Like when you go to the zoo the animals are never named things like Stephen or James or Felicity they always get names like Coco or whatever. Anyway, so on the list is also Mr. Splashy Pants which is just great. Although while clearly the name is endearing one thing Greenpeace has overlooked is the fact that whales don’t actually wear pants so …yeah. Nice try. [source]

There’s a new mobile phone service that is about to be launched in the UK called SatLav – an hilarious, unbridled comic spin on SatNav – honestly, I’m still crying…from laughter. Anyway, so, this new device helps you locate a lavatory or TOILET near you wherever you may be through your mobile phone. Who knew finding a toilet in England was such a priority. I mean, I certainly didn’t. Perhaps it’s because after they hold everything in for long periods of time, at a certain point going to the toilet becomes a dire necessity. An emergency of sorts. I would like to think that the device looks sort of like those old fashioned homing devices from Batman the original series where it’s just a beeping red light that gets louder and faster as you get closer. Just to really up the tension and excitement. And direness. Ha. So necessary. [source]

If your wife, husband, boyfriend or girlfriend is a heavily marinated slab of tuna, being forced to go shopping with them would be a total nightmare. I don’t know because I haven’t ever been forced to go shopping as I always head it off because my tunameter always warns me. Regardless, some people aren’t as adept as avoiding time spent with shrill, materialist, control freak idiots so you know, they have to. Not so in Austria though apparently. I know I buried the lede. Anyway, in Salzburg, Austria there’s an alternative for spouses who don’t want to shop – a tent filled with porn, computer games, newspapers and a bar which has been called Maennerhort. Men hang out in the tent while their wives shop. So, maybe it’s not for bored straight women or gay men but the lesbians could join in. Whatever, it’s just nice that the Austrians are providing an alternative to the exhaustion. Good on them. [source]

What a fascinating career choice Tara Reid made when she signed on to host the Hooker’s Ball in Darwin Australia.

Honestly, is there anything more that can actually be said about this? Tara Reid, Hooker’s Ball, Darwin Australia. She’s on the way back up to the lower middle where she peaked.
Darwin, Australia in the MIDDLE of Summer is probably the only place on earth remote enough and made vague enough by the crippling desert heat to not notice that Tara Reid is not actually an A-List Hollywood star.

The hooker part won’t be a stretch, clearly. I mean, look at the legitimate actor photo they’ve used on the flier. She’s clearly interchangeable with Scarlett Johansen or Ann Hathaway with imagery like that. Hopefully she’ll wear a corset to cover up the wreckage that is her stomach and also hopefully she’ll wash off the filth so her stench doesn’t kill children.
Wow, what a story. [source]

Two pop cultural trainwrecks have just been snatched up to be the faces of two top fashion lines; Kirsten Dunst for Miu Miu and Victoria Beckham for Marc Jacobs.

The weird thing about this is that because fashion is such an ethereal, arbitrary PR driven image based cultural entity, it strikes me as odd that these two women would actually end up being the embodiment of what any company would want as the face of it.

I’ve never really hated Kirsten Dunst. I mean, she was really good in Interview with a Vampire when she was a kid and I liked The Cat’s Meow she really doesn’t completely suck as an actor. Apparently, people think she’s a snaggle toothed drunk but I’ve never really given a shit. I’m just sort of unsure what it is exactly that she would embody for Miu Miu. She seems to fluctuate between needy whore and LA style hipster but then doesn’t every innocuous actress her age? More or less? So, you know what? Go for it Kiki. Sharpen those fangs, tape those breasts into your loosely fitting top, hide that vomit in your 30,000 dollar handbag and walk that walk.

What the hell do I care?

Beckham is another story though. It doesn’t matter how much surge she gets or how much she tans, how many jewels are encrusted on her freaking faucets and how much she greases down her hair or sucks in her cheeks or even how much she doesn’t eat or smile – that bitch will always be a common ass English slag. She is forever doomed to play the evil side of the dichotomy that makes up the David and Victoria equation. David Beckham is talented, nice, down to earth and naturally hot. Victoria is talentless, cold, mean, maddeningly high maintenance, dehydrated, plastic and probably sticky. They admittedly can’t exist without each other but what the hell on EARTH does she embody that Marc Jacobs could possibly benefit from. She’s living proof that money can’t buy you class and that’s the absolute opposite of everything fashion stands for.

Still, Marc Jacobs does sometimes make questionable decisions about people. I mean, Jason Preston for fuck’s sake. [source] [source]

And the soul crushing disappointment continues with more lies, this time about Britney Spears. IT’s interesting that we’re even bothering to weed through and establish which reports are lies and which aren’t but – whatever - I mean, this is what it is. So, here we go:

Apparently, Britney isn’t actually pregnant with JR Rotem’s kid. In Touch reported the pregnancy yesterday along with quotes from Rotem confirming it but Britney has denied the rumours and is thinking about suing In Touch for printing lies.
OK! Magazine quotes a source close to Britney:

"She's thinking about suing," explains the pal. "She's so mad. She's worked so hard at being a working mom and resolving legal issues. To have such a messed up lie come out like this now really angers her. She is serious about wanting to sue."

And look, she has been working hard at being a “working mom”. The consistent provision of life threatening situations for her kids and the fact that K-Fed has custody of them 6 nights a week coupled with the crippling amount of rehearsal she’s evidently doing for her live performances like, say the VMAs and the staggering amount of promotion she did for the album she barely showed up to burp into a microphone to produce – she’s the very definition of “working mom”.
I just don’t know who to believe anymore. There are lies coming at me from every angle. [source]

What a way to start off the day – albeit it at what, like 2pm – relentless lies. Relentless lies are flowing out of the relentlessly unimpressive head of Kim Kardashian apparently, accord to the New York Post. The Post reports that Kardashian might never have had her $50,000 worth of jewels and computer equipment stolen at JFK after all. That it could just be some kind of publicity stunt. According to the Post’s item there’s no police report for the theft at all.

Ultimately, it could have been part of a plan to leak another sex tape (or alleged one anyway) which is what Perez suggested or really, it could just be the kind of standard move someone like Kim Kardashian would make. Because apparently unlike the crap TV viewing public, Kardashian herself realizes that there’s really absolutely no reason that anyone should pay attention to her except for her unusually large ass so she has to keep the focus on her somehow.

Kardashian knows she’s a walking talent deficit and she’s working on fame regardless. What a trooper. Still, curse her for making me have to write her name again. It's not happening again until she does something that's actually got substance. No more.

[source]

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

Alexander D. Smith, 31 from Georgia walked into a bank and handed over a one million dollar bill to the teller saying that he wanted to deposit it into his account. The one miniscule flaw in his plan to become a millionaire overnight is, of course, that there’s no such thing as a one million dollar bill and as such the teller refused to deposit it. It was at that point that Smith started cursing the teller out so he was charged with disorderly behavior. If he had just not started to shout he could have walked out of there with his dignity in tact and able to go home, get out the crayons and perhaps draw a note of lower value that could have been more plausible. The way it really happened, he just looks silly now. [source]

As part of a Chilean charity telethon, a hooker named Maria Carolina raised 4000 dollars by donating 27 hours of sex. It’s sort of kooky and hilarious just at this point but then when you learn that the audience for the telethon was mainly conservative Catholics and the charity is for disabled children it just gets SO much better. The great part about it is that you KNOW the Catholics were sitting there all excited about being judgmental and mean to her but then it comes down to money so they sort of gave in and found some kind of loop hole in their arbitrary sieve like moral system and let it slide. "There are people who are going to be donating money that's a lot more questionable than mine," Carolina said. "The only thing I did was publicize it.". I imagine I’m not the first to think this but perhaps she should run for President. Or some kind of icon. She should run for icon. Actually, she should fight that woman from Puerto Rico who may have pretended her makeup had pepper spray in it. Yes. Perfect. Yes, there should be tag team cat fight with Marie Osmond, the Puerto Rican beauty queen and Maria Carolina. Carolina would win hands down. Even in a wading pool full of pudding. [source]

Along with independent thought, breathing on the upbeat and crispy duck outside public restrooms in China, the organizers of the Beijing Olympics have now banned fireworks sellers from setting up shops within 100 meters of all 31 official Olympic venues. Of course you can easily buy the fireworks and then 100 meters to a venue while carrying them thus rendering the entire operation more or less redundant but that would take the fun out of relentless, rule based administration in China. Plus, isn’t the opening ceremony meant to be this huge multi media production that somehow represents the hosts nation’s history and culture? The Chinese invented fireworks. That’s like saying to Australia not to include a winecooler or America not to include deep fried Coke. It has an artistically crippling effect. I’m just DYING to see what will actually be left in China next year after another year of mad rule making. Maybe they’ll end up with that old man playing the koto from Union Square subway stop and a couple of a fortune cookies. Excellent. [source]

Rush and Molloy and TMZ.com have published some top notch, not absolutely confirmed rumours about Britney Spears including the fact that she’s pregnant with producer J R Rotem, which technically was first reported by In Touch today. When you combine it with details about her alleged sex toy/bondage room and the fact that she’s bickering with Kevin Federline about visitation issues it looks like a three dimensional prism of geniusness.

And sure, the sex toy room story may not be true but then completely substantiated rumors count as fact when it comes to Brit primarily because there are too many to really fact check and they pop up so fast that every day there’s a new and exciting set of stories to behold. Who has the time or the attention span to weed through every Britney rumour every day? Not me.

Usually you get a driving through red light/bad mother story OR a sex scandal/body shock story OR a legal battle story but you never really get all three at once.

And the thing is, originally, I thought J R Rotem was that coke snorting star fucker Scott Storch so you can imagine how excited I was initially. I nearly smashed the hell out of my face as I threw my head against the wall trying to understand just how all encompassing that was. Of course, then I realized it wasn’t Scott Storch, it was that other guy so that was a tense moment in the office this morning.

Still, it’s nice that Britney may be pregnant because everything with her suggests clarity and maternal instinct. Even when saying that sarcastically it just feels empty.

Actually, the only thing we’re missing is a story about frappuccino. If that happened, it would be like a four leaf clover. [source] [source]

The New York Post has just run some piece about Kimora Lee Simmons and how she’s being bitchy and catty or some other crap with reference to her ex-husband’s new girlfriend blah blah blah. The details aren’t as important as is the fact that this is an opportunity for me, in timely fashion, to actually write about how heinous she really is. I mean, really.

It’s astonishing just how nauseating it is to watch and how apparently marketable it is to produce a TV show around the simple premise of watching a spoilt, ego-centric bully spend money, belittle people and stamp her feet to demand things like a two year old. And yet, here we are with Kimora Lee Simmons.

Sometimes, late at night, when I’m interested in watching something on TV that will truly disgust me I swap between old episodes of shows like Full House, Sister Sister (My GOD that show is diseased) and Kimora Lee: Life in the Fab Lane and without fail, I end up wanting to throw an axe through my television when Kimora Lee gets my attention.

Here’s some quality Kimora Lee Simmons:

Oh how I wish she would have just kept talking. I mean, she was on a roll. Why stop? Why Kimora? After all, if YOU think it, it’s worth saying:
[source]

Not to be outdone by fellow popwreck Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan is crawling out of her fragile shop focused existence to release another album. The New York Post speculates that the album will be called Nobody’s Angel and that the only real reason it is being made is because Lohan is contractually bound to it.

Brit’s album seemed to work because buying the album was the public’s natural next step after having watched the constant car wreck that is Britney Spears coupled with the fact that the music is essentially addictive because the producers who worked on it did a top notch job of making something out of whatever Britney belched into the microphone during her random moments in the studio.

With Lohan, there hasn’t been a constant supply of horrifying mess to stare at for months – we only have the memory of her reckless driving from months ago. That’s not really enough for the public to base unquestioning adoration on. Consequently, she might have to actually show up and create something for it to work. In fact, if she does manage to show up and create something with a bit of human resonance in it, Lohan could very well qualify for gay diva status and that would be saying something at her age.

All you have to do to be a gay diva is have a career, run off the rails and have a complete breakdown and then climb back and sing a victory anthem. This period of time will be interesting for historians to look at, I think. With completely psychotic mega ego twentysomething women releasing albums in between having their lived documented as they relentlessly throw everything up. [source]

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

It turns out yesterday’s Puerto Rican trooper of a beauty pageant contestant, Ingrid Marie Rivera – the woman who put on makeup that was allegedly laced with pepper spray, may actually have made up the story about how much it burned and how she had to consider whether she was a masochist before going on to win the comp. It’s weird how beauty queens do this kind of thing. Miss New Jersey, Amy Polumbo made a huge deal out of nothing when someone hacked into her facebook profile and took her private photos and then did the morning TV rounds to explain it away. The whole thing was a total non-issue that played on the bland sensibilities of America’s prudish consciousness. God, she was boring. I actually resent even having to think about that boring boring girl. BORING. Anyway, maybe it’s smart to create this scandal. Maybe they all realize that unless they go above and beyond the call of duty to get some press with these pageants, all that Vaseline on the teeth, starving, emotional repression and personality pruning will mean nothing more than White Castle grand openings and a potential cheap and nasty Playboy shoot. They have to do something. Rivera was far more interesting than Polumbo. Actually, I would even go so far as to suggest that Polumbo be sent away and never allowed to return. She was so BORING. [source]


Officials in Cameroon are holding two smugglers from Ghana who have attempted to smuggle 500 African Grey parrots to Bahrain. What that essentially means is that someone in Bahrain will not be able to see the African Grey Parrot choir do it’s rendition of the 1812 Overture written entirely for parrot, triangle and symphonic canon. I doubt I’ll be the first to say, “What a terrible shame”. [source]

A 1.5 kilogram truffle that, let’s face it, looks like a dried out fungal growth cut directly off a diseased elderly man’s foot, is to be sold at auction in Macau and sellers are expecting around 150,000 Euros for it. The thing about this truffle is that either you use it, in which case you’ve seriously just spent 150,000 Euros on a big stupid fungus or you just put it on display somewhere. Like, maybe you would put it on the mantelpiece when guests come round and you’d casually mention it in anecdote but not really point it out. Either way, it just sort of doesn’t really FEEL like it would be a terribly intelligent way to spend 150,000 Euros. Unless you’re uber rich and bored and it’s either this or have sex with the beast that will eventually become your dinner before you eat it in Japan which people seriously do. If you’re tossing up between those two options buy the freaking truffle for Christ’s sake. [source]

Bindi Irwin is sort of this decade’s singular Olsen twin mogul and she’s also a lot like the troops but a lot worse. Especially when it comes to using her to point out cultural flaws. You can never say anything bad about Bindi because she’s the daughter of a popular Australian conservationist who tragically died while purposefully swimming with stingrays (gee, couldn’t see that coming) and she’s incessantly perky, usually gratingly so. If you say anything even remotely disparaging you’re really attacking the institution of goodness and hope.

Anyway, that aside, she performed her new single “Trouble in the Jungle”- a rap - on the Today Show with a bunch of male dancers behind her this morning which you can see here (it’s more horrifying than maybe anything ever. I refuse to believe those dancers aren’t on Prozac).

The song is essentially heinous as well but because she’s a smiling kid and because it’s about saving bears suddenly I’m the bad person in this scenario. Not that I’d LIKE to see this, because I really wouldn’t, but as if she’s not going to be a gothic bulimic by the time she’s 18.

Actually, no she won’t, she’ll just be a really really complex 24 year old who cries a lot in her dorm but still wears normal clothes.

So, great. Buy it now and smile. Now. SMILE DAMMIT! [source]

I never write about people like Kim Kardashian because she and her fucking pointless “dead behind the eyes” family are a waste of time on TV. She’s famous entirely because she has a big ass, a sex tape and her family are peripherally connected to a bunch of showbiz personalities. The fact that “Keeping up with the Kardashians” the TV show is on TV at all indicates that America is so desperate to avoid itself right now that it will watch footage that contains about as much cultural nourishment as drying paint.

Also, and sincere apologies for stating the bleeding obvious but isn’t it interesting that to actually keep up with the Kardashians, one invariably has to take a sedative and lie down. It is interesting, isn’t it? I mean, Keeping Up with them really takes nothing as there’s nothing to keep up with. In fact, you might need to give them a freaking head start.

Having said that, I think it’s interesting that someone apparently robbed Kardashian at JFK and TMZ reports that they stole 50,000 dollars worth of jewels.

I think it’s interesting because there was a period of time when Paris Hilton was getting shat on by people who just kept stealing her sidekick and leaking everything of hers to the media to embarrass her. She was even quoted as saying, “I don’t know why this kind of thing keeps happening to me.”

Of course, we all knew. We knew that it was because she is a bat shit bland, trumped whore who people don’t ultimately consider human so one minute you have her as the Princess of America and the next she’s being spit on and dehumanized and it’s all at the whim of the American people and the media.

Perhaps that’s what happens when you market yourself based on nothing and people actually buy in. Seeing as you control nothing linking to your public persona you have to endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Perez Hilton stipulates that this is merely a vehicle to release another sex tape which makes sense.

After all, the TV show she’s on is so completely coma inducing, they’d better come up with something else out there to keep her employable. [source]

Today in Extraordinarily Odd



24 year old aspiring Miss Universe contestant Ingrid Marie Rivera smiled her way through the agonizing horror while on stage competing for the title last Friday. Someone laced all her makeup with pepper spray so when she put it all on her face she started to burn like the heathen fires of hell. But Rivera kept it perky and smiled her way through the torturous burning all over her body like a good little southern girl whose violent, Southern Comfort drunk Mama Rose mother stands in the wings. And she went on to win. She’ll now compete in the Miss Universe contest, representing Puerto Rico. Who knew those Puerto Rican bitches were so vicious. Oh, who I am kidding. Some of the Puerto Rican women in Brooklyn could maul a freaking tiger with those nails and that attitude. But you know what else? Rivera said: “At one point, I asked, 'Am I a masochist?' But I said regardless of the results, this is my goal.” Sounds like she’s got JUST about what it takes to compete in the international game. [source]

The woman who does the announcements on the London Tube was just sacked because she decided to take it upon herself to make up a few announcements one day and the Tube people didn’t like it. On one occasion she said: "We would like to remind our American tourist friends that you are almost certainly talking too loudly." This is hilarious because it’s so English so keep all that pent up humanity inside and then spew it out at an inopportune moment, rendering oneself unemployable. What a sweet gig it would be to do announcements for the trains. I mean, you’d probably get great coffee and there’d be no heavy lifting. I used to do a similar job at a club in Australia where I’d announce the raffle so I totally know how tempted she must have been to just FUCK with the system especially seeing as her comments were more or less hilarious meaning she’s probably really talented. When I was working at the club on the microphone I somehow expanded the job into this thing where I’d wander around talking to people on the microphone like it was my own Vegas show. I got the job just as I was coming off Paxil. I tore into those raffle players like they were pieces of paper. It remains some of my most fearless work to date. [source]

Good old Tara Reid. Haven't heard from her in a long time - guess she's been swallowing the sick in public rather than risk ruining her acting career any more. Oh. Woops! She always gravitates back to the quality Reid material; puking and offending people with incoherence and physical mistakes.

That's why it's no surprise that Rush and Molloy are running a top quality item entirely anchored in the news that Tara Reid stinks. She stinks and apparently isn’t getting work on Scrubs again because she stank like yesterday’s booze filtered through human flesh. When you consider that a lot of her flesh has been fixed with plastic, that’s one hell of a filter to get through so that evaporating booze has got to be pretty rank. I bet Tara Reid gives off a lot of heat energy. If you stand near her she’d be this slouching, wavering, salivating blond with eyes half closed and a dumb ass smile and she’d radiate heat. The kind of heat you get off a pile of compost. Sure, it’s warm but it also smells like rotting flesh.

Not that many people actually stink SO badly that they lose out on work in Hollywood. I mean, not that we hear about. Even Britney doesn’t STINK. Well, she probably farts a lot based on her toxic as hell diet but she only does that in her car so the only people who really inhale Spears’ brand methane are her kids and those boys, at this stage, probably have the steadfastness of Navy Seals.

In short, Tara Reid probably gives off heat because of her stink and now it's costing her work she'd otherwise TOTALLY get and also Britney Spears’s kids are probably numb to human levels of sensual stimulus from being in a car with their farting mother. [source]

When I looked at the Towleroad posting about Boy George being made to stand trial on February 28 net year for imprisoning a rent boy and threatening him with sex toys, the main thing that really stood out to me was the fact that, in the picture posted (and let's face it, for like 3 years now) he looks a lot like Uncle Fester and should therefore really stop calling himself BOY George. He may do better to give people a slight headstart by adopting the name “Probably unwell, beaten down night dwelling freak barrel stomached” George.

Oh, I kid. I loved Taboo.

I saw it on Broadway for free a couple of years ago and had third row orchestra seats. Euan Morton was SO good but George was really really bad in it and the whole thing lacked a central point and focus but still, it was on and I didn’t pay so you know, whatever. Plus, I always love those stories about someone’s rise to fame. I get out my checklist and compare notes with the celebrity being portrayed. It always starts with boredom in a small town in early life which I remember having so that's a "check". Then they say something about how, say, the celebrity didn't like team sports at school and I also experienced that distain so I always feel like maybe it could be the story of my life but then it's clear that it's not in about 15 minutes. Still, I didn't pay so...you know, it's cool.

Plus, about two years ago I dated this stylist who told me that a Japanese female model he knew named Tomoko or something was staying with Boy George in New York because she was working with him on something for a week and then eventually she wanted to leave but Boy George refused to giver her the return plane ticket he had promised her presumably because he wanted her to stay. She had to really insist and beg and he still wouldn’t give out easily.

When you put these two stories together, they’re similar in the sense that they both involve “imprisonment” of some kind but seeing as this latest one is about a rent boy and Boy George is gay you just know the media are going to focus on his sexual exploits rather than the real issue.
The real issue isn’t that Boy George is a total psychopath sex freak. No, it’s not that. It’s that he’s just crippled with pointlessness and loneliness. THAT’S the real story. A dildo and some chains will always outshine inner darkness and crippling loneliness although, the latter is always so much funnier in the re-telling. [source]

The New York Post just ran this little item in Page Six which has got to be sincerely one of the most pointless items ever. I mean, that’s sort of a big call to make but you know, why not?
Here’s the entire item:

2007 -- WHEN Sila Calderone swept into the Park Avenue apartment of Citibank executive Valentin Hernandez and his wife, Yaz, the other night, somebody asked the glamorous ex-governor of Puerto Rico what she's up to these days. "I've just become a trustee of the New York Public Library," Calderone smiled. "Welcome aboard," boomed longtime trustee John Gutfreund. Also diving into the mozzarella and prosciutto di Parma that Richard Turley schlepped from Arthur Avenue, were Susan Gutfreund, Denise Rich (who was off to her yacht in St. Barts) and Gilles Bensimon with Diana Widmaier-Picasso. Diana, the author of "Picasso: Art Can Only Be Erotic" had some of her grandfather's masterpieces burglarized from her Paris home in August while she slept upstairs. "The French police got them all back," she beamed. That's cause for Thanksgiving.

Ok great: Who the fuck are Sila Calderone, Valentin Hernandez, John Gutfreund, Susan Gutfreund (I mean, I’m assuming she’s John’s wife but still, who gives a shit?), and Gilles Bensimon?

Seeing as they graciously explain that Yaz is the ex-governor of Puerto Rico I was thankfully distracted from assuming she was the 80s singer, I figured Diana Widmaier-Picasso was related to Pablo Picasso somehow but you know that with a double barrel name like that and the fact that she’s whoring it out with some book that she’s got pretty much nothing else going on besides her name and of course Denise Rich is Denise Rich a la the Clintons but whatever?

One thing that really stuck out for me in this item though was the laborious mention of mozzarella and prosciutto di Parma, the fact that that Richard Turley schlepped it from Arthur Street and the fact that people were diving into it. Again, Richard Turley? Proscuitto? Where am I?

Gee, what a knock out post. It just makes me want get lunch and you know what, not even a lot. I mean, I could go some prosciutto and mozzarella but frankly I think mozzarella is often too bland to be anything more than textural filler in a dish which is more or less what this item was in the Post. God, I need a martini. [source]

The New York Post reports that Don Imus is set to return to radio on December 3 but rather than simply being left in an insulated micro phoned box with nothing but his own marketably racist stream of consciousness mind to keep him company, he’s bringing a co-host with him. The Post suggests that this is a good idea and they go on to suggest someone black citing Robin Quivers as a perfect example of how a black woman has kept formulaically shock focused white man Howard Stern out of trouble by steering him away from misogyny and racism.

That’s all very well and whatever, but it’s interesting that this is how long it has taken America to essentially forgive Imus for being racist. Well, lets wait and see how he rates first. Despite the sappy, emotional monologues delivered by NBC and CBS executives explaining their actions, when he was let go it was entirely about public outrage and the flow on effect that outrage had on advertising revenue; all of a sudden the balance was upset so he had to go. Now, what? He’s been cleansed of it? America’s forgotten? He was fired on April 12 from CBS and here he is, back again on December 3. Back on April 12, CBS CEO Les Moonves was quoted as saying:

“There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society,” CBS President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said in announcing the decision. “That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision.”

Apparently that’s how long it takes to ensure that a network’s conscience is clear when it comes to the well being of young people of color. It takes just under 7 months. Bread takes like 4 hours to rise, little cups of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream takes like 6 minutes to defrost enough to eat it and racism takes 7 months to cleanse and be marketable again. [source]

A thanksgiving prayer

It's Thanksgiving here in the US and so, here's William S Burroughs giving thanks for all that HE'S grateful. I'm pretty much on the same page.

I'm off to cook something pomegranate based.

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

After investing a large portion of their money in a tonic made from ants that was meant to be a strong aphrodisiac, thousands of residents from Northern China are freaking the hell out that they’ve been duped by a shonky investment scheme and are now rioting. After no receiving payments from their investees, they’re demanding the government intervene. When I was in Venezuela they had this chili sauce that was made from ground up ants and it was meant to be an aphrodisiac. I remember it wasn’t so bad tasting but the aphrodisiac qualities were suspect. Plus, this seems to be yet another story of how stupid Chinese peasants are with money (there were like two last week). Still, if they were better with money, maybe they wouldn’t be peasants. Stop investing in hairbrained schemes, China. You’re meant to be hosting the Olympics next year. Jesus, pull it together. [source]

The fossilized claw of what is probably an 8 foot sea scorpion was just found in a German quarry. It’s dated as being 390 million years old. This is apparently the largest sea scorpion ever found. That leads me to believe that 390 million years ago the potential for a really top notch sea scorpion boil or roast was so much greater than it is today. These days we just have camel spit roasts but back in the old days, they could have eaten a lobster like creature bigger than a human. Of course, you’d have to catch it and that would be another thing entirely. In fact, if you caught it, you might do better simply tying it to some kind of glamorous water based sedan chair so you could glide delightfully through the sea a rocket speed. That would be a pre-historic car I guess. Some kind of pre-historic water car. It’s a better investment of your time and money to not eat your massive water scorpion and to keep it for labor. That I have just realized. [source]

This is a real gem. In Touch Weekly is running a hard hitting cover story that proves once and finally for god damned all that Tom Cruise really is straight.

Wow, I’m totally sold.

Any minute now, In Touch will also come out with an exclusive about something that’s actually true about the Cruise/ Holmes compound where they got exclusive access to Katie’s wing of the house or photographs of an ultra sound showing that Katie is pregnant again or some other crap about Cruise’s movie “Valkyrie”.

Apart from some internal PR deal and exclusivity agreement, there is absolutely no other reason why a magazine would bother running this story. [source]

Fresh from the pointless celebrity cause school of thought that brought us the, albeit untrue, Paris Hilton backed charity for preventing elephants from getting drunk comes the Nicole Ritchie backed cause for preventing the unnecessary erosion of lampposts through the channeling of dog urine through a nifty little plastic cup device…oh my GOD, I don’t even believe that this is really happening.

This is either a complete lie or Ritchie met some random mad scientist in LA who was hanging out at Hyde or Koi or Chow or wherever the hell else they hang out, they god smashed together and she told him she loved his product so much she would put all her celebrity weight behind it. Wow, there’s a whole other tangent of criticism that could come out of that line.
So, here we are with Nicole Ritchie and Heather Mills hiring people while drunk and at nightclubs. I have to start going out more. [source]

Heather Mills and her attention hungry, standard issue chaotic diva fag hag publicist Michele Elyzabeth have announced that they will be cutting off any media outlet that isn’t nice to Heather Mills. The idea is actually pretty gutsy seeing as even though Mills is an annoying media whore she’s right in assuming that people will want to talk to her seeing as she’s currently divorcing Paul McCartney, an ordained cultural saint in the UK.

What isn’t clear though, is how Mills will deal with the fact that she’s effectively painted herself into a corner with this decision because she’ll still be stalked and torn apart by the media and ultimately she’ll start jonesing really bad for some spotlight but she won’t be able to go anywhere. But whatever, I mean, a whore's self esteem is pretty easy to break down. It'll probably end up costing the networks nothing after a while because Mills will get so desperate. Sort of like when whores are dire need of crack that they'll do unsafe animal porn to get it. I don't know why I'm so crass and horrifying today.

Any money Mills will just choose a few major networks to align herself with no matter what. That’ll keep her veins full of exposure and she won’t freak out and explode onto TV again like she did after the brief merciful hiatus she took recently that finally ended with her interview with Matt Lauer.

Meanwhile, with all the money she’ll eventually get or has anyway, why hire a lunatic administrative aesthetician to deal with your media? Especially a matronly one with complicated hair. Where do these people meet each other and what the hell is the criteria for being hired her? You get smashed with Mills and bang, the next day you’re her publicist? Well, hang on, I sort of owe two major publicist jobs I had as a kid to that kind of transaction.

Well played Elyzabeth! Next dance please! [source]

Dr। Jan Adams, the uncertified plastic surgeon who performed the final procedure on Donda West, Kanye West’s mother during which she died, appeared on Larry King. He was there to talk about the fact that she died during the procedure and to address the fact that he has had 11 malpractice suits against him. Sounds reasonable enough, especially seeing as Kanye West is so popular.

So, then he walks off in the middle of the interview saying that he’s refusing to answer questions. Which really begs the question; what the fuck are you doing on Larry King, Dr. Adams? I mean, you don’t just walk onto Larry King anytime you want to chat with someone about something. You have to get your head together and talk with King’s producers and come up with your legal angle with your lawyer and rehearse how you’re going to address the tough questions. It’s an intense public statement to make.

This leads me to confirm my initial belief that, in addition to psychologists who appear on television talk shows, plastic surgeons are the sparkling narcissist celebrities of the medical profession.

Dr. Adams, if he actually were a certified plastic surgeon, would therefore probably fit that description. Seeing as he’s not, it really just makes him a tired, attention whore asshole.

It’s like Elaine Stritch said, “Get off the stage and stop WASTING my time…”

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

A small piglet that has been named Andrex was found in the back of a truck filled with rolls of toilet paper in England. He has a few cuts on his snout and is being cared for by the RSPCA until they can find him a new home. The odd part about this is, how did he even get into that truck and secondly, if the truck transporting the pig was filled with toilet paper rolls wouldn’t the entire trip have been a sort of bizarre bouncing hilarious padded ride of excitement for the small one? I mean, the idea of a piglet bounding around over some toilet paper rolls almost reads as though it’s a commercial for toilet paper itself. I’ve always found pigs weirdly repellant. Like ducklings are cute and so are foals and calves. I mean, I could hang out with a foal but a pig? Not so much. The only reason this piglet would be cool is because his name is Andrex and he’ll probably be a political revolutionary when he grows up because he went on this strange adventure at such a young age and so he’s being prepared for great things. [source]

Some rancid, delusional, child molesting incest freak in India named Afazuddin Ali, 36 just married his teenaged daughter because he claimed it was God’s will. Which God? Wouldn’t he be Hindu? Don’t they have thousands? Regardless, it doesn’t matter which religion it is because it’s just another one of those horrific scenarios where a weirdo has arbitrarily justified his behavior through religion. "This is a very strange case as no one in the family has complained, but we will conduct medical tests to verify the girl's exact age, before filing a strong case against her father," said Ravinder Jit Singh Nalwa, a senior police officer. Maybe this guy’s family are really just his cult. These cult leaders are equal parts insane as well as charismatic mastermind. [source]

Those crazy assed Olympic organizers in Beijing are asking for female models to present medals at the Beijing Olympics next year but they won’t accept anyone unless they’re tall and slim. "Generally speaking, they can't be too fat. Their figure should be good. They shouldn't be too heavy." God, even the Chinese officials are skirting their way around overtly saying “No Fat Chicks”. Meanwhile, all these rules the Beijing Olympics and the Chinese Government are putting out about human behavior should keep people stressed and repressed enough to be as thin as the French. The French women in Paris that is. Apparently even France is 1/5 obese these days. Even with all that internalized angst. Who knew? [source]

Michael Jackson really is up to his eyeballs in shit right now and that’s counting where his eyes are now not where they would have been if he’d not had all the surge.

Turns out he’s totally defaulted on his Neverland Ranch loan repayments - which we already knew – and now, the New York Post reports that he’s crashing at Billionaire Ron Burkle’s home in Beverly Hills. No matter what happens, Jackson is really in a freaking strange situation. It doesn’t matter how poor he gets, he’s still going to be one of the most famous people on the planet and people will still flock to him like he’s the Messiah. In that respect, I would suggest that eventually Jackson’s life will resemble that of Chinese Emperor Pu Yi when he was put into a re-education camp by the Communist Party in China in 1950. He was imprisoned and yet, people still thought he was the Son of Heaven until he died.

That’s right, Michael Jackson is just like the Last Emperor of China. Completely drunk on entitled fame and no real psychological understanding of reality. Jackson’s kids should really meet up with Sean Preston and Jayden James and compare notes when they’re older. Their lives are really going to be parallel from now on. All make-believe fantasy and the daily fear of orphanising imprisonment. [source]

Mollygood reports that Ashlee Simpson is all embarrassed that she was smoking outside Angels and Kings in the East Village and a photographer wanted to take her picture the other day. They quote her as saying:

“I don’t want my fans knowing I smoke!” she pleaded. “It’s so bad, but I just crave nicotine sometimes.”

And look, who really gives a shit at the end of the day but the overall thing with Ashlee Simpson is that she’s sort of like a full time version of how Paris Hilton acted in her interview with Larry King; she’s that patronizing pretty rope-in high school girl who is formulaically pleasant and yet, there isn’t really anything authentic or unique about her. Plus, you know that when she’s not in front of the press or the adults she’s a demanding, spoilt little bitch whore who is mean. She’s a freaking meanie, that’s what she is. A meanie. She’s lived in LA long enough to know to keep smiling no matter what though.

Well, ok, one unique thing about her is that she is apparently the only person dating Pete Wentz which could work in her favour. It seems to be the only thing getting her press at the moment because she hasn’t graced her “fans” with another album or even a song in how the hell long?
I don’t even know what I find her so grating. Ok, I think it’s because she had that kneejerk reaction to a photographer and assumed she had fans. She totally smokes too, this is such a typical story. It’s about the pretty girl all the parents think is so nice smoking behind the gymnasium at school. God, how tiresome. [source]

According to People Magazine, Mary-Kate Olsen is currently in hospital with a kidney infection. They say she’ll be out in a couple of days.

Why is it that it always seems so much more nauseating to think when rich, weird celebrities who don’t do much except sleep all day and then go out at night to parties and drink Patron shots and order over priced sushi so they can motor it around a large white plate for an hour go and get themselves ill and go to hospital? I mean, compared with the same thing happening to your own cousin or something. I mean, your cousin goes to hospital for a kidney infection – big deal, they’re probably insured, they’ll be fine.

With celebrities it’s always as though the illness is somehow karmic balancing or it’s about their unhealthy self indulgent lifestyles catching up with them. I always think, for instance, that they all look really dehydrated. The Olsen twins always look like they’re about to fall over and break, Anna Nicole Smith always looked really diseased and dehydrated and covered in unhealed wounds and Posh looks like if she doesn’t drink a glass of god damned water anytime soon she’ll implode and her skin will just shrink wrap her bones and organs and then she’ll collapse internally and her powdery dried out insides will just make her one giant stress ball. My goodness, what an astonishing narrative that was.

Meanwhile, look – I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, Mary-Kate was good on Weeds but I doubt it was a stretch for her to play a pot smoking teenaged Jesus Freak. I mean, there’s some weird cult thing going on with her. Probably.

So, yeah, she’s in hospital and her kidneys are shot. [source]

Natalie Portman has said she won’t get married until gay people are allowed to. This is supposed to be a really clever thing for her to do – but it somehow seemed much cleverer when Brad Pitt did it a year ago and therefore it’s much less clever now. The reality is, she doesn’t want to get married so she spins it a little and gets some press. The base of the issue is a whole lot of nothing. Here’s the quote:

I’m not convinced about marriage. Divorce is so easy, and that fact that gay people are not allowed to marry takes much of the meaning out of it.

The weird part about this is that it’s like these celebrities are running for public office. Do they really need to court the gay vote? No one is voting. For Portman to be relevant to gay people she needs to be a lot more hectic than “doesn’t want to get married”. She needs to get really high maintenance and knock over some stuff in a store and the tell someone off with her hand on one hip. That hand on the hip thing is kind of a black thing to do but usually black women can be divas without being as neurotic as white women. White women aren’t usually gay icons unless they’re emotional wrecks at some point.

So far we’ve seen nothing THAT freaky from Portman. Well, she shaved her head but whatever. That’s been done better by others way before she did it. [source]

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

Christian Falco, a French cook, just broke the world record for the largest barbecue by spit roasting an 550-kilo (1,213-pound) camel for 15 hours in the seaside town of Barat, Morocco. This is the fifth world record in relation to barbecuing that he’s broken having already cooked the world’s largest slab of beef among others. I find it really surprising that a Frenchman in North Africa would have beaten the world record when America is so obsessed with barbecue that I’d say 30% of programming on the Food Network is entirely related to barbecue recipes. Americans obsess over it relentlessly and yet were still apparently beaten by a Frenchman. I didn’t even know the French gave a shit about barbecuing. Plus, wouldn’t eating a camel be sort of like eating a high maintenance, slobbering, dumb faced horse? Karl Lagerfeld ate horse and lost weight. In short, Christian Falco is a career record breaker when it comes to beast and fire. [source]

The tigers being kept at the Glacier Zoo in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China were so hungry on the weekend that they finally turned around and killed one of their own and ate its leg. Apparently funding at the zoo has been so meager that the tigers had been given so little to eat that they were sort of forced to eat the weakest of their group of 5. Even though this is horrifying and a clear example of appalling management, it’s really the kind of thing you go to the tiger’s cage FOR though. I mean, most of the time you go to the zoo and if you actually manage to get the hell through the relentless blur of primates and actually get to the big cats, tigers fighting to the death is sort of what everyone hopes to see. I mean, that’s what someone told me. [source]

One chestnut that hung from the tree that Anne Frank would look at daily while she hid from the Nazis in an Amsterdam attic is now on sale on eBay and it’s currently priced at $2425.00. That’s for one little seed linking back to a whole lot of Holocaust horror. If this were an ad it would read: Your seed of Holocaust horror: $2425. Apparently the tree itself is completely riddled with disease though so this may be one final chance for that tree to live on in some respect. I mean, not literally – symbolically. It is due to be felled on Wednesday after 150 years. [source]

Jonathan Rhys Meyers was just arrested in Ireland for being drunk at the airport. They wouldn’t let him on the plane he was so drunk. Whenever I’ve had a couple of martinis before getting on the plane, I tend to keep myself together while getting ON the aircraft just because airline staff can be catty bitches.

The trouble with Jonathan Rhys Meyers though, is that underneath that astonishingly beautiful exterior there lurks a flouncing mincer drama queen over actor. He’s good in the Tudors but you can tell he’s really being reigned in by the seasoned director. I mean, even though I couldn’t get enough of Velvet Goldmine when I was 20, watching it now makes me cringe at his bad acting. He’s almost as bad as I would have been.

He seems to have this ocean of chaotic weirdness in him that’s being held together by his management. Plus, he’s probably gay as well so there’s that added stress. He’s got the random girlfriend and the conspicuous make out items in the gossip press that spells it out pretty easily.
Mind you, you’d have to be pretty damned messed up to get arrested for drunken disorderly behavior in an airport in Ireland. [source]

Boxer Mike Tyson was just sentenced to one day in jail and three years probation for possessing cocaine. Police saw him wiping cocaine off the dashboard of his car and he admitted that he likes doing coke whenever he can but really enjoys smoking it in Marlborough cigarettes (who doesn’t?). He’s also on Zoloft and smoked marijuana earlier the day he was caught with cocaine.

My favourite part of that story is the Zoloft. There are many reasons why it’s easy to like Mike Tyson; there’s the fact that he’s fundamentally a rage filled bully asshole who found a way to legitimize his violent outbursts through showbiz, the fact that he is a convicted rapist, the fact that all these things are always just hanging there in his being while he does cocaine in between keeping his mental health in the balance with doses of Zoloft. How can you not like him or at least be warmed by the thought of being near him? This story is calming for me to read.

Furthermore, it’s great that he only got 24 hours in jail and it seems reasonable that that’ll pretty much solve the problem for him. Judging by the amount of chemicals he needs to shovel into his body on a daily basis it seems like his problems were pretty much solved anyway. From this, it really seems like Mike Tyson missed his calling as a child care worker. Why he and Britney should live together. They would help each other survive. [source]

I remember two things from watching the American Music Awards last night. One, Alicia Keys was singing with some guy that had Erika Badu hair – you know that hair? The tower of hair tied up in a scarf? But look, its fine and progressive because even though Badu did it years ago, now that there’s a man under it the whole thing has been reinvented. It’s black metrosexuality.

Quick, slap me.

The other thing was who the fuck are the Jonas Brothers? My fucking god, doesn’t anyone ever get sick of being served up the same plastic shit eating product? I mean, from the very beginning the entire THING reeked of plastic formula. Here are these three squeaky cute boys whose real defining differentiation is their hair. They all have moppish, black wavy hair. Ok great. Now I know where to go when I want to see that kind of hair. Which is rarely.

So, the best part about the Jonas Brothers apart from their crippling talent was when they got announced and the voice over woman did that Oprah thing where she holds onto the last syllable of their name. Oprah does the same thing when she introduces John Travolta except she has a lower voice. She’ll yell out “John Tra-VOL –taaaaaaaaa” but it’s like a robot. So, it’s like even if you have no idea who the guest is, which – let’s face it – is probably the case with the Jonas Brothers – you still feel like you kind of have to get all excited because even the voice over woman has modulated her voice to make it sound like you’re already expecting them and she’s just letting you know this is THE moment. The minute you didn't know you were always waiting for.

Second slab of fake hype was the legion of screaming, paid fans that flood the stage ready to scream and yell. Because if we suspend our disbelief for a moment it’s just possible that there really were 150 screaming teenaged girls and boys just bursting at the seams waiting for the talent saturated uniqueness that is the Jonas Brothers. Except – oh my GOD – who actually buys that?

Then their washed out synthetic poppy music turned out to be designed entirely to be the musical equivalent of corn syrup and crack mixed together. What a surprise. Meanwhile, one of them fell over onto the broken glass as he walked out to center stage. That was when I actually clicked in and paid attention because it was the only evidence of unpackaged humanity for the whole act. He kept up the relentless pop energy happiness the whole time even though there may very well have been a shard of glass lacerating his knee with every highly choreographed move. No blood though.

I kid, they’re adorable.

Week # 46 in Review

Sales of pop star Britney Spears’ latest album “Blackout” fell 70% with the arrival of new albums by Alicia Keys and Celine Dion but attention paid to Spears herself waned very little as it was reported that she tested positive for amphetamines. Her spokesperson claimed first that it was provigil, a drug used to treat narcolepsy, then that it was Albuterol for asthma and then finally Adderal for ADHD. Only Adderal is actually an amphetamine. Additionally, Spears was caught on tape driving her car through red lights, driving at night with her sunglasses on and running over the foot of a paparazzi photographer; each time she had her two sons in the car. Her ex-husband Kevin Federline had his lawyer a judge to ban her from driving with their sons in the car. Meanwhile, Project Runway host Heidi Klum went on the Ellen Degeneres Show and explained how Spears had taught her about how to use diapers. Britney Spears’ mother, Lynn Spears was quoted as saying that she blames herself for her daughter’s current emotional state and then went on to talk about her new book that is focused on parenting.

Ex-child star Corey Haim was selling his autographed possessions on eBay, Sarah Michelle Gellar changed her name to Sarah Michelle Prinze for her 5th wedding anniversary and Sporty Spice Mel C was quoted as saying that she was prepared to quit the Spice Girls’ reunion tour if the other girls started acting like divas.

It was announced that David Beckham will be the new spokesmodel for Armani underwear, an organization that goes by the name “The Resistance” called for rapper 50 Cent to quit producing albums and called him a “Satanic piece of filth” and Hayden Panettiere found out that, as a result of her expedition to Japan to help save dolphins by swimming with them, there is a warrant out for her arrest there.

Runner Lance Armstrong sent his daughter to school with actor Ashley Olsen so that she could be used as a prop for Show and Tell, Amy Winehouse fiddled around with her beehive hairdo on stage and then made all the necessary movements to suggest that she did cocaine while performing and the woman who released and sold photos of boxer Oscar de la Hoya in women’s underwear began proceedings to sue de la Hoya for 100 million dollars for defamation.

Rock star Courtney Love visited supermodel Kate Moss’ home so she could consider buying it and stated that she felt it was too messy and dark later clarifying that it was actually that she considered it inappropriate for her daughter Francis Bean, it was revealed that socialite Paris Hilton was not, in fact, championing the cause of saving elephants that get drunk, gay bear boy band Bear Force 1 released their newest Christmas themed single, a woman knocked over a table at New York’s Waverley Inn trying to get a glimpse of pop star Jessica Simpson and actor Matt Damon was voted People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive.

In Australia it was suggested that Santa Claus stop saying the phrase “ho ho ho” as it could potentially be offensive to woman and a poll by Zoo Magazine found that 1 in 5 people would like to see Prime Minister John Howard naked.

In the US, the City of New York was considering putting a $1000 fine on the act of feeding pigeons, Serendipity 3, the New York restaurant that serves the most expensive dessert in the world was shut down by the health department for being infested with rodents, a new type of fish that can be found throughout the Americas that can survive out of water for extended periods was discovered and named Mangrove Rivulus and a study ascertained that Magnolia bark, when put into mints, can kill a lot of bad breath creating bacteria.
In the UK the word “locavore” was voted the Oxford University Press’ word of the year and Mr. John “Johnny Liar” Graham was crowned the nations most accomplished liar.

In the Middle East, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal became the first man in the world to privately purchase the A380 superjet for $300 million and a man in Cyprus went to the police when a woman who promised to improve his relationship with his mother in law simply cracked an egg into his underwear and then charged him 5000 Cyprus pounds.

In India a man married a dog in an attempt to reverse his bad karma after he killed a pair of dogs 15 years ago and was then hurt in an accident while in Russia members of a cult locked themselves away until May 2008 as they waited for the world to end.

Residents of the Weidijue Community in Jining, China were informed that if they behaved badly their monthly allowance of 40 dollars would be revoked and for the first time in China a helpline was set up to assist people who are addicted to gambling.

"Most people who buy lottery tickets in China are not mentally mature,” said a Chinese government spokesperson. “They still hold the belief that they can be rich overnight."