For some ludicrous reason Paris Hilton was in Prague this weekend and she was being chased by paparazzi and fell over. Entertainmentwise.com suggests they were vicious paparazzi but I am not SO sure about that. If I were drunk and high I might suggest they were visionary and a sort of modern and real equivalent to the Crusader knights protecting the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Apart from anything else, the basis for this news story which is making blog headlines the universe over is the fact that Paris Hilton fell over and that’s basically it. She did hurt her chin and there’s a small mark on it but I mean, she fell over. That’s the main point.

Most people are thrilled that she fell over and hurt her chin and in fact it sort of reminds me of the way the religious extremists reacted to 9/11. I mean, I make that comparison without the intention to invoke cultural outrage and accusations of sacrilege that comes with saying anything that invokes the memory of 9/11. Obviously.

This is what happens to Paris Hilton though. She runs around soaking up attention and money with the entitlement of the popular girl at school who secretly sells her ass for cash and does cocaine on weekends but always smiles at the other kids’ parents and is painfully polite. Then one tiny thing happens that may reveal or undermine her humanity and the world stops paying her for a second and they laugh and take great pleasure in her humiliation. It’s tough being the ex-zeitgeist who is trying to create unreasonable and unlikely depth for her public profile. This is exactly what happened when someone stole her sidekick.

The gold part about this, apart from her smug head smacking the ground, is the douche bag statement Benji Madden gives to the paparazzi after she falls.

[source]

After rumours about how former nSync member J C Chasez was apparently dating Gossip Girl’s Chase Crawford were swimming about the internet last week, Chasez has specifically stated that he’s not into Crawford in one of those entrapment videos TMZ produces.

The trouble with J C Chasez is that he’s now eternally trapped between a rock and a hard place regarding coming out of the closet. When I was in Vienna last year he was in our group and it was pretty clear to me that he was with this tall Spanish guy who kept insisting that no one photograph them.

When Lance Bass came out it basically invigorated his career and gave him something to do. He had a public breakup, wrote a book, got a whole heap of press, did a stint on Broadway, got on the list for every gay event ever thrown. Sure beat the hell out of not going into space for 5 years.

But now, seeing as Lance Bass has already come out its like J C Chasez can’t or he’ll look like the copy cat or something. It just won’t have the same impact.

What strikes me as odd is that he would deny hooking up with someone who is actually happening though. Chase Crawford is painfully cute and he’s got an actual career. It’s unclear to me what being in the closet is protecting for J C Chasez. I mean, what has he done in the past 4 years besides avoid coming out?

Quick, Don’t let anyone know you’re gay! Gotta hold onto that massed public indifference you’ve worked so apathetically to maintain. [source]

TMZ is reporting that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie may or may not have gotten married but no one knows whether or not it actually happened.

The great part about this rumour reportage is actually the fact that they don’t even really report what the rumour was specifically or where it came from. I mean, it could feasibly not have even been a rumour seeing as the story TMZ ran is almost entirely about how it wouldn’t really be necessary for Brangelina to marry and second to that the fact that no one cares anyway. (71% of readers polled opted to vote for "Who Cares?". )

What a fascinating idea – run a story where you don’t report the story and then explain how no one would care about it even if you did after actually demonstrating statistically that no one cares.

Still, the idea is interesting. The reality is Pitt and Jolie really don’t need to get married because their union is already ordained by all seven facets of the Continental Principalities and is consecrated and pure beyond all earthly manifestation and so, really, if you think about it, marriage would probably dirty them. Yes, it would probably muddy the union that exists between the patron saints of Western culture. Plus, why marry when you’ve already got a mash up name anyway. Not that many people get to have media accredited mash-up names and frankly, that’s more marketable and fun at dinner parties than marriage is. [source]

The New York Post is reporting that since Britney went on “How I Met Your Mother” and didn’t completely trash the set and give everyone lice, her father/keeper is now focusing on getting her a 9-5 TV role rather than her recording a new album.

Apparently the show’s ratings were sky-high for the episode Spears appeared in and there’s talk of a guest spot for her on 30 Rock.

There’s something about this that is vaguely reminiscent of the New York Times’ claim that Heidi Montag emerges as a feminist heroine in the new season of The Hills. Just because Montag’s spine seems to be beginning to emerge and it’s possible that after all the screaming hate press Spencer Pratt has been getting from day 1 that she’s starting to see he’s a douche bag only now – it doesn’t make her a feminist heroine. It’s like if you’re famous and in LA and you suddenly display a distinct lack of loathsomeness, you’re suddenly more likable than anyone.

Same kind of deal with Spears. She spends several years completely out of control, is hospitalized, medicated and who the hell knows what else and all of a sudden she performs a bit part on a standard sit com without turning into a shrieking gorgon and eating a child and suddenly the entire of western art is re-aligning itself to accommodate her new found clarity.

Quick, give her a job in the West End as Blanch Dubois (which makes conceptual sense but I mean, in every other way – come ON!), quick get her on multiple sit coms.

The ratings for “How I Met Your Mother” were high for the show she was on because the United States was poised for her to flip out on camera and start eating her hair or something. She wasn’t that bad but she really wasn’t that great either. I mean, she just was. And that’s really the overall point with her. She stands there and the rests of the world projects something onto her until she has a nervous breakdown because she has no idea where she is or what she’s doing. [source]

Katie Holmes is apparently in talks to star in Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” on Broadway because she wants to remind people that she can actually act.

She really must be kicking herself at this point. The marriage to Tom Cruise really hasn’t worked out exactly as she’d planned or as anyone would have reasonably expected it to. I mean, I think we’re all fairly clear with the way it was meant to work out.

She marries Tom Cruise thus thwarting her inevitable fate as a nothing actress who fades into post teen series nothingness apart from a few independent films and films made by students with Messiah complexes as NYU. All she had to do was everything he said and have a kid to prove he’s a man and then, seeing as he’s the head of United Artists, he was meant to get her all the film roles she needed to become Nicole Kidman.

I mean, it more or less worked for Nicole.

So, here we are – several years down the track and she’s done everything she was meant to do but he’s really screwing her over on his end of the deal. He’s exhausting to be around, he controls everything, he won’t let her do a whole list of films because there’s sex in them. He won’t let her do sex on screen because it would mean that she would look like a sexual being that exists outside of the context of him and that wouldn’t help his marketability. He needs all her sexuality to own and market as he sees fit.

But the more pressing point here is that the stepford wife hasn’t been seen in anything worthwhile for ever so this could be a great idea. After all, Arthur Miller is an iconic American playright. It’s a classic American play. Consequently, no one will be judging her harshly or comparing her to people who have played the role before her on both the stage and screen going back to 1948. I mean, why doesn’t she just offer to play Sally Bowles in Cabaret on screen? She’s sort of got the hair for it. Oh wait, the resonance that would have with the gays might be too much for Cruise to deal with.

Katie Holmes, in my professional opinion, should just take her cash settlement and run. Sure, she’d never see Suri but eventually Suri would run out of batteries and Tom would be too busy having high maintenance overloads and slamming his head into the cement walls that guard his compound for no apparent reason to remember to replace them. And if a kid has no batteries in it, is it still really a kid? [source]

God Ivana Trump is annoying. The New York Post reports that she’s fighting incessantly with her fiancé Rossando Rubicondi who is, of course, about 85 years younger than her and that even her friends think she’s just getting married for the publicity. OK! Magazine is paying her a million dollars for the photo rights to the wedding.

What the hell does she need publicity for? She’s a ludicrous socialite freak who swans about town spending money when she’s not having her body stapled up. What’s her cause? What’s her career?

Plus, a few weeks ago on The View, Barbara Walters showed the invitation to Ivana Trump’s wedding which said that women weren’t allowed to wear pastel yellow or pink and that men have to wear white tie. You just know everything is going to be a high maintenance tuna fest when the freaking bride is telling guests what to wear months out from the wedding.

Maybe this is what she does all day. This is her new little project to obsess over. She’s organizing the wedding. Actually, that’s the surefire indication that she’s tuna. She’s obsessing over her wedding. Only the most high maintenance of freaks do that. It can never be a simple outdoor ceremony with these people who have infinite money and nothing to do all day. No, it has to be a massive Zeffirelli opera happening in real life.

She is being given away by her two porcine sons and her daughter, Ivanka is one of 25 bridesmaids. 25. She has 25 freaking bridesmaids. I swear to GOD. Plus, her gown is going to be one of six she chose from the Paris Fashion Week runway shows. It’s that important.

Even though the sons look like they’d be freaking weirdos, Ivanka seems more or less together. She’s not completely freaky and she’s dating Jared Kushner who is cute and seems to be pretty on top of things. He owns a few buildings and is the publisher of the New York Observer. I’m just wondering how on earth she managed to come out essentially unscathed with a heavily marinated slab of tuna show mother like that.

Ivana Trump would be the kind of woman who you’d meet and she’d look through you or she’d look around the room as you talked to her because she’s always looking for someone more important to latch onto. Or she’d glaze over. Still, if she stopped doing the things like get married for no reason what else would she do? Probably melt into a screaming puddle of vacuous, narcissistic pointlessness. [source]

The Boston Phoenix has released its list of the 100 Unsexiest Men of 2008 – in March – but still, whatever, I mean it’s still a talking point.

Because they’re all men, most of the reasons for them being unsexy are to do with their personalities or work ethics or something unphysical first and then some one off physical attribute second –unless you’re talking about femme guys like Christian Siriano and Zac Efron who just get beaten down for being blandly annoying or interested in eyeliner.

I love, though, that Ryan Seacrest comes in at number 7, just under the President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad because he’s managed to forcibly create himself into the most plastic and marketing friendly product in America and has a hand in, it seems, of only the most rancid assed pop culture travesties in existence; the ones that really cater to the lowest common denominator like American Idol and Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Plus, he’s Tom Cruise gay in the sense that he’s so obsessed with status and money that he’s more or less reduced his human soul to a black peanut rattling around inside the tin can that is his body.

I enjoy that that is surpassed only by 6 other people, the first of which is a cruel, Middle Eastern anti-human dictator. It’s reassuring that death by base level pop culture is only just under death by…well…death and torture. Truthfully.

The top 5 are, respectively Lou Dobbs (primarily for his comments about border security), Tom Cruise (because he’s an annoying, delusional cult peddling megalomaniac psychopath bipolar ass), Larry Craig (because his self loathing refusal to admit he’s gay or bisexual), Spencer Pratt (just because he’s sort of like Ann Coulter although you know he’s probably telling people he’s really happy to be at the top of the list), and number 1 is Roger Clemens for being a whole lot of nasty. He’s a sports person so I just can’t be bothered to find out exactly why. Presumably it links to steroid use, spousal assault, lying, probably alcoholism or drug abuse, maybe cheating on his wife, rage attacks. Something like that.

There’s no way The Boston Phoenix could get away with a Unsexiest Women list without being beaten down as sexist pigs though. No way in hell. [source]

Angelina Jolie is pregnant with twins which, even just numerically, outdoes everyone else who has had kids recently. Two is better than one. It’s not hard to see that.

What’s fascinating about it is that it’s being estimated that she could command 10 million dollars for pictures of her kids once they’re born. J Lo apparently got 6 million and Christina Aguilera got 1.5 (cause she's really not a trainwreck and hasn't had an album out in a while).

My friend Sam who is studying anthropology at Princeton said something like, “at what point did Brangelina just become a farce?” and I realized that in fact they’re not a farce and that he’s totally off on that theory.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are a cultural force that more or less equals the presidency of the US. That’s how much influence they have. They can command massive amounts of money for the most inane things, they are completely above the rules that confine the extent to which people explore and define their desires, I mean, they’re even scientifically proven to be genetically linked to presidential hopefuls Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. It’s all the power in the one place at the one time.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are the patron saints of Western Culture. And by Western Culture I mean planet earth because they’ve actually spent a lot of time being visible in the East so, they’re not even confined by cultural variance. They may actually be human deities. Perhaps their blood spilt for us will mean the end of global warming. I mean, that’s what someone told me. [source]

Even though the entire Eliot Spitzer hooker scandal thing has blown up about as much as could really mean anything – at least as far as ex-Governor Eliot Spitzer’s political career is concerned – and let’s face it, that’s the reason it blew up in the first place; because he was unpopular and was taken down, it’s good to know that the New York Post is still happy as hell to give front page real estate to the news that there was another hooker the ex-Governor hooked up with. Get it? Busted? Cause she's got busts! It's still not as good as their headline "Headless Body in Topless Bar!"

Anyway, this one’s name is Kristin Davis (not the same one from Sex and the City but seeing as she’s just had her own sex scandal this is sort of a random kick in the injured ribs while she’s down for Charlotte York – and she didn’t even DO anything) and she thankfully, actually looks like a tramp assed, vamped up ho.

High class hookers are all so hell bent on looking like actual women at the moment (I love how I’m saying that with all this conviction when in reality, what the hell would I know?) and it’s just not interesting. I mean, the other one looked like an Aaron Spelling extra and confirming that is the news that Tina Fey wants her on 30 Rock but just can’t figure out where she is.

So, Kristin Billie Davis is a Jayne Mansfield looking white trash California hooker who owned Wicked Models and who raked in 2 million bucks last year whoring girls out. She’s also a hard worker herself because apparently she actually “serviced” the ex-Governor herself.

What a trooper. She went in there and when her stable of girls weren’t around or up for it she stepped up to the plate and took one for the team herself. There looks like there’s so much silicone in that ho that she could feasibly had detached something and gone back to the office to do data entry and listen to lite jazz while Spitz demanded his high maintenance regular.

Whatever the hell that was.

It was probably just something to do with socks, feet and his prostate. He’s not German after all so the whole fecal thing is out. Well, at least we can safely assume it’s out until someone else comes forward. Some buxom Frau with huge, Danish shaped hair who worked for a Euro outfit that services Spitz on European trips or something. By then his only employment options will be the Church. Just like McGreevey. [source]

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

Knut the polar bear that turned into a celebrity and was featured on the front page of Vanity Fair with Leonardo di Caprio has turned from a cuddly cub into a publicity-addicted psycho, one of his keepers claimed yesterday. Markus Roebke said Berlin Zoo's celebrity animal was obsessed with the limelight and howled with rage when denied an audience and I would like to say that I predicted this MONTHS ago. I knew he was the Lindsay Lohan of bears. I just knew it. He’s been brought up to believe that he’s a celebrity bear when he’s not really. He’s going to be less cute as the years go by and less people will care. Then where will he be? He needs some kind of trade to keep him ok. Like, he needs to not become Corey Haim. I think this is also further proof that that celebrity induced personality disease that Britney Spears seems to have really hammered into the public consciousness is a real thing. Michael Jackson also had it. So did Joan Crawford. So does Ann Coulter and Michael Lucas. Now a small polar bear cub has it. When will this horror end? When? [source]


Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society found some remarkable family connections for the three presidential candidates — Democratic rivals Obama and Clinton, and Republican John McCain. There is also apparently a genetic link between Brad Pitt and Barack Obama and Angelina Jolie and Hillary Clinton. We’re talking about really remote links like 9th cousins etc. which isn’t really THAT surprising, it’s just that we don’t really think about 9th cousins very much. I mean, I don’t and that means no one else does either. What I do like is that there has been a concerted effort to prove that all the important people in the US, as in the people who somehow represent desire or power are actually from the same family. Just to reinforce how far away everyone else is from being empowered. [source]

A man in Germany fled his home half naked for cold, snow-swept streets to escape a mouse in his living room, authorities said on Thursday."He said there was nothing he was more afraid of," police in Goettingen said in a statement. I flat out do not believe that he was afraid of a mouse. Because he was in Germany, I think he basically just wanted to engage in a little of the old official public past time of public nudity and so he did it and then when people reacted badly he came up with the mouse story. A likely story indeed. Besides, aren’t German mice meant to be enchanted? I mean, they do cool shit like make you chocolate houses and turn into princes and stuff. What’s to be afraid of? If he were in New York of Beijing then fine but Germany? No, he just wanted a watertight excuse to get naked. [source]

Heather Mills may have already been awarded 50 million dollars as part of her divorce settlement from Sir Paul McCarthy but she’s actually still out for more. She’s now hired a forensic team to prove that he is worth more than the 400 million pounds he said he was worth. She is insisting he’s worth at least 800 million and as such she deserves so much more money.

Even though Mills is greed incarnate, I’m actually really glad she exists because she’s so insanely extreme in her greed and shamelessness that she’s actually a living anthropological fascination point. As in, she’s sort of like a serial killer in the sense that you could sit around talking about how freakish and shameless she is. At dinner parties.

But then, she is being essentially reasonable. How COULD she possibly expect to live on 50 million dollars? It’s basically nothing when you consider everything she needs. Like for instance she needs new gold legs every hour and she also needs a machine that will allow her to, I don’t know, talk to animals or something and those aren’t cheap.

Isn’t the idea of a divorce settlement meant to be about distributing assets that were essentially accrued as part of the marriage? Mills and McCartney were married for 4 years and he made all his money decades ago. She didn’t do anything to earn him that money.

Mills should be buying an island right now and disappearing. Actually, no. She should stick around and continue bleating for more. Eventually something will happen and she’ll lose it all somehow and that will be genuinely interesting to watch. [source]

Star Magazine is reporting that Katie Holmes is finally falling apart physically and that it’s probably because Tom Cruise is a freaking nutcase.

I always thought she was destined for a physical breakdown because that’s what you get when you shack up with a bipolar control freak cult member – I mean, I think we’re all comfortable with that knowledge.

She looked a little tired when Cruise was dragging her ass out every minute with the maternity bra on just to make sure everyone knew she was pregnant and that he was the father but I always just put that down to her being knocked up and exhausted.

Now, she’s apparently looking pale and thin and exhausted and Star suggests it’s because Cruise has boundless energy and he stays up all the time and goes away for days at a time. Yes, it’s that, sure. It’s also the fact that the marriage contract they have says that she has to be on call all the time for appearances and that she has to listen to his diatribes about anything at all no matter what time of day. Who knows what it really is. She’s dying slowly because he’s eating away her soul. That’s my take.

Suri Cruise hasn’t been seen for a while either which leads me to believe that the lease that they had on her has run out or she’s gone in for service. That's got to be hard on Katie Holmes seeing as Suri was her only toy/friend.

For some reason I’m fairly certain that Tom Cruise does that thing that people on acid do where they just talk incessantly about weird mythology crap and it’s all just meaningless jibberish after a while but the first time you hear them say all that crap you think they’re actually some kind of modern day prophet. Tom Cruise does that.

Plus, it must be hard for her to keep pretending they have sex when he’s a sucker for the boys. I mean, lets face it - that's the real pont here. [source]

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

A group celebrating a birthday at a Dubai diner were cheered by a 25 percent discount but not necessarily the reason: "Bug on food." The restaurant cut the bill for seven customers at a birthday dinner after they found four insects crawling around their meals, the Gulf News reported on Tuesday. "We were surprised when the receipt said 'bug on food' as a reason for the discount. I think they were trying to be funny," one of the disgruntled customers said. This kind of thing really gives you insight into how imposing you are as a person when you go to a restaurant. I went to this place on the Harbour in Sydney once and found a cockroach in my food and they basically just gave me a free dessert and asked me to see the humour in it. It’s hard to see the humour in a heavily marinated cockroach when you’re paying 30 dollars for a salad. The thing about it was that there was a table of omnivorous Patrick Bateman wannabe businessmen next to my table who would have shut down the entire section of the city had they been served a roach. Lucky for the restaurant they weren’t. What the hell is happening in Dubai that they can’t get bugs out of the food though? I mean, the whole place is basically computerized and futuristic; can’t they just press a button and achieve perfection? What else is Dubai for? I mean, apart from owning your own island. Obviously. [source]

A tiger snapped in central China initially thought to be a very rare species has been identified as a more common Siberian one which escaped from a circus, state media reported on Tuesday and can I say, what a let down that news is? Watching the Chinese military HAVE to try to be gentle as they attempt to capture it would be hilarious. Just to see the boiling up rage and annoyance at not being able to simply club it to death. Meanwhile, who really knows if a tiger really did escape from a zoo in China anyway if the initial reports about it are from the State Media. I mean, it could be a ruse to make sure people stay inside as the politburo dance about in silken underwear and drink wine and play their merry lutes. Sometimes that’s the kind of thing I think happens with these Communist countries. I mean, wouldn’t you do that if you controlled an entire nation? I sort of probably would. For sure. Definitely. Would have to. [source]


A survey of 6500 English people conducted by Richard Wiseman, a psychologist from the University of Hertfordshire has found that people in England think that if your name is James or Elizabeth then you’re likely to be successful and if your name is Ryan or Sophie then you’re likely to be hot. You know, I just don’t know what the hell this crap is based on. For me the name James reminds me of the color red with some mushy pancakes, Elizabeth is an orange color and a wooden chair for some reason, Ryan makes me think of brown and being bored so you eat your leather shoe laces and Sophie is this pink name that is essentially disappointing because it’s similar to when you eat a tea bun and the icing is cool but the cake part is just crap blandly sweetened bread with dumb ass candied fruit in it. I guess James and Elizabeth sound sort of uptight and regal so I guess that’s fine. Still, no one mentioned Matthew which I actually officially believe is a good balance between hot and smart. I was talking to my cousin about this the other day and I’m pretty sure I’m right. [source]

The New York Post reports that ABC’s “Cashmire Mafia” is potentially not going to be picked up for another season while NBC’s “Lipstick Jungle” will probably be.

I love that there’s actually a debate about which one is better and that the viewing public are actually able to discern. The entire reasoning behind both of these shows is that it was ascertained that people still wish Sex and the City were around and so rather than just produce more Sex and the City they just created two new virtually identical but fundamentally more mechanical and less inventive versions of the original.

Cashmire Mafia is so caught up on the details that make it set in New York City and that reflect the elements that were meant to make it seem like Lucy Liu’s character is a high powered, glam woman that the plot lines and actually the dialogue is really irritatingly trite.

Lipstick Jungle is really no better except that it has Brooke Shields and Lorraine Bracco in it.
I sort of want to just grab the fucked housewife from suburban Ohio that is propagating this crap television and really force them to see that no, they are not, in fact, even remotely represented by what they see on the screen. Fat, frosting inhaling, sweat pants clad middle aged women with stringy hair who sit on brown, synthetic couches and watch TV in the middle of the day with the curtains drawn are not the same as painfully thin, New York fashionista women who are so caught up in a battle for status and clout that they can’t really operate as multi faceted humans. I’m not sure how there was ever a mix up and yet here we are trying to figure out which of the two shows is going to cater to that misunderstanding more. [source]

Britney Spears appeared in the banal sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” last night as medical receptionist and she really wasn’t that bad. She comes across as slightly subtle and hilarious in ways that aren’t usually seen in American half hour sitcoms not to mention that this is probably a genius way to fix her image.

Usually, everything in sitcoms is so calculated and formula that every line is written to a certain formula and there really is very little room for nuance and subtlety. With Britney, in some of the scenes you can tell she could barely figure out how to say what they’d given her with a basic sense of realism but in others her disconnect from the script and fully knowing what to do with the material meant that she was random and cute. Such a lucky break.

The smart thing about this is that it allows her to play an unhinged, whacky character that acknowledges her recent unhinged behavior but it does it in the context of a highly controlled and marketed product. It’s really the perfect way to rehabilitate her image. In many ways it’s a nod to both her prior career and her more recent meltdown all at once.

Good on Britney Spears for getting out there and trying something new though. Fraps and albuterol spray for weight loss have got to be uninspiring at this point let alone potentially horrendous for her health. She’s looking quite neat and clean too and that’s a positive thing.

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

Leonid Stadnik's phenomenal height has forced him to quit a job he loved, to stoop as he moves around his house and to spend most of his time in his tiny home village because he cannot fit in a car or bus. According to the Guinness Book of Records Stadnik is the world’s tallest man and in 2006 he took over the position from that man in China who married a regular sized woman (the wedding photos were funny because she looked like a tiny little person next to him HA! He’s tall and she’s tiny! ) and also he rescued a dolphin from death by reaching into its gullet and pulling out some plastic it was choking on. His long arms helped him succeed with THAT task. So, the Ukrainian government is helping him out by getting him some massive clothes and what was no doubt originally a military tank but is now a domesticated vehicle for him to drive around in. Somehow this guy really just seems like a whiner. Get out there and save a dolphin Stadnik. Then call us and ask for some crap. [source]

Mimicking his master, priest Joei Yoshikuni, a 1 1/2-year-old black- and-white Chihuahua named Conan joins in the daily prayers at Naha's Shuri Kannondo temple, sitting up on his hind legs and putting his front paws together before the altar so of course everyone is equal parts enchanted and inspired to become more religious. These stories are great because all the freaks think it’s a god inspired miracle when really, the dog is just the canine equivalent of one of those showbiz kids who figure out that if you act charismatic, cute, angst free and sort of adult like – all the adults in the room will do whatever you want. Still, it’s good to know that one way you can promote religion in a world where it sort of really has very little rational place in culture by getting a small dog to pretend to pray. [source]

If there was any doubt that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are the all seeing, all dancing, patron saints of Western Culture then news that they donated a crap load of money to charities this past year will obliterate it.

People Magazine reports that :

All told, they gave more than $8 million in donations in 2006, with Pitt putting in $4,402,317, and Jolie donating $4,123,613, the Huffington Post reports, citing newly released federal tax filings. (These latest figures don't include 2007 – in which, among other charitable efforts, Brad's Make It Right Foundation raised $5 million.)In terms of dispensing their funds, according to records for 2006, the foundation handed out $2,367,935, including $1 million to both Doctors Without Borders (International Division) and to the Global AIDS Alliance.

Additional gifts included $137,935 to the Namibia Red Cross Action Program (their daughter Shiloh was born in the African country); $100,000 to the Daniel Pearl Foundation (the late journalist's widow, Marianne Pearl, was played by Jolie in A Mighty Heart); $100,000 to Global Green U.S.A. and to the Epidermolysis Bulloma Medical Research Foundation. In addition, $20,000 went to an art park in Los Angeles, as did separate $5,000 donations to two orphanages that Jolie had visited.

Isn’t that lovely? Not only are they pure, unblemished, saintly, manifestations of selfless perfection and inspiration and sexual dynamo, this revelation is also perfectly timed because it really shows up the crap-tastic efforts of Paris Hilton in South Africa and I enjoy that. This is almost, in that respect, the pop cultural equivalent of Senator Barack Obama’s speech about race occurring at roughly the same time as Senator John McCain’s speech in the Middle East where he said things about al Qaeda which were so vastly wrong that Senator Joe Liebermann had to correct him mid-speech. Senator McCain looked like an incoherent dinosaur hell bent on his own version of reality where Senator Obama looked like a cultural visionary and dynamic speaker and leader.

I will at least partially acknowledge that there is no real link between Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Paris Hilton but I just find it edifying to find new ways to metaphorically smack her smug whore-ish head into the ground. It just feels like people would benefit from that around the world. Moreso than say a token visit to an orphanage with paparazzi in tow followed by a nightclub event to congratulate oneself. [source]

Pete Wentz has talked openly about having attempting suicide after recording his first major studio album. He said:

“I got in my car. I remember I was listening to Jeff Buckley doing Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ and sat there and took a bunch of Adavan in a Best Buy parking lot. I called up my manager because I was, at that point, completely out of my head with Adavan. And I was talking to him and slurring my words, so he called my mom and my mom called me and she came and got me and we went to the hospital.”

Usually, I’ll talk about how contrived Pete Wentz is because he’s meant to be this emo rocker guy but he is now more of a corporate product and he’s dating Ashlee Simpson with whom his only artistic similarity is a shared love of flat ironed hair. I’ll usually argue that he’s purposefully saying things that are meant to make him seem omni sexual and edgy but how underneath the edginess of saying he’s made out with boys there’s a certain calculated marketing approach.
With suicide attempts it’s not so easy to be callous enough to argue that sort of thing (unless you’ve had a few belts of scotch) so I’m just going to use this story as a way of justifying putting up more pictures of him. After all, no matter what he does, he’s still criminally hot.

But the awkward thing here is the idea of sexually objectifying him while knowing that the current context in which we’re talking about him is mental anguish and suicide attempts. Wow, edgy hot/creepy/sad/weird…[source]

Paris Hilton just went to South Africa with her current boyfriend Benji Madden from the band Good Charlotte – presumably so she could somehow alter her public image as the pointless physical embodiment of everything wrong with Western culture. She was seen hugging and smiling with African children at an orphanage.

Just as an aside, isn’t it weird that the two Madden brothers would hook up with Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie? It feels like the crystallization of several strains of viral base level culture all into one family. If the two couples got married then Paris and Nicole would actually be related by law and would possibly combine to garner enough power to have more of an impact. They would be a craptastic whore weapon/yogurt snack. But more of that some other time…

Incidentally, it’s frightening to me that my Microsoft Word spell check instantly capitalizes the word “Hilton” after I instinctively don’t use a capital H when writing it. It doesn’t do that to the word god but it does to Hilton.

Anyway, so the ex-zeitgeist was in South Africa and she was quoted as saying

“I love Africa in general — South Africa and West Africa, they are both great countries.”

God, what a freaking pointless whore. See how she manages to upstage any real potential charity work she could have done in Africa by simply being alive and expressing herself? I mean, where did she freaking go? Who did she talk to? What are the issues facing those people? What is she doing about it? Who is she working with? Well, look, I have no idea but I do have confirmation that she’s a freaking idiot which is certainly new information and I’ll be sure to file that away for future use. [source]

I was just thinking about how we hadn’t had a good solid rehab story in a while and like some kind of universal gift on a platter made of nubile flesh, here’s one. Delivered within minutes and already free.

Steve-O, from TV’s “Jackass” is in rehab after being picked up by the police for smacking the crap out of his own apartment and filming it. He wrote on his blog today about his alcoholism and how his mother was one and how she fed him liquor as a baby etc.

Yeah yeah, we all had that. I apparently got drunk at 2 because I wandered around a pub in Balmain, Australia drinking from everyone’s glasses in the pub. My mother thought it was amusing, I’m assuming in retrospect not while it was happening. On second thoughts, I wonder if drinking from everyone’s glasses was the most hygienic thing to do. I’m talking about everyone in the bar, not just the people I was with.

Anyway, so, the crazy assed Steve-O always struck me as just being one of those annoying American kids who have ADD and just don’t know when to shut the hell up and stop acting like a douche bag because they have self absorbed idiot parents who don’t know how to discipline their kids and they also get things like mini chocolate bars in their lunch along with white bread sandwiches. I figured he just randomly stumbled upon this way of getting paid to act like the douche bag he was as a kid. So, it all worked out. He was, in many ways, the American dream.
So, anyway – now with admissions on his blog like this:

Mom was very alcoholic, and I feel that is a grossunderstatement. I’d love to say that I first took toalcohol out of affection for my mother (there wasnever any shortage of that for me) but I think thetruth is that I was always powerless over it. I know Iwas always powerless over alcoholism, because it hadsuch a grip on Mom’s adulthood and my childhood, and Inever chose to fight it. Until now.

Really, I’m not trying to "toot my own horn," it’stime for me to "hang up my hat," to "throw in thetowel," it’s time for me to "call it quits."

And while that’s really great on a human level, in the sense that he’s going to hopefully give up all the addictions and get clean – it really begs the question “What will he do now?” because his entire celebrity appeal is anchored in being a crazy assed freak. He couldn’t really put on a three piece tweed suit, sit in a Queen Ann chair in front of a fire and introduce televised recordings of live productions of Britten operas, could he? Well, maybe he could, if he wore tiny little wire framed glasses and had a sleeping cat next to him that was on fire but that didn’t care. Yes, that’s one option. [source]

Well, look at that. Our favourite little professionally sloshed yet culturally miraculous Mademoiselle Tara Reid is drunk in an airport in Cancun. Excellent. One can only assume that Mademoiselle was there as part of some kind of Spring Break celebration, or pre-emption of such and that’s a good thing too because as a 33 year old there’s nothing more appropriate for her to be doing than to be running around drunk and topless with a bunch of 22 year olds who are just discovering alcohol and nudity at the beach with no parents for the first time.

Still, what better guide into the areas of common as hell vice like alcohol abuse and sexual promiscuity than a d-list celebrity like Tara Reid. Why, that scrawny, dehydrated hooker’s carcass has seen more of every kind of poison than most of those kids have thought of so she’ll either be the life of their parties of a sobering deterrent from them.

And either way is good.

Still no actual acting work for Reid as far as I can tell. So…yeah…that’s not really going so well.

Whatever happened to her chronically amazing show “Taradise”? I wake up every Saturday morning with a slight start hoping they’re running re-runs of that show and then when they inevitably aren’t I get slightly upset. Well, until I remember I’ve TIVOed “Round Trip Ticket” from Logo which has got to be one of the most horrifically bad shows ever. So completely earnest, amateur and crap, I always love watching Marc Savoia stumble through some foreign city trying to sound knowledgeable about something but really you know he’s flat out trying to remember the script and while remaining antagonistically perky. God, it’s great to wake up to that shit. [source]

Predictably, annoyingly but admittedly hot Fall Out Boy Bassist, Pete Wentz is drumming up his old publicity getting technique of talking about how he likes things like makeup and girly things even though he’s a boy. Because he’s so edgy. His new line fashion line “Clandestine Industries” is about to start selling at Nordstrom and he has been quoted as saying:

"Technically they will be hanging in the young women's area, but personally I make these clothes as if they are unisex," Wentz said. "I mean, some of the clothes are clearly just for girls, you won't see me wearing a dress or anything, but I do like to wear a slimmer jean."

In the past he’s talked about having kissed boys, his love of eyeliner (which he had to call “Guyliner” so it wouldn’t alienate an increasingly younger, pseudo angry male fan base) and now this.

It’s interesting that a band whose aesthetic is reminiscent of many of the great historically courageous bands like The Sex Pistols and Green Day could constantly associate with such diluted cultural statements as “it’s eyeliner but wait, no, it’s guyliner”, I personally find the fact that the name of the line is “Clandestine Industries” to be generally trite. There’s really nothing Clandestine about Pete Wentz anymore.

But, I mean, look, I think he’s gorgeous, he’s so beautifully styled, he plays a great rockstar character and he’s dating his apparent anti-thesis so it’s easier to tell who he is and for that I thank him. Those are all great and admirable things. Endlessly trying to appear edgy by challenging gender roles in the most predictable and basic ways ever is where it gets slightly annoying. Why can’t he just do another set of nude photos? Why? And when is he going to drop the tuna and hack into some beef. On camera? I'm still on codeine - that's where this is coming from. [source]

So, it turns out that nude sex shots of Sex and the City star Kristen Davis are more than likely of her and not some conveniently similar looking twin or other woman. This has to be a sort of double edged sword for Davis really because it completely tarnishes her clean record and probably stains her ability to play the same character she’s been playing since the early 90s triumph that was Brooke Armstrong in Melrose Place. That character would be the uptight, spoilt, high maintenance, bratty rich woman who is aesthetically conservative and generally loathsome but reassuringly one dimensional. I think it’s safe to assume that at this point she’s really not so capable of much more than that.

With porno shots out there the cover might have been blown on her squeaky clean, shrill one-character range. Because who can convince themselves that a highly demanding and uptight, conservative perpetual debutant could be organically sexual? No one in America, that’s who.
But it’s not all bad. With her past in tattered tear inducing ruin, the only thing Davis can now do is climb the hell back up and actually do something new. That can’t be bad. [source]

Arthur C Clarke, the author of over 100 books and stories including "2001: A Space Odyssey" has died in his home in Sri Lanka at the age of 90. In the 1940s he was one of the first to suggest the use of satellites as a means of communication which then happened. He sort of seemed like the good version of L Ron Hubbard. He had the ideas and imagination but he didn’t become a fraudulent exploiter of weak minded humans. The film version of “2001: A Space Odyssey”, the product of a collaborative between Stanley Kubrick and Clarke has been heralded as one of the greatest films of all time.
According to his wishes, Clarke’s funeral will contain no reference to religious ritual at all. [source]

Courtney Love is right behind a new line of Converse Allstars blazoned with handwritten text found in Kurt Cobain’s Diary. They’re scheduled for release in the summer. This isn’t as culturally horrifying as it might seem because there is a lot of documentation of the fact that Cobain himself actually wore Converse Allstars himself so it’s not like she’s coming out with a Kurt Cobain brand fragrance or breakfast cereal for kids.

The pair featured above however, do sort of resemble the high maintenance ones signed by Michael Jordan than Nike came out with that are actually making a comeback among the hipster types. Ok, maybe it’s just the signature.

Who will be buying these shoes though? Diehard fans of Nirvana? They’ve got to be sort of in the late late twenties to early thirties now. Unless there’s a totally new generation of people who have found Nirvana without being told what to like by the marketing music machine. Are older Nirvana fans really going to buy Nirvana shoes?

When you take into account the fact that the whole ethos of grunge and punk was angst and depression and gritty atonal aspiration towards some kind of authenticity, isn’t wearing Kurt Cobain shoes actually, a bit like dressing up like Superman by putting on Superman pyjamas and then tying a bath towel around your neck with a safety pin?

Or, ok, maybe it’s Warholian. No, it’s still something I can see bullshit, trust fund hipsters from Williamsburg doing as they hang out in a sanitized “dive bar” and talk about how much better Nintendo Wii is than Playstation 3 on coke at 2 am on a Wednesday. Wow, did you check these new Converse Allstars? My dad bought them for me as a "got into college present", they were 300 dollars but man, Kurt Cobain was the SHIT, man! [source]

Fresh from her action packed win in divorce court where she nabbed around 50 million dollars in settlement money from her marriage to Sir Paul McCartney, Heather Mills is booked to go to Las Vegas and judge the Miss USA Pageant in early April.

I always had my doubts about whether she really was just a gold digging whore. I mean, people like to create characters and then denigrate them so I thought maybe there was a certain amount of truth to what she was saying when she would go on TV and say that she was being mistreated. Then she went to court, demanded somewhere in the vicinity of 125 million dollars which is outrageous and after she won some money she dumped water over the head of the lawyer for McCartney.

The judge in the case called her "warped" but it was the water was the part that convinced me that she was a gold digging freak ass. Then the fact that she decided to jump on the publicity bandwagon again and appear in Las Vegas confirmed it. She’s a totally fame hungry, greedy freak. How did Paul McCartney miss that? You can tell shit like this about people when you meet them, you just have to pay attention. I mean, I can tell.

This is so classically Donald Trump as well. Trust him to hire someone who has absolutely one of the lowest approval ratings, a rancid lack of class but who commands attention from the media and no real cultural value. Oh, well, when you think about it, those the basic principles of the Miss USA Pageant though, really so perhaps it a genius synthesis of minds. Mills and Trump: creating and and profiting from cultural abominations together. [source]

Hey everyone! Get ready to throw up your lunch at the sight of a gold and leather handbag that chain smokes in the window of Barney’s New York because Donatella Versace is actually sitting there right now. She’s literally convalescing on what I imagine is a massive couch made out of a combination of gold lions and naked Italian men that is padded with a throw of red velvet, in the window, alive (amazingly) and posing to promote her new menswear line. If one of the men who make up her chair wilts she has a rage attack and he must be replaced before she will stop pacing the window box aggressively, like a jaguar. Like a jaguar gone mad from too little space and not enough nicotine.

God, that means I’m only within walking distance of her right now. I should go over there but I’m really already too damned tired. [source]

The New York Post continues rumours that Madonna and Guy Ritchie are going to divorce. The whole thing is based on the insight given by an “in-the-know-Briton” who says this:

"Madonna is said to have lost respect for Ritchie when she found out he had embellished his past," one in-the-know Briton told us. "Far from the tough, working-class London dude he adoringly echoed in 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,' he's actually a privileged, prep school boy who chose to affect a gangland accent and walk with a street swagger. Brits can spot this at 100 yards, or hear it in an accent. Yanks, alas, can't."

Oh please, this is just like Star Jones’ divorce. I mean, presuming it’s true.
If Madonna is stating that she’s lost respect for Guy Ritchie now that she thinks he isn’t the man she initially met then she’s completely pathetic. Of COURSE he’s not. I mean, she could have found some guy who was her creative equal who would have challenged her as an adult but how would that have allowed her to be the controlling diva she is? These pop star divas all have to be the ones in control so they marry ludicrous men. She went for a guy who churned out one and a half good movies and then ran out of things to say. What’s confusing about that? She knows that to stay in the game you have to be relentlessly creating and you have to have a viciously deep void in you that is never filled but demands everything all the time. Like she does. That is what keeps her going. A crippling fear of cultural irrelevance.

Guy Ritchie has no fear of cultural irrelevance as he’s clearly come to accept that it’s a massive part of his identity. His formulated identity.

It made sense in the beginning for Madonna to marry Ritchie though though. He was built, heavily male, edgy, English (therefore elite to America) and a funny violent film maker. It was a perfect edge creator for Madonna. Madonna can’t cry disappointment now. She knew in the beginning. I mean, we all knew. We just weren’t saying anything because Madonna is frightening. [source]

The new New York governor, David Paterson, has come out immediately and said that at one point he had an affair but that is all in the past now.

I’ve got to say, even though I’m tanked up on hateful painkillers and can barely ascertain what direction I’m facing I’m just living for these tri-state governor scandals. Why, it’s just one thing after another. First, Jim McGreevey a few years ago: a closet homo, then John Corzine: the only mayor in the country with a beard (oooOOOOOooooo, sneaky and suspicious…) and then Elliot Spitzer: caught paying hookers for sex in another state while taking a hard line on prostitution in his professional life. Now this, David Paterson and his wife admit they both had affairs but reconciled the situation years ago

"This was a marriage that appeared to be going sour at one point," Paterson told the Daily News. "But I went to counseling and we decided we wanted to make it work. Michelle is well aware of what went on.".

This is what you have to do when you’re a governor in the tri-state area. You have to quickly pre-empt everything yourself I guess because these states are so steeped in sexual scandal. Just being here is sexually scandalous let alone being the governor of one of the states. Mind you, it’s smart of him because it’s actually no big deal at all that he had an affair but you just know that there are some people who would be digging around constantly to come up with ways of usurping his power.

This way, no one can even try and drag the argument down that way; he’s already cut off that option. Actually, it really seems like he’s taken Cody Diablo’s routine and run with it. Just out yourself and get on with it.

Why don’t people do that kind of thing more often. Like walk into a room and scream out things like “I go through people’s medicine cabinets, I’m freeballing right now and I hate children” so that when it inevitably comes up at the dinner table later on no one can say anything about it. [source]

California’s First Lady, Maria Shriver, has raked in close to a million buck over the past 3 years for not actually doing anything bar one appearance on the NBC network. She worked at Dateline prior to her husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming Governor of California but when he was sworn in she had to leave due to a conflict of interest.

This is kind of amazing because if she had to leave NBC due to being a political figurehead, why would another network suddenly be able to take her on? Wouldn’t it be a conflict of interest for ALL news organizations? So, they kept her on retainer and threw cash at her despite the fact that she only did one journalistic thing with them the entire time.

Even though this sounds outrageous and even though 40 NBC employees were let go in 2006, it doesn’t really resonate as THAT bad. It’s hard to ascertain why you’d fire 40 people and pay someone a lot to not do anything but at the same time, retainers aren’t so big of a deal.

My main questions about Maria Shriver are as follows: How does she get her head looking so very much like Skeletor? Is it a low water diet? She always looks SO drawn and taut. I wonder if she’s addicted to diuretics. Her eyes seem sunken and her teeth are sort of severe. I can’t imagine it’s easy to deal with the body image issues of her husband day in and day out. Well, actually, just her husband in general really.

Also, for years I had heard she was a journalist and I kept wondering how and why. It always seemed to be that she was one of those kept women, she is related to the Kennedys, she’s married to Schwarzeneggar, the whole lot really. She just hung out and every now and then did an interview with Demi Moore and turned it in and kept herself convinced she was a journalist. Granted I only thought about this from about 2003 so that’s my limitation.

So, now it’s good to know what’s REALLY been going on. Finally, I know why Maria Shriver is a journalist according to everyone. [source]

Heather Mills and Paul McCartney have reached a divorce settlement and basically she gets a total of about £24.3 million. That’s about $US50 million. Because that’s what her time was worth when they were married. Her time was worth £12.5 million a year. What is she? A freaking gold plated psychic sex robot? Well, robot might be sort of on the right track. Maybe she is on the way to becoming all cyborg what with her leg and all.

Anyway, her settlement of £24.3million includes about £16million in cash and about £7million in assets and is inclusive of £500,000, referable to her overspending in the period of separation.

Yoko Ono must be so thrilled at this point because now, finally, she can be knocked down a peg on the ladder of people the English irrationally blame for the dissolution of the Beatles. The English are weird like that about the Beatles. They consider them Gods but at the same time they act like they’re in a marriage with them. It’s the UK as the blushing bride and the Beatles as the world weary groom. The whole thing is a little freakish.

It’s sort of like how Australia feels about people like Cate Blanchett and to a lesser extent, Naomi Watts but most certainly Heath Ledger. They used to feel that way about Nicole Kidman but Kidman is less and less “human” so they aren’t sure how to react to her anymore. They get really possessive and protective.

So, anyway – it’ll be interesting to see what Heather Mills is actually capable of at this point. She may very well disappear and start spending. I wonder how. That must be a real curse being hated en masse and yet having a lot of money. It’s like, you just want to go out there and spend up big and fill the crippling void with designer clothes and sumptuous meals but if you leave the house people spit on you and attack you with their canine attack canines. And that’s sadly what Heather Mills can look forward to.

Still, she could go to Dubai, buy a small island, live on it and jump on ebay. You can get anything on ebay. Seriously. Not porn, coke, hookers or prescription meds but anything else. [source]

I'm currently bed ridden with a pulled side muscle - actually I'm pretty sure that there are about 15 muscles in my shoulders, back and side that are somehow angry at me and are causing me immense pain. Am tanked up on codeine and so am pretty much useless.

I wrote this in the 20 minute interval between taking the tablet and when it kicks in.

This really is ruining my tour of Southern France.

American Rev Bob Larson – soon to be a star on British TV – has volunteered to save Amy Winehouse from self-destruction by “ridding her of the devil”. God, there’s a lot to be astonished by in just that one sentence.

There’s nothing more reassuring and far from complete, unadulterated moral corruption than an exorcist from America who appears on TV. I have always felt most comfortable paying for salvation by sending checks to some hack from the south and I’m glad the English are embracing the practice as well.

The interesting thing about this story in the Daily Star is that it’s managed to describe a show that seems to have a window into my soul just like the first season of Big Brother did in Australia several years ago. I’m astonished that they have managed to zero in on so many outrageously appalling elements in the one go. I’m not sure it could BE any more ludicrous. The Daily Star ran this:

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Star Sunday, the Rev Bob, who will seek the star out during a forthcoming visit to Britain, said: “Amy Winehouse is in my opinion possessed. She is obviously suffering from drug addictions and other problems but the likelihood is that is not all. People are more susceptible to being possessed when they have bruised souls and I think Amy is a classic example.”

Ok, so apart from the fact that Rev Bob was only able to muster up one interview in the media is hardly enough for it to be considered an exclusive, no, people who use drugs are absolutely not more susceptible to demon possession than other people. They’re more susceptible to things like death and disease because those are REAL GOD DAMNED THINGS. Unlike demons which were invented to explain mental illness and to heighten profits in the church.

Plus, I love that Amy Winehouse just happens to be totally marketable right now and so that’s who he goes for. He doesn’t go for any of the other celebs in say, “Dr. Drew Pinsky’s Celebrity Rehab” at all. Oh no, they’re not famous enough. He needs to go for the main ones. The big deal names. After all, he’s got a show to promote.

Ok, great. Let’s exorcise Winehouse and see what comes out. I hope whatever it is gets splashed all over Reverend Bob’s eyes. IN his eyes. Chunks of corn and white mucus. In eye. Good. [source]

Well well well. Look who is crawling back to the bunkers in Kuwait to regain her credibility. Yep, good old Jessica Simpson. And she’s claiming she doesn’t even have her 11,000 dollar a day beauty staff with her.

So far the story has gone back and forth on this. On the one hand, she said yes to the gig probably because she’s got nothing else going on and also because a good public appearance where you’re supporting the troops is often a great image cleanser – especially if you’re the embodiment of failure for a football team you don't even play for. Which she is. On a national scale. She was supposedly sleeping in the bunks and eating the food the soldiers eat.

Then, yesterday she wasn’t and it was all a total scam and she was actually dragging along an entourage and was costing everyone thousands.

Now People Magazine is reporting that she’s back in the trenches and claiming that she didn’t just fly into town, bat an eyelid and then jump on a private jet out of there after throw one of her unpurchased CD singles into the crowd. From the plane. Just the one.

Why is it this difficult to confirm something so enormous? Surely someone would know if Jessica Simpson slept in a canvas bunk or in a 5 star hotel. Can someone just make a call? I would but I’m already too damned tired.
[source]

Madonna was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last night and she was presented with her statuette deal by Justin Timberlake. Timberlake managed to make a lot of the speech about him, which isn’t surprising because he is quite often a cocky douchebag.

Madonna spoke and I’m completely convinced now that she’s all about humanizing herself at the moment and that humanizing herself as a fifty year old musician who looks ageless is the next step in a line of reincarnations. I mean, on a really basic level – when does she actually ever speak? This is a real moment. Here it is:

Aesthetically, she’s been through Marilyn Monroe, 80s punk, 90s glam, late nineties eastern spiritualism, there was a little US country, then some hard, industrial Euro glam, Kabbalah and now this. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few. She’s spent her entire career being essentially untouchable and so now with a few specifically placed statements in the media, sightings on Page Six and an uncharismatically delivered yet feasibly heartfelt speech, she’s making herself look like an actual human.

“Actual human”, for Madonna, may be the new “untouchable icon”. She’s always one step ahead. [source]

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is resigning because he’s been named as a client in a prostitution ring. What is it with Governors in the tri-state area?

Spitzer has been a crusader in eradicating organized crime in the city as well as prostitution so it’s almost as though he’s a Catholic priest or a Republican anti-gay rights activist who was found in a motel room with a gay porn star hooker smoking crystal meth.

The horrific part is that he has a wife and kids. The rest could have been just shocking but this means it’s going to be hateful for them. [source]

Courtney Love went to the LAPD on the weekend to make a report that she is the victim of massive identity fraud and that there are 188 credit cards currently being used by other people in her name.

TMZ is taking the popular route of arguing, via unnamed sources, that she’s unstable and possibly bipolar all of a sudden. Gee, lucky Britney Spears dragged an at least vaguely examined understanding of the word bipolar into the public sphere so now we can all use it again and again…

TMZ goes on to state the Love’s “latest blogs which are impossible to decipher.”

Actually, if you read Courtney Love’s blogs, they aren’t ever THAT incoherent. She clearly can’t type and she also can’t spell sometimes but neither can most people. Most people, and I say from the perspective of a writer who writes all day and notices these things, cannot actually string a sentence together properly. That goes double for people who are musicians or artists.
Here’s her actual blog post for today:

seriously?
As for being taken SERIOUSLY,l i personally have NOTHING to do with it, NUMBERS do not lie, i simply turned in the printouts i got from my child's, my own and my deceased husbands social security numbers and Ficos.

call me names all day ,but its the NUMBERS ,not my persona.

If i get "Lifelock" i will post this information for your bemusement, no actually i wont, cos why should i cater to your fantasies, You cant accept numbers? Then i guess your really a lonely sad animalistic hungry motherfucker who cannot manifest any of your own desires.

God people are batshit. And im not the one who is.and i hear now i am "Bi Polar" uhhhh...thats more nuts than I will ever be.I may be Eccentric, i certainly speak my mind and am slow to put out a record i need to mean the world to ME, and im sur ei am quite Nuerotic but "Bi Polar" .Thats just slander.I shoot straight from the hip and spellcheck has NOTHING to do with REALITYgotta go its fucking late and we wrote yet another magical song tonight.

nam myoho renge kyo and may all impediments create JOY in you.

It’s sort of fragmented but if you read it out loud you can make out her voice saying it and she sounds coherent. I just actually have this feeling that she’s not as nuts as she has been portrayed. She benefits from the attention she gets from being thought of as nuts so she runs with it. Drugs also screw her brain around and everything but ultimately, she’s not as zany as people say. Plus, insecure LA types throw around the word “crazy” like it’s a tray of hors doeurves. Maybe Courtney Love is actually a Christ figure and we’re all too scared to hear what she’s saying. Yeah, that’s a good angle to take. I’m sticking with that. Courtney Love is the Christ, Jessica Simpson, as we’ve discussed, is the pending anti-Christ. Done. [source]