I have to get packed because I’m going to London tomorrow morning at an ungodly hour. I was however, interested to note two things that Post had published today. The first is that Guy Ritchie is fine with not taking any money from Madonna, he just wants joint custody of the two boys, David and Rocco. Madonna’s daughter Lourdes will apparently live with her in the United States in a living set up that will eventually dissolve into a contemporary version of the Mommie Dearest saga and the boys will go back and forth racking up frequent flier miles and getting out at just the moment either parent gets to be unbearable. It does seem clear that Guy Ritchie is the more civil of the two but did we really need confirmation of that? Apparently Madonna’s only friends are her stylists. That is a surefire indication of an inner chasm. The best part is the earnest commenter who wrote:

steveack wrote:
once again, i ask. just why is this non story on the front page? has the post turned into a supermarket rag? the comings and goings of this "star" belongs on the gossip page, not page one!
11/20/2008 10:07 AM EST

Take heart, Steveack. I’m sure this is just a slip up. Before long they’ll be back on track and you’ll see the Post as the pinnacle of unbiased journalism you’ve come to so reasonably rely on. Supermarket rag? Certainly not. General use rag? Maybe. [source]

Following on from the media’s relentless portrayal of the Obama family as the great black hope for the future of the world and all generations to come in every facet of culture, the Post reports that Avon will be producing a book called “The Michelle Obama Style Guide”. This is probably about as pop as the US can get when it comes to the First Lady– in light of a comparison to say, Carla Bruni’s recent album release. However, half of the credit for the injection of fashion inspiration Michelle Obama seems to embody should go to Laura Bush. Next to Laura Bush’s brown, school teacher smock the other day, a taxidermied sloth would look like a Chanel gown. [source]

The Post reports that the most idiotic of the Baldwin brothers, Stephen, has admitted he has a lot of respect for Barack Obama even though, traditionally he’s a delusional religious Republican.
"Obama is obviously talented and intelligent, and I have great respect for the man. He's got my full support, and I'm gonna be praying for him and his administration."

This comes after he announced on Fox News that he would leave the country if Obama won and he also stated that he considered Obama a “cultural terrorist”.

I’m actually a real fan of Alec Baldwin right now. He’s majestic and informed and outspoken. His work on 30 Rock is genuinely funny. Sure he’s a little large but he’s large in that French, majestic way. Stephen Balwin’s primary asset, on the other hand, was his bubble ass about 10 years ago. He’s now fat and delusional and has out dated hair. I’m not interested in him and he should stop talking. [source]

People Magazine’s sexiest man for 2008 is Hugh Jackman and without doubt, at this point he's a more interesting choice than George Clooney or Brad Pitt. You know what would really have thrown a spanner in the works? If they named Justin Gaston the Sexiest Man. Who would be expecting that? And what a rags to riches tale! One minute he’s essentially not famous and the next he’s a 20 year old in a relationship with a 15 year old Disney tycoon and BANG, king of the world. It's the American dream!

Plenty of important people are going to sound off about Hugh Jackman being the sexiest man and I can't wait. Philip Bloch maybe, Carmen Electra, Patti Smith, Vivien Leigh. Important, informed and interesting people. And with good reason too. It’s an important topic. Truthfully, I think Hugh Jackman seems like a lovely and attractive married guy. He’s the only actor who has done action movies AND been a leading man on Broadway in a musical. Additionally, I think a lot of my disdain for everything today is because I keep eating Swedish fish. They are sitting here in a bulk container and so I just grab a few and chew on them. Needlessly. Consequently, my emotional state and sugar levels are like a roller coaster. Yes, it’s needlessly unpleasant but I DO think it keeps me guessing as to what will happen next. Anything could. [source]

Miley Cyrus was on Ellen and she acted like a complete tool. Ellen asked her if her pederast, social climbing boyfriend Justin Gaston was actually her boyfriend and she giggled and contorted herself like a child wanting to get out of a car seat after a long road trip. Miley Cyrus has the laugh of a forty year old smoker on helium. Whatever that means.

Every time I see Cyrus I am convinced she will have a Britney-esque breakdown at some point. She’s being allowed to date a 20 year old, her parents are reliant on her, she’s got to be a Christian virgin even though she’s probably neither. It will come crashing down eventually. My favourite part of the interview is the part where she says she likes that fact that Justin Gaston is Christian because that’s something important to her. Remind me, is she running on a Republican platform or is she just a reluctant child whore. At her age, if she’s successful, its usually hard to tell.

The Post reports that Madonna is the new face of Louis Vuitton for 2009. Last year they got Keith Richards. Both are unusual choices for a luggage company seeing as they both either resemble old leather or are considered tough and baggish. Madonna was apparently paid 10 million dollars for her likeness. Phew. I was worried she would be underpaid.

Maybe Louis Vuitton thinks there’s some alignment between their brand and old iconic musicians. Ie. Our luggage is timeless and iconic. I can see that being the point of a pitch meeting but ultimately, right now when I think of Madonna I think of gristle. I cannot deny that. Also, I think of frog legs. Her arms are oddly frog leg like.

When I think of Keith Richards I think of a very dry apple with a hat on it. I also think of smoke clouding an already cremated lung.

To link those two images to Louis Vuitton luggage is mildly absurd to me. Mind you, I have pretty much nothing riding on it because I will probably never be able to justify spending 4000 dollars on a handbag.

Someone near me is listening to lite jazz, elevator music for fun and I really understand my reaction to that now. It’s never been clearer: listening to elevator music, the kind you’d hear in an elevator where it pipes out the crap, Florida pastel sax version of “the Girl from Ipanema” for apparent enjoyment is actually more traumatizing to me than confronting the chaotically dark reality that religion is the product of a fear of death. Give me nothing before you give me elevator music. [source]

Tyra Banks has always had this uncanny ability to be the gutter dwelling lowest common denominator when it comes to what she creates for culture. She is like a mix of Oprah and Jerry Springer but with far more Jerry Springer than Oprah and I have always found her incessant, unironic demands for attention to actually be embarrassing to watch. I mean, I don’t watch – particularly after she started shrieking about her “fat ass”. Oh, GOD I don’t care Tyra.

So now according to Queerty, she’s giving away a sex change operation on her show to tranny model Isis from America’s Next Top Model which I guess constitutes some kind of first and for that reason we should all pay attention in the way I am right now. Or something like it.

Let’s hope they televise the entire thing in full make up. Actually, I hope Tyra manages to somehow insert herself into the surgery footage. She’ll sit there, brushing her hair back past her ear as they reassign Isis’ gender. Isis is out cold in Montreal and Tyra is sitting there doing her thing. Giving the people what they want. More Tyra. Obviously. [source]

The radio show I do on East Village Radio with Daniel Nardicio was canned yesterday because the station was offended by something Daniel said. They confiscated the show we recorded on November 8 and have refused to give it back. We just sent out a press release about it and the attached photo is from the photo shoot we did last night with ace photographer Greg Thompson.

After four years of broadcasting the wildly popular nightlife talk show DList Radio, East Village Radio has cancelled the show after a scandalous incident on the episode recorded for broadcast on November 8.

The show, a very popular podcast on iTunes, has been called “Party Monster meets The View” and “Gay Howard Stern” in the media. Despite all of this attention, EVR station manager Jorge DoCouto deemed it necessary to bring Nardicio in to the station and berate him for producing a show the station considers "inappropriate", "offensive" and "no good".

“He was seriously going off the handle about how there was no line I wouldn’t cross and no offensive thing I wouldn’t say which is absolutely untrue. It’s a gay shock jock type show; that’s the format- don’t they listen to radio?”

During the as yet un-aired November 8 show which features interviews with comedians Booth and Pat, the band The Tigerlillies, clown porn star Dick Chibbles and an interview with Dr Poussait, a French anthropologist who studies the similarities between Bonobo apes and Homos, hosts Daniel Nardicio and Matt Phillp discussed how enamored Nardicio was with the station’s sound technician “Joe” and afterwards, the show was mysteriously unavailable online.

“I called the station the next morning to find out where our show was because it is always on iTunes immediately after we record it live on Saturday nights,” says Nardicio. “I was told the show had been lost.”

Nardicio and Phillp apologized to “Joe” for the offending remarks and even offered to edit the “offensive” bit out if the station would broadcast the November 8 show. East Village Radio refused. Nardicio and Phillp then asked several times for East Village Radio to return the recording of the November 8 show and they not only refused, they reacted by canceling the show.

“Based on the station’s support of our celebrity interviews, our top iTunes rating, the fact that we’re syndicated on other web radio sites like QNationFM.com in Cleveland and feedback from fans, we're pretty confident we're neither “inappropriate”, “offensive” or “no good”,” says co-host Matt Phillp.

D List Radio was featured in the Village Voice’s Best of New York for 2008 and has recently broadcast interviews with celebrities like Rue McClanahan, Michael Musto, Elijah Wood, Lady Gaga, Alison Moyet and Fred Schneider - many of whom EVR were proud enough to advertise on eastvillageradio.com's homepage.


“What confuses me is that EVR’s official party line is that they’re “community based” and “East Village” yet when I was dressed down I was told our show was too much for the “new” East Village, which caters to yuppies who have moved in to live the generic Carrie Bradshaw dream rather than do something genuinely interesting,” says Nardicio. “EVR is doing exactly what so many East Village businesses are doing; they’re trying to make it more like the Meat Packing District, and our show is directly counter to that movement."

The show, which will be going on the road this fall with their road version called “Fairy Home Companion” will be making an announcement after Thanksgiving about their exciting new NYC home for the show.

“Regardless, Matt and I are still doing the show live at Sugarland in Williamsburg this Friday with Robbyne Kaamil, Bianca del Rio and DJ Aaron Elvis,” says Nardicio. “Legal proceedings to retrieve the confiscated show are also underway and to help us finance this free speech lawsuit you can purchase a “I fucked Joe” at www.theDshop.com starting this Friday and all our shows are now available at www.dlistradio.com. Well, all except the Nov 8 show. So far."

Ok, actually, one more. DJ Aaron Elvis pointed this youtube clip out to me last night as we stood in a secret speakeasy and it reminded me why Amy Sedaris is important. She is important as a cultural entity and as an iconoclast. I would like to eat dinner with her now. I also really think Chelsea Handler can be hit or miss and it was clear she was weirded out that she was by far the less funny of the two.

Paul Rudd was on SNL on the weekend and he did the scene above with Andy Samberg and it was genuinely funny. It’s such a weird surprise when Andy Samberg does funny things because he’s generally kind of innocuous and used as filler. The entire episode was extremely gay what with the unpleasantness of Prop 8 coming to fruition during the week. Maybe there's hope for Samberg yet. He has an unmistakably good neck.

I have to take care of a lot of stuff today because tomorrow I’m part of a big press announcement and so that's it for Monday. That’s really vague and non-committal but that’s how it has to be right now. Something pretty appalling happened today so stay tuned to find out what. It’s actually pretty amazing that it DID happen in light of the cultural outrage over Prop 8 in California. That's all I'm saying. Oooooh, how intriguing.

Prince is now a Jehovah’s Witness and as such he goes around trying to convert people, the New Yorker reports. Prince is also total freaking homophobe and that’s a surprise because I never would have thought a genderless, flouncing glam addict could afford to alienate himself from gay fans. Here’s what the article said:

When asked about his perspective on social issues—gay marriage, abortion—Prince tapped his Bible and said, “God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out. He was, like, ‘Enough.’ ”

Celebrities finding religion is always fraught with weirdness in the same way that it is with regular people who find religion later in life. If you become religious later in life I think it’s generally probably the result of some kind of trauma – much like people who become vegetarian later in life – and so your views are less about life and more geared towards trauma so something’s a little askew. With Prince I can’t help but feel he’s found a way of defining his God complex and also he’s lost a part of his rational mind by being inside a celebrity bubble. But then, it’s not such a shock, he’s been creating the mythology of his persona for so many years it’s only natural that he would eventually find that the mythology of religion makes sense to him.

[source]

The New York Post reports that Naomi Campbell went to get on a British Airways flight, apparently the unpleasantness of her last encounter with them has been smoothed over, and Mariah Carey, her husband Nick Cannon and three security guards were already on board. That’s actually all they say. I’m not sure if the implication here is that because there were 5 other people on the plane Naomi Campbell was unable to fit; that seems unlikely. She is, after all, quite slender.

If we’re talking about egos though, then that’s another story. If egos took up space on a plane and actually needed to breathe air, with Mariah Carey on a plane by herself it seems reasonable that anyone else could suffocate within minutes.

What a nightmarish flight that would be for anyone at all involved. The airline staff particularly.

I can just see people walking off that flight looking like they’ve just walked out of a shock and awe campaign in the middle east.

In other news, last night I walked outside my apartment wearing no shoes because I just needed to race over the road and get money from an ATM. All of a sudden this fat New York sewer rat ran out and headbutted my bare heel and then ran into a crack in the wall.

Ok, so, sometimes I sit here and I think I see rats and mice under my desk and that is because I have seen mice in this office before and it is nightmarish. I have this serious fear of rats running up my legs and biting my face while squealing. I mean, it’s not something that plagues me relentlessly, it’s just something I imagine would be pretty unpleasant.

Imagine then, my head spinning horror to have a New York sewer rat run and hit my foot so that I could feel its wet fur on my flesh. I mean, I’m pretty sure my body is currently debating whether to reject my foot and to be honest, my foot feels less there.

So, yeah, great, Naomi Campbell gets on a plane with Mariah Carey and no doubt a whole blood stained deathmatch ensued over the color of a pillow or the fact that Mariah Carey’s husband wanted to use the bathroom and didn’t ask her first but you know what? I have rat foot and it’s still a bit weird. [source]

The Huffington Post has an item about how White House Press Corp veteran Helen Thomas is back and while she’s looking frailer than ever, she’s still ready and raring to go which I find genuinely reassuring. Watching Helen Thomas lay into a press secretary or the president is just so relaxing. She does it with no fear whatsoever and words her questions with such clarity that there’s really no escape for the person being asked.

I read her book “Front Row at the White House” and her writing style is totally unevocative and comes across as stunted. I think that’s because she’s the quintessential journalist and has had every natural inclination to express herself emotionally through her writing squeezed out of her through her job. Having said that I think she was always meant to be a journalist though so it’s not like she would have been a fictional prose writer had she not fallen into journalism.

Even though she’d covered the last 7 presidents she was moved to the back of the room during the Bush presidency, probably in part because of how relentless she is with hard hitting questions that demand accountability and Bush didn’t like that. So now she’s back. Here she is talking with Tim Russert in 2007 about questioning the president:

[source]

Justin Gaston is getting more work STILL out of his weird relationship with Miley Cyrus. People Magazine reports that Gaston performed with Taylor Swift at the Country Music Association Awards AND that not only did that gig actually happen – which it wouldn’t have if he hadn’t have been dating Cyrus – but that Miley Cyrus herself was wearing a Roberto Cavalli gown on the red carpet.

This feels the same as letting Dina Lohan work for Entertainment Tonight so that the show could get exclusive access to Lindsay Lohan. By hiring the starfucking boyfriend, Cavalli gets Miley Cyrus into their clothes. The whole thing is creepy.

Plus, Billy Ray Cyrus is acting all Lynn Spears by talking about how much he likes the boyfriend which can only really be the product of fear that he’ll lose his job if his kid doesn’t get what she wants.

Miley Cyrus will eventually have a breakdown. What about this prediction isn’t reasonable? [source]

The New York Times has reported a few of the questions you need to answer if you want to work in the White House during the Obama presidency and the requirements are as extensive as they are exhausting. There are 63 requests for personal and professional records, some covering applicants’ spouses and grown children as well about your family including:

“If you have ever sent an electronic communication, including but not limited to an e mail, text message or instant message, that could suggest a possible conflict of interest or be a source of embarrassment to you,”

That basically means that if you have ever indicated on any level that you are a fallible human or you have a sense of irony you are out. There are these specific types of people who are bred to work in politics and they take themselves excruciatingly seriously to the extent that they consider every single interaction with anyone at all, from birth, to be a test of their mettle and allegiance. Those people are generally pretty tiresome.

For all the idealism and rejuvenation that Obama presidency represents it also seems to have this air of oppressive self righteous infallibility about it that is perhaps unreasonable. It’s like the country is on a high right now and the standards being set from both within and outside the new administration are doomed to slip at some point and really disappoint. When it is discovered that Obama isn’t the actual Messiah, people are going to lapse back into at least some disillusionment. [source]

People Magazine is reporting the urgent URGENT news that Party of Five star Scott Wolf and his reality TV star wife who, in the article, is only referred to as "Kelley" are expecting their first kid. Is she only referred to as Kelley because she’s taken his surname so, it's assumed her name is Kelley Wolf? OR, is she a one-named stripper lass? Only time will tell.

Truthfully, I had actually been wondering what happened to Scott Wolf. Last I heard he was doing some play in the New York where he played a soldier or a man in a shirt who probably took that shirt off. Turns out, all this time I’ve been wondering what happened to him, he has been on "Everwood" and "The Nine". Gosh, how could I have missed that?

Scott Wolf looks like the kind of guy who’d disappoint by being highly religious. I certainly hope he isn’t but at this point in the morning I’m not going to do a whole lot of scouting around to find out. I barely slept last night and then got unto the office at 7:45am for what turned out to be no apparent reason. It was a toss up as to whether I should drink coffee or not and I did. Now all I want to do is dance/fight. [source]

Page Six reports rumours (that are denied) that Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry is figuring out a way of getting Sarah Palin to appear as a character on the show that is just like the character she played when she ran for VP.

Considering that Marc Cherry is a gay Republican, it’s no surprise that Sarah Palin’s housewife-ish, MILF thug covert greedy materialist in expertly tailored clothing persona may potentially have resonated well with him. After all, that’s the whole idea with gay Republicans; they look like lovely, friendly, home making normalists but underneath the wallpaper is a whole lot of freakish hypocrisy.

Sarah Palin’s main selling point at the moment is in line with that kind of tension. She created her own brand of engaging tension by so obviously being one thing and performing another. There’s something fascinating about her whether it be her ability to be a sex object and a VP candidate, her social policies that were immediately proven ineffectual when you look at her family, her aggressive ambition to be elite and her condemnation of the elite as she constructed this idea that she was just a regular hockey mom. That kind of tension is perfect for TV drama.

My ex boyfriend Michael had an old boss who was a gay Republican that lives on Park Avenue with his Democrat boyfriend who used to be a monk and man, was he an asshole. I would sometimes just stare at him when he wasn’t looking to see if I could see the boiling self hate inside him and it fascinated me the same way my third grade teacher’s covert smoking habit fascinated me when I was 7. The Gay Republican punched me in the stomach at a party once because he was drunk and he could finally access his rage at being alive and confined to the box his parents crafted for him in Texas. I would always just smile and be gracious and I knew he hated me. I think he hated me because it made him feel more concretely Republican which was comforting. I would wear velvet and nail polish and had spikey hair and that kind of thing is an affront to manicured gardens and Park Avenue apartments. That said, the more I think about it, the more everyone is screwed up no matter what. He adopted a kid from China and I could barely be bothered to babysit one for two hours.

So, in short, even if it is just a rumour, Sarah Palin playing herself on Desperate Housewives where she actually does her lines with a little depth and self deprecating humour is both a strong answer to Palin’s narcissistic tendencies and it’s a gay Republican’s dream come true. [source]

Well, look at that. Adrienne Bailon (I misspelled her name the other day primarily because I sort of didn’t think she deserved a spell check) faked the nude photo leak she cried embarrassment over earlier in the week because she wanted attention. What a surprise. An aspiring LA kid uses amateur porn to try and get ahead.

Bailon and JJ's Dirt Web site founder Jonathan Jaxson leaked the story that racy shots were stolen from her laptop "purely to get attention," a source tells Usmagazine.com.

And the thing is, from the looks of the photos, they weren’t even amateur. The releasing of nude photos to get press and to up your celebrity worth is so common and understood that some Disney kid seems to be staging amateur shots and putting them out there on purpose.

This is where we’re at. I mean, as a Disney Cheetah Girl she exhibited no organic personality nd evidently not enough individuality to stand out and warrant any specific attention and these photos don’t even make it look like she has a real sex life. It was as though she was attempting to undo the Disneyfication of her career by creating amateur porn but she never quite got away from the polished, emphatic, corporate product aesthetic. Jesus, I mean, the notoriety has to be based on something. Even Paris Hilton actually had sex and the camera work was shoddy. How tired. [source]

Sirius Radio announcer Michaelangelo Signorile talked with a Mormon woman who voted Yes on Prop 8 in California and the podcast of the discussion is one of the most rational and calm discussions you can hear where a religious person is confronted with the absurdity and flaws of their beliefs without the argument going off the rails. Signorile does a really good job. The link is below.

While you focus on the technicalities of this argument and the legal precedents and the double standards set by the Mormon Church, I am brought back to Christopher Hitchens’ book, “God IS Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” because I really think what is emphasized with this discussion is, issues aside, actually the great inability religious people who behave like this woman show in connecting with the world because they ultimately fear it.

The thing is, what stands in the way of her rational understanding of this issue is that she deals with her fear of death through religion. These are two separate issues. Any time she gets to a place in the discussion where he makes more sense, it's frightening for her because if that's true then what else is true too? That she won't go to heaven? It's very ... Read Moredifficult for religious people to go into that territory because their fear of death seeps in before rationality can take hold. Signorile did a really good job of talking her through it. He got closer than most people get. [source] <====Listen to the argument here.

The only way anyone could have possibly survived being as closely associated with George W Bush as Laura Bush is is by keeping incredibly silent and retaining a certain stoic disconnect and that is what she did which is why it’s not surprising that the New York Post is reporting that she’s currently allegedly lining up a multi million dollar deal to write a book about her experience in the White House and George W Bush is not.

Laura Bush has the same kind of appeal as Katie Holmes has. She’s silent and timid and Stepfordy and it keeps her in a pretty place. A place that is lovely and decorated and meaningless and also, in the case of Laura Bush, essentially complicit but then not really. I mean, she stayed with Bush throughout his campaign of havoc on democracy and the world but then, she wasn’t the one doing the work. She was just looking after the kids and decorating the Christmas Tree. That sort of makes her like Carmella Soprano and Katie Holmes mixed together. In a lot of ways, Bush was like Carmella Soprano as well though by virtue of his limited understanding of reality.

These silent, beautiful, accessory wives know a lot more than they are capable of dealing with. Laura Bush fails though because she was a Democrat and she sat back and remained complicit. Her role is important. Granted, the right thing to do would have been to divorce him and leave, and take up arms against him and she chose to remain a silent ex-democrat librarian so in that she is accountable.

Ultimately, though, once the presidency is over she can tell it like it is and that makes her valuable. Bush won’t because he can’t see it. Laura is in a tough spot too because if she lets on that she knew it was wrong she is an horrific accomplice and if she tells a nice, Stepford story her book will be just like Anderson Cooper’s autobiography; lacking the actual meat. I wonder if Laura will eventually become an alcoholic. At least it would be genuinely understandable. [source]

Two totally engaging things happened at the World Music Awards this weekend. One, Solange Knowles, whose music is really innocuous but who will eventually probably get somewhere by virtue of who her sister is – even if it’s only on American Idol as a judge in much the same way that Dannii Minogue never went anywhere for the same reasons, played at the World Music Awards and was put in a dressing room described as a broom closet. That’s totally expected because she’s the Cinderella of the music world right now except I’m unsure if there’s a happy ending. One thing that made me feel good despite the overall ass raping shit nature of everything right now is the fact that, at the World Music Awards, Sophie Ellis Bextor – with whom I talked about vomit porn and raising kids at a party this year in Vienna - apparently wore yellow to the WMAs and looked great. Isn’t that reassuring? I know I’ve considered not drugging myself to sleep tonight. The UK’s mirror published the story but didn’t include a photos of her. Still, thank you, Sophie Ellis Bextor. Thank you for looking great in yellow. [source] [source]

Mariah Carey must have done some research and found that conservative middle class housewives with young girls are instrumental in the sales of her records because she has come out and stated that she and her husband Nick Cannon had never actually had full sex until after they were married. They had fooled around but not actually had penetrative sex. And you know, when you’re a parent in America, irrespective of how unlikely her claim really is, that arbitrary distinction makes Mariah Carey more virtuous and also a more suitable role model for the girls who like and might want to buy her music. The fact that she’s forced her body to regress back to its 17 year old weight despite the fact that she’s pushing 40 is completely fine for kids to see and her marrying a man whom she can control with money and status is also a great example. Excellent, Mariah Carey. You are in line for the title of Zeitgeist. I mean, you won’t get it because Barack Obama, Angelina Jolie and I’ll take a guess at some burnt cheese sandwich found on the side of the road in Death Valley are way ahead of you but kudos to you for trying. [source]

Page Six reports that Parlaiment Funkadelic principle, George Clinton (and I just wrote the word “Fuck” instead of “Funk” but I changed it because it would have been unnecessarily distracting) has claimed in Details Magazine that he wants to have himself cloned and so therefore he is saving his DNA. He went on to explain that the pyramids were set up for DNA collection as well. "Cloning - we got generations of that [bleep]," Clinton said. "The pyramids? They was for cloning. That's why embalming lasts so long. Get the DNA and pull 'em back. So somebody been cloned already, but not me. Not yet." Yes, thank you. Excellently put George Clinton. How succinct and clear you are. How refreshing: a delusional, ego maniacal rock star. At least there’s something creative about his bullshit though. Unlike the Tequila woman who just whores her tired ass out for a bit of industrial-grade notoriety. [source]

Page Six has two classic style celeb stories, the one above that talks about George Clinton and one that explains that while reality TV star “Tila Tequila” may or may not be bisexual but she’s certainly self absorbed and pointless. Well, fucking slap me in the face with a herring! We know this because, according to the N Post, a previous winner of her pointless trash fest dating program, “A Shot At Love” said Tila did not call back. I’m amazed that Tila Tequila still gets press of any kind. I do not know what makes her more loathsome or more interesting than anyone else who goes on reality TV butt she still seems to get attention. To me, it is all one big blur of opiate soaked, passionless, braindead shit and it is for that reason that I don’t watch any reality TV. For some reason her audacity gets me and that’s how all those shows work. They make you hate them and then you can't look away. I mean, that is it - right? It's about loathing, self or otherwise? [source]

Angelina Jolie showed up to the DVD release of Kung Fu Panda and kept people interested by talking about her twins. “They're great. They're still so little, but they do [have their own personalities]," Jolie told reporters at the DVD launch for Kung Fu Panda and the premiere of its companion adventure story, Secrets of the Furious Five in Hollywood on Sunday and frankly, if it’s possible to tack more issues and topics into one sentence then I’d be interested to see it. [source]

Adrian Bailon, the probably previously barely known star of Disney’s “Cheetah Girls” is now apparently thoroughly embarrassed at the release of several personal photos that were in her laptop that was stolen recently from an airport in New York. She is preparing to sue whatever websites published them. I had never heard of her until now which is probably more or less the point and I would bet money the photos of her are of her with her boyfriend holding hands or they’re of her at some white trash barbecue not wearing full makeup. This is the same as what happened with the boring wet fish carcass, Amy Polumbo; “stolen photos of a generic showbiz wannabe” was boring, apologetically puritanical, inane and pointless then and it’s boring, apologetically puritanical, inane and pointless now. Polumbo got on the Today show after her facebook was allegedly hacked into but where is she now? Exactly. Apparently, the lesson wasn’t learnt by Bailon. No doubt she’ll realize this ploy for attention will be futile when Disney fires her and in a year she finds herself making snuff films in the hills of LA with the Vampires left out of the upcoming remake of Bret Easton Ellis’ “The Informers” God, I’m disappointed about that. The Informers is one of my favourite books and the fact that they're leaving out all the vampire bits is fucking stupid. [source]

Aspiring model, musician, illuminati and probably closeted homosexual Machiavellian celebrity dater Justin Gaston just signed a deal to model for Cavalli which means the time he’s spent “dating” 15 year old tooth centric tween product Miley Cyrus has really started to pay off. Let’s also remember that she is actually still 15 and will remain so until November 23. He is not 15. He is 19. Apparently. He’ll now be appearing in ads with Kate Moss. It’s an interesting choice when you consider that fashion models are, if they’re already famous, useful for bringing something of their own character to the brand they’re wearing. In this case it would seem to be opportunistic narcissist pederast – something I guess Cavalli feels it’s missing. [source]

Page Six reports that Lynn Spears’ book "Through the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World," isn’t really selling that well which is a surprise really. I mean, seeing as the original idea for her book was “Pop Culture Mom” and was meant to be parenting advice from a woman who seemed to have kept it together as the mother of two girls who operate in Hollywood. Because she didn’t really keep it together as a mother, did she? She didn’t quite keep anything together at all.

So, seeing as they just made a few edits, changed the title, waited a year and then released the book anyway, it’s not entirely surprising that only 19,000 people across the country are interested in her insight. I would warrant a guess that there are about that many people left who still check in to see what President George W Bush has to say at the moment so maybe it’s the same crowd.

[source]

The New York Post reports that Nicole Kidman says she felt like a silent partner in her marriage to Tom Cruise – I guess, primarily because she probably was that in a legal sense. She was interviewed in Glamour Magazine and she said the following:

I felt I became a star only by association. I didn't think [my early movies] were very good, which is why I would always cower in the background," the flame-haired Academy Award winner tells Glamour. "I thought, I don't deserve to be here. We would go to the Oscars, and I would think, I'm here to support him. I felt it was my job to put on a beautiful dress and to be seen and not heard."

That was always the idea. That’s how Cruise Corp works. You provide the beard, he provides the step up. What’s to figure out? As far as feeling as though it was her job to put on a beautiful dress and to be seen and not heard – judging by the behaviour of Katie Holmes that IS the job of the wife of Tom Cruise. It’s like the job of an aristocrat in the 18th Century. You just produce an heir and then you swan about in expensive clothes and celebrate social victories and conquests and plot social downfalls and hide behind fans. I mean, that’s the point.

Mind you, Nicole Kidman got in and out and it seemed to work pretty well for her because during that period of time, Tom Cruise was a lot more open to the kinds of things he’d allow his wife/partner to do. Katie Holmes has scored a contract during the time period where Tom Cruise’s maniacal behaviour is at its worst so she only gets to do plays and the odd innocuous female comedy. That’s the irony of it all; Katie Holmes can’t possibly really benefit from this marriage until after it’s over.

In a way, Nicole Kidman’s marriage to Tom Cruise is the marriage that has kept on giving though because she knows the truth about what the deal is with him and now, every time she brings out a new film she can trot out new juicy little tidbits about the inner workings of Tom Cruise’s mind.

[source]

Just because not everything can work properly, despite Democrats taking the House, the Senate and the Presidency, Proposition 8 went through in California meaning that gay marriage has actually been banned there. A large portion of campaign finances on the Pro-Prop 8 side came indirectly from the Mormon Church – even though they’re based in Utah and the legislation doesn’t technically affect them at all, except for their unwavering panic about the sanctity of marriage while they engage in polygamy of course. Polygamy, yes, and Owen Hawk told me that incest is really common among Mormon families – not surprisingly. Here’s the money quote:

"We hope that everyone would treat [each other] that way (with civility) no matter which side of this issue they were on," said Elder L. Whitney Clayton, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Presidency of the Seventy.

What a shining example of the delusion of organized religion. After all, civility has always been the watchword in a campaign designed entirely to prevent people in another state from attaining civil rights. Now that sections of the Californian population have been marginalized through legislation, it’s apparently time to start being civil and nice. It’s always reasonable to be calm and nice no matter what. [source]

Barack Obama really is hard to lampoon in any significant way and after 8 years of easy to write quirky press about the inanity of George W Bush, it’ll be interesting to see how the media adapts. Particularly when it comes to people like Keith Olberman who have so much personal rage aimed at the Bush Administration that without that angry focal point, it seems like they might just end up having a complete breakdown because the childhood angst has nowhere to go.

That’s why it’s great that the New York Post has run a piece about how Manhattan dermatologist Dr. Judith Hellman, sent out a press release explaining the nature of the mole on Barack Obama’s nose and how she could help to remove it. Isn’t that great? Barack Obama has a mole on his nose, oh, sorry – it’s actually a melanocytic nevus - and if you have one too you know where to go to pay to have it removed.

Because now that he’s the first black president, he’s also essentially become a franchise by default. His likeness and anything about him can be and probably will be used to sell anything. That’s the way this is resonating. I mean, as well as well as him being the great beacon of light. I was going to say the great white hope and then I was going to say the great black hope but nothing works. There’s very little humour surrounding him because he’s not actually stupid or eccentric. Unless his lack of stupidity and eccentricity is what gets parodied. And his mole. [source]

The New York Times has this lovely little feature that allows you to submit a word that encapsulates how you feel about the election. It's here. I thought about it and put in the word "alien" because it's weird being so close to the epicenter of this historic moment, knowing that other people are going to vote because they can but not being able to. It's like I have no role in it even though I know it is a defining moment of our time and I will remember this time for the rest of my life.

It's fascinating actually because you can choose to only see words that McCain supporters have submitted and they are invariably words like "resigned", "angry" or "apprehensive". The Obama supporters submit words like "hopeful", "patriotic" and "proud".

Astonishing. [source]

The other story that caught me was Angelina Jolie saying that no matter who she is, she will always just be a punk kid with tattoos.

Angelina Jolie’s power, no matter what she does, is linked to the balance between being classically beautiful on a global scale, her ability to be seen as a thinking activist feminine icon and mother and the fact that under that classic beauty and admirable talent and ability there’s a wild jaguar type energy that can’t be controlled. She exploits that in the action movies she appears in. It makes her a dominatrix of sorts and I would assume her primary fan base are the same men who watch Family Guy.

If she’s trying to claim that she’s still a punk kid with tattoos then it’s because she must feel she’s seen too much as a brooding, hyper glamorous mother and movie star which places her too close to someone annoying and washed out like Meg Ryan. She needs to keep up that animal instinct thing.

Plenty of stars do that. Eve, the rapper, did it. She was totally street centric and then she went upscale glam. You have to adapt. Madonna taught us that. [source]

Alright, two stories that stuck out to me today – underneath the election coverage frenzy that I have been reading all over the place – are that Justin Long, the guy who is meant to be the personification of a Mac computer and Tila Tequila who is meant to be bisexual on the show “A Shot At Love” were seen kissing and potentially “straddling” at a party. Both represent different extremes in culture.

Justin Long, in the Mac ads, is meant to be a college or graduate student who is essentially relatable, hip, easy-going, cute and rational. I would also take a pretty comfortable guess that his film work makes no real use of his acting ability and that he plays the same thing in the comedies he has appeared in as he does on the Mac ads. Even though he is performing, across the board it seemed like he wasn’t actually performing because the characters never change that much and so as a result he seemed more genuine. I suspect this is why gawker took delight in reporting his apparent firing several years ago. The writers there like to attack people who represent something similar to what they think they are. Namely, rational, cute, intelligent, urban, hip, prolific and connect people. Justin Long always screamed Williamsburg to me as well. Gawker shits on Williamsburg but the writers either wish they lived there or do.

Tila Tequila, aka Thien Thanh Thi Nguyen is an entirely contrived character. Nothing about her public persona says anything about who she is – it’s even widely speculated that she isn’t bisexual. Her “work” is constructed entirely on the basis of market research and producer notes. She’s less a human and more a cheap, sex based product.

The fact that they’ve hooked up or are together or whatever the hell it is like the bringing together of two completely opposing personas. This is like if Marilyn Manson married Mary Hart. Sort of. I mean, as far as polarities go. [source]

Here is the full recording of the prank call made to Governor Sarah Palin by two comedians in Canada, one who posed as French President Nicholas Sarkozy.

Aside from the fact that the comedians are pretty gutsy, what’s amazing about this is the way it’s clear Sarah Palin is just flailing her way through the interview and pretending to know what the hell she’s talking about. Best line ever is:

“We have such great respect for you, John…McCain and I…we LOVE you!”

To give her the benefit of the doubt, let’s assume she’s stammering out the words slowly on purpose so that the same ill-equipped press agent who actually put Governor Palin through to a prank call on radio could quickly get her some cue cards so that she actually had some idea of who the hell she was talking to. Nothing is really working terribly well for the Republican ticket at the moment. Not Sarah Palin's ass, not Cindy McCain's flawless ability to appear flawless despite probably being addicted to uppers, not John McCain's ability to almost raise his arms. All of it isn't quite comming to fruition.

Barack Obama’s 86 year old grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, sadly passed away after a battle with cancer, in Hawaii shortly before midnight last night; two days before he is to be elected president. Ok, so basically, right now Barack Obama is processing that fact that his grandmother is dead and that tomorrow he alone will officially embody the transcendence of America’s great shame: racism, the end to corrupt Republican dominance in Washington.

The Obama family released a statement that says:

"She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility," their statement said.
"She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances. She was proud of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and left this world with the knowledge that her impact on all of us was meaningful and enduring. Our debt to her is beyond measure."

Astonishing. What an astonishing time for Barack Obama. [source]

John McCain’s appearance on Saturday Night Live at the weekend achieved the second highest ratings in ten years for SNL. Part of the reason for that was the massive amount of self deprecation that came from John McCain and I have no idea why on earth he did that. Sarah Palin went on and didn’t really do much more than stand there while everyone else did everything around her. Barack Obama also went on and didn’t depart too much from his character as a politician; again, they just danced around him and the audience marveled at his cultural flexibility.

John McCain made jokes about how old he was, how repetitive the phrase “Maverick” is, and talked about several bad ideas he has. Clearly, it’s satire but next to Obama’s angle which is the enlightened, scholarly, angelic pillar of light he looked like a dancing barrel accompanied by a kazoo and as far as acting presidential it just doesn’t work.

Cindy McCain, however, looked exactly as she always does – primarily because she has paid a lot of money to make sure she will always look the same no matter what happens to her and as a result the she probably has a gay following. Cindy McCain is a fascinating woman and all the pieces fit perfectly to make her a rival to Liza Minnelli. She displayed those golden necklaces and actually that was a genuinely hilarious skit.

To be fair, McCain was a good sport for doing the material he did but who the hell cares if he is? He’s still 10 points behind in the polls and no one cares how politicians fair on SNL when it comes to the voting booth. I mean, people may have no other idea of who he is because they don’t pay attention but they will probably not be swayed by SNL. It doesn’t sound like it makes sense but it really is the way it is here. People are extremely complex.

This election is Obama’s. Everything screams Obama. [source]