The New York Post is reporting that Ashlee Simpson’s father and, let’s face it, media pimp Joe Simpson is trying to pimp out pictures of the Simpson Wentz baby that Pete Wentz keeps insisting doesn’t exist and he’s asking for a million bucks from the gossip magazines.

The gossip mags have responded by saying that they don’t really think she’s worth that and maybe they’d offer 60,000 instead.

Wow, nice to know how much you’re worth.

Meanwhile, what an intricate tissue of lies these Simpson and Wentz people weave. Firstly, they’re not getting married, then they are. Then there’s no baby and then suddenly the father wants money for the first look at the baby. I mean, look, I’m almost questioning whether I should believe anything the old ex-Reverend Joe Simpson says. I’m just considering it for a second. I’m no making a decision either way yet, it’s ok.

I’m trying to remember what it was exactly that was so fascinating about Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson being together. I mean, Pete Wentz is totally stunning etc so that’s fine but she’s this generic, LA ditz product. She’s been completely defined by not being Jessica Simpson and not being a fashion accessory to Pete Wentz’s particular brand of watered down emo rocker aesethetic.

Who is the real Ashlee Simpson and what makes her tick? I …actually no, I can’t even fake an interesting in that.

I like people who pretend to have careers in music and acting but who actually make money by selling pictures of themselves and their offspring. Like J Lo, Nick Lachey and that Ritchie fetus. I’m not even going to type her full name. I hope she is watching. She'll see. She'll see and she'll know and she'll say, 'Why, he wouldn't ever enable a pointless celebrity like me by typing my name.... "

Ah hem.

So, in short, Ashlee Simpson is pregnant and her father is trying to sell the rights to the pics but no one is biting because no on cares about her. [source]

Here’s Madonna’s hilarious new video which she made as part of a viral marketing campaign based on online, youtube style videos to promote her new album. Look at her! She’s vacuuming! Well, I never expected to see that. Look at the way she uses the vacuum cleaner. It looks totally natural! It’s like she’s used one before. I’ve used a vacuum cleaner before too! Oh my GOD, she’s just like me!

I mean, it’s funny and all but that’s primarily because she is completely gorgonesque every other second of the day that when she says one thing that is even remotely lighthearted, everyone dies of a hilarious based coronary.

It seems like at this point, Madonna can’t be completely stoic and unbreakable because she’s really not capable of as much edginess by herself as she once was. Now she needs an army of people telling her where to be and what she should do and who she should work with to stay relevant.

That’s why she can’t be without irony. With irony…maybe the latest album was actually a lot less serious than she meant it- yeah, that’s it, it was meant to be kind of hilarious and the launching point for a million youtube satires…


Note the slivers of English accent in her speech. SO good. She really may as well be English. That's it, she is English. I don't even care. She is whatever she tells me she is. I'm an idiot.

Rush and Molloy are reporting that while Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise are currently living apart, it’s entirely due to work and renovations on their home in LA. And when I say “home” I mean the foreign state they’re currently constructing so Tom Cruise really can be in a world of his own in every way and be able to reconstruct reality in a way where everything he does is suddenly completely normal. There will be no autonomous media in his state.

Meanwhile, the rumour was addressed by Rush and Molloy because In Touch reported in a column that Katie is finally trying to break free from Tom Cruise’s manic delusional controlling high impact non-sexually motivated clutches.

Everyone is afraid of Tom Cruise. Why bother towing the line? I’m sort of amazed that Rush and Molloy did that. Of course Katie is thankful to be out of there. The façade has to end sometime – it’s completely unfeasible that she keep up this ridiculous farce of a marriage.

Actually, you know what? I think maybe she’s fine with the insanity. I think she knows that without him she’d be just another c-list actress who wouldn’t get any work. She sees James van der Beek’s massive ego, total lack of charisma and dwindling list of credits and she panics so she runs back under Tom’s wings. The glittery, feathered wings he picked up at House of Fetish in Sydney for a steal that one year for the Sleaze Ball.

So, there’s that fear coupled with the knowledge that Tom has probably implanted a bomb in Suri Cruise’s stomach and Katie knows that if she ever leaves he’ll just head straight for the bookshelf, grab the bronze bust of LRH, pull it forward so that the bookshelf opens up to reveal a secret passage, he’ll march down the steep spiral staircase that is made of stone and that contains windows all the way down that look into small holding cells in which he keeps all his male lovers, he’ll go through several iron doors, walk to the control panel, locate the huge red button that has a plastic box over it with a label (made with one of those label makers like you find in an office – just like that one over there on the desk) that says “ DO NOT PRESS THIS BUTTON and he’ll press launch. Suddenly, no matter where Suri is she will start crying and it will get more and more maniacal until her stomach explodes. And when she explodes the tape recorder inside her will be blown up in the air and will land on the ground a few feet away, giving off smoke and constantly saying the phrase “ Don’t worry daddy…I won’t tell…Don’t worry Daddy, I won't tell….”

Nothing can come between Tom Cruise and his ultimate goal of the mask of normality.
[source]

Gawker posted this and it's so amazing. This is a road trip from Los Angeles to New York filmed on a time lapse camera so it fits into four minutes. It was filmed by Michel and Oliver Gondry for the French pop star Laquer. I'm delighted.

Gatecrasher reports that David Hasselhoff tried to pick up a woman after a filming of “America’s Got Talent’” by signing a headshot of his, putting his number on it and sending his assistant to give it to her.

The woman apparently was seen later laughing about it at the bar.

What the hell was wrong with that woman? Didn’t she know who she was dealing with? I’m astonished. Oh, there’s an obvious explanation: she was either a lesbian or a rape victim.

Also, there’s all this noise outside on Fifth Avenue and I’m not sure but it could very easily be the DJ AM remix of Mozart’s Ave Maria which I’m assuming will be the theme song to the Pope’s visit. I’m assuming that because after all the paederast unpleasantness the Catholic Church has really got to kick it up a notch to keep the kids interested in its archaic, superstitious freakishness.

I read in the New York Post this morning that the Pope is going to be parading down 5th Avenue in the Pope Mobile sometimes this week so I’m really thrilled. I hope that he’s wearing those ridiculous red Prada patent leather loafers. They’re dreamy. Particularly when you couple them with to his relentlessly sinister, freakish eyes that seem to scream “ I really was a member of the Hitler Youth”. Because, let’s face it, he was. Why can't Peter O'Toole be the actual Pope? I find him more comforting than Benedict.

So, I’ll be watching and waiting. I really hope his parade this week doesn’t get in the way of me getting Pinkberry if so choose I.

In short, David Hasselhoff is a smooth operator and it’s unfortunate that his latest target was clearly a rape victim or lesbian or both. Also, the Pope is due outside my office any day now and so I’m almost unable to think properly in anticipation. [source]

Despite Pete Wentz arguing that reports of Ashlee Simpson’s pregnancy are just part of a witch hunt for celebrities to be pregnant, People Magazine is insisting it’s true. Ashlee Simpson went on TRL and was asked directly if she was pregnant and she replied:

“I just think it's an inappropriate question to ask any woman. For me, that's something that I didn't ever want to respond to, because I think it's an inappropriate question."

Yeah, she’s totally right about that first section. You should never ask a celebrity or any woman if they’re pregnant. No one should. It’s not something that would reasonably be of interest. I can’t even be sarcastic about this. When is she living? 1854?

But fundamentally though, who the hell thinks that an answer like that conceals anything? Haven’t we learned anything from the hoards of idiot gay men and women who answer the “Are you Gay?” question in exactly the same way? Jesus, if you want people to think you’re not pregnant or not gay, when someone says “ Are you …?”

Just FREAKING SAY NO!

Then later on when a journalist confronts you on it, say “ I didn’t want to freaking tell you I was …”

What’s so complex about that?

God Ashlee Simpson is an idiot. Pete Wentz should really be talking to Nick Lachey at this point about how to deal with idiocy on such an inhuman level. [source]

Universal Records have stated a firm ultimatum to Amy Winehouse. They’ve said that unless she gets clean, she will not be releasing any more albums through them.

The difficult part is, without all that, she probably can’t make art.

So, in conclusion, I think it’s safe to say that aside from more footage of her screaming for Blake, her smoking crack out of a broken light bulb and her face falling off – that’s the last we’ll hear from her.

Gosh, is it lunch time? [source]

The New York Post reports that burlesque artist Dita von Teese has a foot fetish and the report comes just in time for the release of a new book about feet by hard cover coffee table porn publishers, Taschen called “Glamour from the Ground Up”.

I’m sorry but Dita von Teese is to burlesque what Pete Wentz is to Emo. She’s managed to take it mainstream by dressing properly, never doing anything outrageous off-stage and never saying anything. There’s hardly a continuum between what she does artistically and what she gets paid. She’s getting 20-30,000 dollars for an appearance and her work is about as edgy as a VH1 special.

But then, when you’re a woman who is always marketing yourself as uber glamourous, you aren’t blond with a tan and you live in LA, you never show unattractive signs of emotional complexity that are actually confronting and you survive something like a divorce or the death of a loved one you immediately become a gay icon.

And I’m talking about the type of gay icon championed by mindless populist, starfuckers like Perez Hilton. The amount of times Perez has published photos of Dita von Teese with the caption “’FLAWLESS” scrawled over the top of her head are too numerous for me to …well, remember really and frankly I just don’t really think she’s worth the attention.

Maybe I’m over burlesque after seeing it relentlessly in New York for years. But then, Perez does the same thing with the even more pointless Miss J Alexander on America’s Next Top Model. Completely run of the mill vogueing queen who could be anyone in that scene but who inflates their work beyond recognition.

The appeal of Dita von Teese is just the same as the gay diva appeal of Hillary Clinton. Gay men who shun individualism tend to gravitate towards hectic, alpha women.

So, with Miss von Teese, she’s got a foot fetish all of a sudden because she’s just getting paid. There are some real, gritty innovators in the world of burlesque but they’re not her. [source]

Page Six is reporting that Samantha Ronson has essentially moved in with Lindsay Lohan to attempt to keep her clean and away from drugs.

Of course, while it seems like a lovely gesture, it’s really not as good and pure a scenario as it seems.

The reason that Lindsay Lohan is such a freaking addict – and we’re talking about alcohol, drugs, sex, publicity, drama whatever – is because she has a gaping hole inside her that probably has no limit. She’s filled with a crippling void.

So, while Ronson is keeping her off drugs, maybe, she’s certainly not keeping her off carpet munching. I’m pretty certain that’s the case. There’s a massive amount of lesbianic activity going on in the Lohan LA home and it’s the only thing separating Lohan from eyeballing rat poison to escape reality.

I recently wrote this feature profile about a fisting porn star who is grossly grossly unhappy and he has two obsessions; fisting and music. The reason behind it is because those are the only two things that help him effectively escape his life.

Ronson’s box is Lohan’s newest drug. I guess that’s my central point here. [source]

Heather Mills is taking a leaf out of the Ann Coulter book for getting publicity by acting like a freaking insane, narcissistic child at the Miss USA pageant and delaying the signing of the contract because she wanted to be paid more money.

TMZ reports that she insisted people would be tuning in to see her and so if the ceremony were broadcast multiple times, she should be paid more money. After being essentially ignored by the organisers, she went and tried to work a little of her sexualised stump charm on Donald Trump himself to get her way and whether or not she did specifically because of that is really of secondary importance to the fact that the combination of Heather Mills flirting aggressively with Donald Trump is far too maddeningly erotic to not want to think about incessantly. For optimum digestive health.

The thing is, even though she’s a gold digging, weird assed, irrational, attention seeking ass, she’s basically right. She’s aggressively hated on an international scale because she divorced a Beatle and went for money she was owed as a wife of a multimillionaire. She fought aggressively to get what she felt she was owed and seeing as Paul McCartney was never seen reacting on any level in the press, she looked like a really fucked up gold digger. Which she more or less is but I’m taking a different look at this.

The thing is, fame is fame. And fame is a marketing tool. Donald Trump knows that in the same way Rosie O’Donnell and Ann Coulter and even dumb ass old Michael Lucas does. It’s just an equation.

So, Heather Mills was booed at the pageant. Big deal. The pageant itself went on as scheduled and probably the same tired assed, generic, self loathing bimbo freak who has starved herself in every way all her life to try and fit into the narrow character profile of the type of person who can be a beauty pageant winner probably won again and the product will go on log after Mills’ ephemeral impact has encouraged people to write about the pageant and look at youtube clips of it and laugh at her being dehumanized. Like I am doing right now. Thus making the ratings go up. Thus justifying her pay rise.

She probably did boost ratings. Plus, doesn’t a crap, culturally outdated freak show like the Miss USA contest need a little bit of a personality injection anyway.

Still, it astonishes me just how much Heather Mills has managed to muster up so much hate. I mean, she’s on par with terrorism and salmonella almost. She just needs to stop lashing out like a spoilt brat. She handles everything badly. She has no grace. That’s her main issue. [source]

TMZ reports that it’s that time of year again when the Mormon Church gets to work producing its calendar of hot, shirtless Mormon missionary boys who have returned from their years of wandering in the proverbial desert, subsisting on a diet of breakfast cereal and immature, repression based male aggression and I couldn’t be happier. The two pics below are from the actual calendar. They're both named Matthew.

And the thing is, it’s not really because the boys are shirtless – because they all look like generic Chelsea queen clones and plastic, unreal clones don’t do much for me – that’s why I don’t live in LA – well, one of the 50 reasons, anyway.

No, the reason the Mormons Exposed Calendar is such a treasured cultural item is because of how completely freaking warped it is.

The website attempts to explain what it’s about by saying:

The fact that twelve young returned missionaries are posing shirtless will certainly raise eyebrows, but may also help to sort out some common misconceptions about Mormons. The shock value of what these traditionally conservative young men have helped to create has the power to build a dialogue that encourages people across every belief system and walk of life to defy stereotypes, step out of judgment and embrace tolerance.

OR – and I’m just going to throw this out there as a possible ALTERNATE explanation – it gives the guy who orchestrated this entire thing a way of channeling his latent homosexuality into a form that won’t eventually cause him to kill someone out of eventual sexual frustration while maintaining some form of freakish allegiance to the Church that will not accept him.

Do I really need to point out that regardless of any “dialogue” that may be “encouraged” by the calendar – the basic completely fucking LUDICROUS basis for Mormonism remains and their flat out basic emotional torture of gay people also remains a constant and unchanging part of their doctrine.

And that’s just a part of the joy of Mormonism!

Why there’s a whole shitload of other gems to marvel at when you take a look at the inane cult of Joseph Smith! Like the magic underwear for instance, or the fact that Joseph Smith was a con man, that, unlike Mormon doctrine professes: DNA testing has proven that it’s impossible for Native Americans to be a lost tribe of Israel.

But the fun doesn’t stop there, in fact even though my list will, it probably never stops because not only is it a religion, it’s an AMERICAN religion so it’s equal parts showbiz and equal parts a distinct departure from rational thought! Just like Scientology! For instance, Mormons, for the longest time, professed that black people are pre-disposed to a life of slavery both in heaven and on earth simply because they are black and can we all agree that polygamy is nothing more than the result of a sexually oppressive male social structure? I’m happy to. Burkas, female circumcision, polygamy – it doesn’t matter the religion, it’s all just misogyny.

Oh cool! But they have this freaking hot ass calendar of missionary boys with their shirts off! Oh, forget all that! Let’s start a dialogue! That’ll change a religious doctrine whose only power is in the fact that it must remain unchanging or it isn’t a universal truth to the Mormons.

But then, maybe they can change a few things here and there when it suits them. I mean, the Catholic Church does when it sees fit. Which reminds me; isn’t there a calendar of hot Roman priests? At least they take off their underwear at some point during the day even if they don’t do it on camera. [source] [source] [source]

The New York Post is reporting that a sex tape of Marilyn Monroe that is still classified by the FBI was just sold for 1.5 million dollars to a New York businessman who has decided to keep it in a vault and never let anyone see it. The man said he was afraid that Monroe would end up like Paris Hilton if the tape got out.

Firstly, How do you get to buy a still classified FBI file? How does that work?

Secondly, how could a tape that is probably really shaky and black and white and runs at an oddly faster speed than natural movement involving a woman who has been dead for years possibly turn her into Paris Hilton, a pop cultural entity who exists entirely because she’s not dead. There’s little more TO Paris Hilton than the fact that she’s alive and stands there.

The fact that she’s famous has very little to do with her actual personality and ability at this point.

Still, maybe there would be some truth to the idea that a sex tape involving Marilyn Monroe would reduce her to masturbation fodder if the film came out. After all, what’s hotter than jacking off to images of a dead woman? Preferably shots of the corpse but failing that, just footage. Anna Nicole Smith is probably getting more work now in the minds of heterosexual teenaged boys than she ever did in life.

Plus, I refuse to believe that the man who bought the film won’t be showing it to his friends privately. I refuse to believe that. He will absolutely be having people over to show them the tape and he’ll probably even make a night of it with guacamole and chips and some Coronas as well. Coronas with lime wedges because the name of the night will be the Marilyn Monroe Sex Tape Mexican Food potluck party. Invitations will say, “Please come to my party. We will be watching the Marilyn Monroe sex tape and will be eating delicious Mexican food. As it is a potluck, please bring a dish of your own but make sure it’s Mexican! Also, please RSVP asap as space is limited.”

And the invite will be printed on one of those cards that come in a pack of 20 and have a tear off bit at the end that you have to fill out and tick a box that says “ I can come” or “Sorry, I can’t make it”.

Someone will be opening the mail and will be writing a list of people who can make it and can’t.

Still, I'm glad that this has happened in a way because it means that the Yasser Arafat sex tape I've been longing for since I was 7 could very will still exist. Who knows what is hidden where these days...

[source]

For whatever reason, Katie Couric’s role as the news anchor at CBS has failed to boost its ratings to a point where she was actually worth the 15 million dollars a year she was being paid.

So, the word is, she’s on her way out. Maybe she’ll take Larry King’s job when he leaves in 2010, maybe she won’t. Everyone’s quotes and points of view are all over the place trying to protect themselves.

So, anyway – rumoured to be taking her role at CBS now is good old Stunning Arms Anderson Cooper and what a charming thought that would be. While he’s done a pretty swank job at moderating the presidential debates, Anderson’s career as a primary anchor of his own show at CNN has been at least in part a direct result of hype, his grey hair, blue eyes and sparkling smile not to mention the relentless coverage of his refusal to come out of the closet; ie. Nothing to do with his ability to actually be a seasoned journalist anchor. He’s not BAD but he certainly seems to get by and excel on a lot of hype. Plus, he’s always so insistent that he’s a hard hitting journalist. There’s an urgent, forced seriousness in his voice and a really painted look of concern on his face.

Am I the only one who misses his column in Details? It was always a gamble as to which photo of his they would put up; the smiling one or the serious one. When he wrote about his brother's suicide they used the serious one. It's always a joy when something in the news involving Anderson Cooper pops up because I get to talk about why he's famous, how cute he is, how average his work is and how I'd go on a date with him anyway - if only he knew I existed. God, I'm predictable.

Still, as far as a marketing machine goes, putting Anderson Cooper on network television will only broaden his fan base and cement his role as a dashingly handsome, gym built beauty. And when you’re faced with one of them on the TV screen during the prime time news hours each night, who the hell cares what his resume really looks like. [source]

Heath Ledger is at the center of the marketing campaign for Batman, the Dark Knight in which he played the Joker and it’s not surprising at all.

Posters for the film, which premieres in June, feature Ledger looking through a frosted glass window with the words “Why So Serious?” scrawled on the wall in blood behind him and the authenticity of the creepiness of the whole thing is something a legion of PR directors couldn’t have worked to establish. For one thing, you can’t even tell it’s actually him which means you have to make the link yourself and then it all downloads instantly. It’s really quite effective use of his death for marketing purposes.

Even though the performance was always going to be pretty outstanding because Heath Ledger was finally quite a remarkable actor, it seems unlikely that it really would have ended up being, as Michael Caine was quoted as saying about him, “the most murderous psychopath you've ever seen on the screen."

Ledger talked about how the intensity of playing a murderous sociopath on screen was causing him anxiety and his emotional state at the time of his overdose was quickly traced back to his drug use, recent divorce, general sensitivity and the intensity of the role he was playing. Warner Brothers shrewdly did nothing to hype the links between his death and the performance they’d be selling later in the year by simply placing a black ribbon image on the website for The Dark Knight.

See, check out how much creepier it is to watch Heath Ledger in this promo. I mean, clearly it's impossible to compare the experience but you do fid yourself examining every nuance of his performance because his disturbed nature is just that bit more real.

Now, they basically just have to sit back and let the actual horror do the work for the filmed horror. People are going to flock to this film because of this. Much more than ever would have before. [source]

The New York Post is reporting that casting calls for Paris Hilton’s new fascinatingly vital and important reality show “Paris Hilton is my BFF” were held and everyone who turned up was ass you’d expect.

"It looked like Barbie threw up in there," said our spy. "All the girls looked like versions of Donatella Versace. They all had bleached blond hair, too-dark tans and were wearing tight, shiny dresses. All the guys that were there were gay. The whole thing was so bizarre."

And you know, I can so completely imagine the type of skanks that turned up to that crap. It would have been a sea of the most high maintenance tuna America has to offer.

Oh GOD, just the thought of trying to do this cultural travesty justice by tearing it apart adequately is exhausting and not just because I didn’t get home until 5 am this morning.

The fact that Paris Hilton is still actually getting work after Larry King and the crippling failure of “the Hottie and the Nottie” baffles me. Now I know why. There really is a core contingent of delusional, status crazy idiots who subscribe to her.

They have to be stupid. No thinking person buys into it. Only stupid retail queens and high school girls would be buying into this crap. It’s interesting the correlations between the teenaged girl demographic and the bottom of the barrel gay demographic. They both like the same basic things and they both balance a sense of insanely insecure delusional status crazy entitlement with a fundamental inability to see past the end of their noses.

I can absolutely see the type of gay man that would go and line up to become Paris Hilton’s best friend. They’re the 18 year old high maintenance bitch kid who wears huge Dior sunglasses with the brand as visible as possible, they have a planet of attitude and they talk about how, at work, in the shop, when they want something they get it “ like THAT” . Plus, they all have fat insecure straight fag hags who are borderline Goths and they’re all looking for that person to settle down with forever. They’ve had their fill of relationships at 17 and now, at 18 were looking long term.

See, I’m already so damn tired.

Fuck you Paris God Damned Hilton. Stop doing anything. I just need her to age 10 years right now so she’ll stop. God, she’s such a fucking ruiner. I’m totally watching that show. No doubt about it. [source]

My my, Neil Patrick Harris certainly is sounding rather smug and satisfied with himself and his chronically important offering to culture, the sit com “ How I Met Your Mother…” In reference to Britney Spears appearing on the show he was quoted as saying:

“I’m in the minority that our show does not need stunt casting in order to succeed,” Harris, 34, tells the Associated Press. “I worry that if they start Will and Grace-ing us too much, that the show will suffer. And we’re all really proud of the content of the show.”

And this is despite the fact that Spears attracted an extra 1 million viewers to the show when she appeared on it.

To be fair, I think in theory Doogie Howser is right. It was stunt casting and the reaction to her role and her in general was steeped in ludicrous hysteria. She wasn’t so bad but she wasn’t that great. Most people did tune in to see if she would eat someone’s hair and role around on the floor in her own feces (when the show was pre-recorded so she was never going to do anything that weird besides tiny little nuanced bad line delivery because they would have edited that out).

Having said that, where on earth did the kid doctor get this idea that his innocuous, formulaic half hour mind numbing cliché fest was something that stood by itself when it came to the quality of the material? Hi, it’s formula and it’s controlled by ratings obsessed producers. How much wiggle room does he really have in actually “creating” for the role he plays? Oh, plenty…as long as you hold this can of Pepsi and change your expression because the flyover states don’t quite understand that level of irony. Britney may not be the answer to anything but she sure as hell didn’t damage the product and it’s not like he’d turn down those rating points to be able to inject a bit more depth.

Jesus, it’s great when actors think they can do so much more than they are really capable of. Just say the lines, cash the check and do legit theatre in Central Park in the summer to balance it out kid. That’s all anyone’s asking of you. [source]

Former South African president, Nelson Mandela is turning ninety this year and to mark the occasion former Queen band member Brian May is throwing him a massive concert party like the one thrown for Princess Diana, except he’s clearly not dead. The great part about it is that confirmed to perform is Eminem.

Everyone’s caught up in the fact that Eminem has been in trouble for making for writing racist and misogynist lyrics not to mention the pervading sense of violence that ran through a lot of his early work but you know, that aside, I think this is one of the greatest completely random celebrity collaborations since Miss Piggy worked with Joan Rivers…or, for that matter, anyone.

The first thing that came to mind for me really though, in my emotionless, cynical reading of all things celebrity, was in line with the way Senator Hillary Clinton led her campaign to find the official song for her campaign. Things like that are just thinly veiled market research techniques and allow the marketing analysts to ascertain who their subject is appealing to by dissecting the cultural appeal of the song. It's really just like getting Ozzie Osbourne to rattle off a performance of "Paranoid" for the Queen's Jubilee Concert. Let's not pretend for a second that happened for any other reason than to boost the Royal family's popularity.

So, my question here is, what is Mandela marketing? What’s his motivation? What’s he getting out of this? This celebrity pairing is too random for no one to be hard core profiting.

Actually, I never really thought Eminem was as bad and unironic as everyone made him out to be. My editor at the Village Voice hated him with a passion and went on Fox to challenge him to a fight after he threatened Moby but that was good for ratings.

Plus, I hear Eminem is fat now. Fatter than hell. [source]

Minutes after Beyonce and Jay-Z got sealed their functional, weird, Freudian showbiz union - which should last until Beyonce starts to appear wearing dark sunglasses with bandaids underneath them in the middle of the night and she finally discovered Buddhism, Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson have announced they’re getting married.

They said the following to the Friendsandenemies blog:

"We know there has been a lot of speculation recently about Pete and I," she wrote with Wentz in a joint statement, posted late Wednesday on FriendsorEnemies.com. "Yes, we are thrilled to share that we are happily engaged."

Simpson and Wentz have a different kind of co-dependent union to Beyonce and Jay Z. They sort of represent opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of pop cultural aesthetic and they help each other exist more clearly in the public eye. I mean, Pete Wentz and Fall Out Boy haven’t actually been that edgy since they went on a national tour sponsored by Honda (actually, who knows…maybe the selling out began before that but suffice to say it did begin) and Pete himself had to appear in People Magazine explaining why it was ok for guys to wear eyeliner but he had to call it "guyliner" so it would't alienate his straight male fan base. If there is such a thing. The entire thing reeked of calculated PR word manipulation.

Ashlee on the other hand has to walk an even finer line between being the forcibly punk-ish younger sister of her blow it out of the water fake, blonde, “appeal centered on her breasts” idiot Republican failure, Jessica Simpson and a plastic product herself. Ashlee’s music was still basically just squeaky pop when she started but she had black hair and wore black and her guitarist had a Mohawk. That hasn’t stopped her from releasing her own line of cute, sweet Sketchers shoes and getting a nose job to make sure she looks like anyone else.

So Wentz and Simpson together are a complex tissue of trying to be totally commercial and plastic in order to cash in and trying to maintain an identity as individuals who are emo enough to seem like they have something to actually say.

I mean, I was at Wentz’s bar the other night and it’s totally contrived and apparently no different from the way previous owners had it. So, with the bar you just get Wentz buying a piece of East village grunge and not touching it…he just adopted its edge as though it’s his own.

Plus, I like the idea that Ashlee Simpson is the new Yoko Ono. If only everyone cared enough about Fall Out Boy to hate her…

Having said all this, I admit whole heartedly that Pete Wentz is smoking, god damned sexy. It’s unavoidable. He’s walking sex. It’s like he’s the male version of Scarlett Johanssen. [source]

Rumour has it that Oprah might play Tina Fey’s best friend on 30 Rock and the interesting thing about this is that I really think acting is Oprah’s Achilles Heel. Oprah earns like $750,000 a day and can alter Western Culture with a drop of her eyelash but there’s this inkling I have that she becomes really insecure and needy and weird when she’s about to perform some character.

Like, she’s the kind of person who would arrive in full high impact sunglass wearing splendor with assistants and dogs in tow and she’s be dictating things to people in between takes but when the camera was rolling she’d need several takes and she’d be afraid of the director. The director would hold her self worth in the palm of his hand. And if she was stuck with a hideous, sadistic director like Francis Ford Coppola she would be reduced to a quivering puddle of whimpering tears but at the end of the day, she’d suck it all back in, remember her status in media, quickly read a copy of Forbes magazine that has her listed as the richest and most powerful woman in America and she’d go back to the work.

The thing about Oprah is that as she read those pages of Forbes and she was having her hair done by one of the legion of assistants, the Francis Ford Coppola tears would literally be sucked back into her face.

She’s a complicated woman, that Oprah Winfrey. [source]

The New York Post is reporting that Silda Spitzer, the wife of the disgraced former New York Governor, Eliot Spitzer, actually knew about how the Governor was buying whores but she never cared that much.

They quote an apparently reliable source who says:

"He said something like, 'My [bleep]ing wife doesn't care, so why does anybody else care?" our insider told us. The ex-gov's flack Anna Cordasco responded: "Completely false."

Of COURSE the flack denied it. At this point she’s not going to say, “Oh yeah…actually, she did know and she didn’t care…”

But I actually would totally believe she didn’t care. These political married couples aren’t like regular people. They only exist for one reason and that is for power and status and money. I mean, the Clintons for Christ’s sake. America demands that its Machiavellian leaders package themselves in a nuclear family style unit so it feels nice and sunny and sweet but underneath that crisp sugary shell there’s a core of blood thirsty ambition and need that takes the space up where a soul would be.

Who the hell knows what Silda Spitzer wanted out of the marriage and being the Governor’s wife but it sure as hell wasn’t linked to her undying soul crushing love for her husband and motherly concern for her children. She was a corporate lawyer before working in not for profit charity as the first lady of New York, maybe she wanted to be like Prince Edward’s wife who wanted to bulk up her PR firm’s clientele, maybe she wanted to run for office just like Senator Hillary Clinton, maybe she was sending her husband out to research what it was like to be a madam. Who cares? The only people really outraged by this whole scandal are boring people who now see Eliot Spitzer as morally unfit for public office and actually probably his wife too.

But not because she feels betrayed in her marriage; because she never solidified that career in whatever it was she wanted before the whole thing came crashing down. Poor dear. [source]

Rosie O’Donnell is back on the publicity war path and this time she’s hawking her mental illness, channeling the celebrity of Britney Spears and making sure we don’t forget that she got in a fight on The View all of, what? 86 years ago? Yes. Excellent

When she went on The View, Rosie O’Donnell’s attempts at making sure she was clearly responsible for a ratings boost were so obvious. She picked fights with people who would lash back and play the game like Donald Trump and then the whole “Ching Chong” thing which was so completely ludicrous but at least the irrepressibly self righteous and nauseatingly delusional Michelle Malkin managed to make a quick buck out of it while Rosie played dumb and also cashed in.

So now, with a new children’s book to sell, O’Donnell is back on track and she’s bringing up everything she has to slap herself back into the limelight.

Best quotes from O’Donnell include:

On Martha Stewart: “I tried my best but it’s hard for me when I’m not the boss. There was people there telling me what to do. There was a little Republican who scared me.”

Yes, Elizabeth Hasselback’s breathless, calculated, predictable standard right wing for profit views that spew out peppered with girlish crying tantrums every now and really are petrifying.

On Good Morning America: "I sort of feel Britney has become the poster child (for mental illness). The kid is very young. She never had a childhood. She never rode a Big Wheel. Rather than put her face on mental illness, or Brooke Shields, who had postpartum depression, use me."

Please. Please give me something to do. I may not need the money but I’m forever plagued by this gaping desperate need for attention.

To be fair, I never gave a shit about The View and its relentless estrogen soaked, apologetic meta narrative infested quasi political discourse until O’Donnell arrived. With Rosie in the hot seat it was like every day there was a great new inane scandal to think about thanks almost entirely to her and she did end up hammering out a useful political argument that beat Hasselback down more than once. Now all they have is the mind numbingly stupid, good natured moron Sherri Shepherd. Shepherd’s not really useful. I sincerely believe that. She isn’t useful to anyone. [source]

Speaking of films that seem to have unmistakable links to completely unlikable people, Paris Hilton’s new film "Repo! The Genetic Opera," directed by Darren Lynn Bousman who directed such cinematic masterpieces as "Saw II, III and IV" (I mean, they must have been good – they made 4 of them!) is threatening to come out.

There’s rarely anything wrong with a film that needs an exclamation mark in the title. It usually just need about 20 years to become ironic and camp and potentially a cult film. However, I’m just feeling more culturally reassured than I have in a long time now that I know that it’s possible for Paris Hilton to come out with a film like “The Hottie and the Nottie” which was certifiably the worst film ever listed on imdb.com and still not hinder the release of something else she’s in.

Also, I’m glad that Paris Hilton has continued to see fit to keep putting out cultural offerings that feature her both moving and speaking. After her soul quenching appearance on Larry King post jail release I was so gla to see that the unwitting zeitgeist of our time was as articulate as she is thoughtful and stunning to look at.

Jesus, I’m losing track of the parts of this that are sarcastic and ironic and the parts that are just rageful. Must be this medication and the new soy protein I eat for breakfast. It’s this “chocolate soy protein with greens supplement”. It’s meant to be good but I think it might actually be rotting my brain.

Anyway – while Paul Sorvino’s role in "Repo! The Genetic Opera" is really the only thing making me think it won’t surpass the crapulence of “The Hottie and the Nottie” - and that’s really stretching it – at least it puts Hilton well on the way to becoming the classless version of Joan Collins she was always going to become.

Keep it up Paris – everyone’s counting on you.

Actually, omg – what if she and Nicky Hilton become the contemporary Beales? In 20 years, when everything falls apart, they could be living in a broken down Las Vegas penthouse condo with 50 cats and no internet. Oh, GOD – I just found a reason not to open a vein over the delay in the release of Tom Cruise’s new film. I’m sticking around for that. [source]

Page Six reports that Tom Cruise’s film "Valkyrie" - in which he plays a Nazi who tries to kill Hitler - has been pushed back for the third time, to February 2009 and my GOD, I’m just opening a vein right now over that one.

Word has it he is doing that chronically pretentious American actor thing where he doesn’t bother to even attempt an accent and yet, you can bet actual money that every single other actor in the film does. Or at least they do an English accent which, as far as American audiences will be concerned may as well be a German accent because it’s not from Long Island or Mississippi.

But, really, what could possibly be making it impossible for Tom Cruise’s film to come out? HA! Hilarious little play there – did you notice?
Andrew Morton’s book about Cruise said that Cruise is a maddening control freak who will sacrifice everything to get the status he wants in whatever field he is in – he did it with acting to a certain extent and now he’s doing it with Scientology.

When you’re an actor you need to act and be nice and stay thin. When you’re a Scientologist you need to apparently lose your freaking mind, marry a woman so you can eat her soul, buy a robot child, act out like a bipolar freak, adopt an utterly loathsome, smug and completely uninformed view of the way the human mind and body works, essentially believe that humans are descended from aliens and slowly but surely kill off every rational component of your brain.

Then you have to evangelise heavily and ram your beliefs down everyone you work with’s throat in this really passive aggressive way so that people feel they can’t work with you unless they change to adopt your beliefs but you do it in a way reminiscent of a cult leader or Communist dictator so you can never really be directly held accountable for your recruitment technique.

Even though the American public aren’t as perhaps critical of culture as would benefit them, after several years of watching Tom Cruise act like this in public, it seems like their interest in him as a moral compass, object of desire and vehicle through which people can experience the fantasy of film based escapism may have, and I’m just positing this idea for random possibility, it MAY have waned.

Just as suggestion. [source]

Yesterday, Rob Lowe wrote an editorial in the Huffington Post about how he was being extorted for 1.5 million dollars by a former nanny of his children. Presumably because that’s always the first thing you do when something like that happens. You write an editorial.

Anyway, so, the basic rundown is that he’s being threatened by this woman who is saying that unless she gets 1.5 million dollar by the end of the week she’ll leak all these apparent lies to the media.

From the published blackberry e mails she sent to Rob Lowe’s wife, she sounds weirdly unstable and so at the end of the day, she’s probably just some celebrity stalker freak.

That’s fine.

So, TMZ is reporting today that the police found out about Rob Lowe’s problem and called him, offering to assist with an official investigation which he then turned down stating that he was choosing to deal with the matter privately.

I just love the idea that if this happens to you you immediately write a celebrity editorial online about with your celebrity name at the top and then you turn down police assistance.

Cause, it’s important to quarantine the information that comes out so you can control it and release details as you need them. Because what is Rob Lowe actually UP to? He can’t just blurt out all the anecdotes and drama at once? These things take time. He needs the press to continue for a while so people start to remember his name.

And then they’ll in turn, remember he can act. And then, if something comes up – they can give him a call. This is a lot better than that bird killing story but how on earth could anyone have actually arranged for that …unless the bird was remote control. [source] [source]

Oh look, a carefully placed gossip item about Gossip Girl’s Chase Crawford rebounding from his ex-girlfriend Carrie Underwood to his co-star Michelle Trachtenberg. He was seen out in Soho, conspicuously flirting and salivating all over his female co-star and so the New York Post reported it.

This of course, comes out a week after the rumours that he’s dating the terminally closeted J C Chasez from NSync and it should do the trick in just the same way that Hillary Duff was seen a little while ago drinking champagne in a nightclub and making out with her (long term monogamous) boyfriend – coincidentally at exactly the same time that she seemed to be having a really hard time transitioning from sterile child star to sexually developed adult. They tried whoring her up with slutty outfits but apparently that’s not enough.

These days you have to really be an adult in the gossip columns before people will think of you as one.

Cut to the almost prohibitively pretty Chase Crawford being seen out constantly with J C Chasez. Oops, can’t do that! Quick, link him to an innocuous girl who could also use a personality injection. I wonder how many emergency publicist meetings were scheduled over this little mini crisis.

[source]

God Gatecrasher has some quality items today. I say quality because they mean I can bring the subject round and talk about myself through them and by them I mean, just one.

My old friend Randy Jones, the original cowboy from the Village People, let leak the other night at Antik nightclub that he had a rather interesting experience in 1982 with Tom Cruise at the Atlanta version of Peter Gatien’s Limelight.

Right. Where to begin…

Firstly, there was an Atlanta version of Limelight? My God, that’s glamorously crap. How exciting. Let’s all go hang out in Atlanta at the franchise of a New York nightclub. You get all the glamour and fabulousness of New York nightlife in the 80s but you get to stay cozy and fulfilled in Atlanta. Win Win!

Anyway, so Gatecrasher writes:

To hear Jones tell the story, it was quite a party. But after calls went out to a spokeswoman and attorney for the "Mission: Impossible" star yesterday, the book's editor assured me that Cruise's name had been removed from the final version.

It certainly was quite a party. I wrote about it here . Randy told me Tom Cruise blew him when we were at a party at Celeste Holm’s house. I told Ben at Gatecrasher the next day but Ben was really worried about the legal ramifications of linking Tom Cruise to dick that isn’t inside of Katie Holmes so he didn’t run the story. He did however, run the tip I gave him that day which was that the Heatherette fashion line was going under.

PLUS – can I also point out that Ben mentions that Randy told him the story while he was at Antik and I was with them both and that was the night my bag was stolen (from Antik) but my bag being stolen apparently isn’t as interesting as Randy getting blown and then potentially sued by Tom Cruise. Ok fine.

But you know what? Go ahead Tom Cruise – sue me. I’ve got some 6 dollar gourmet butter and a bottle of vicodin in the fridge, a scanner/printer I can’t use anymore and a pair of Versace pants. Let’s go. [source]

The New York Post reports that the Olympic flame that is currently traveling through France was extinguished 5 times because of protests. Not once, not twice, FIVE times.

The flame was lit in Greece as it always is and then traveled to Beijing on March 31. It was split off into two flames and is traveling around the world to return to China in August for the opening Ceremony.

I am totally hanging for this Olympics because it’s the most insane thing ever and every single week something insane happens. China is out of control stressed about it because the Beijing Olympics are like this huge coming out party for them. They consider it this way of showing the world how together and cool they are so they’re acting like the most irrational freaks ever. I’ve written a lot about how they’ve been banning bad language, replacing broken English signs, they shut down 1/3 of restaurants because they fell below health standards, they’ve recruited all taxi drivers as drug informants, they’ve banned the sale of crispy duck near public toilets, the hotel room rates are beyond ludicrous, Mia Farrow forced Stephen Spielberg to resign as Artistic Director of the Games and people are now protesting the Olympic torch as was predicted. Protesters consider it appalling that China could host the Olympics when it is as they say, “ the world’s biggest prison.”

It’s just hilarious that every single step of the way, this Olympics has been plagued with melodrama and conflict and they can’t even get the Olympic torch through France without having it extinguished 5 times. I mean, doesn’t that render the whole thing meaningless now? It’s not the same flame anymore. The whole point is defunct now. But, why let that stop China?

There is no doubt in my mind that China is sitting at home, scrubbing the floor getting angry at the dirt and fighting as hard as it possibly can to keep those tears at bay. God, I can’t wait until August. It’s going to be better than any white trash celebrity wedding reality show. [source]

Jay Z and Beyonce got married and it’s the most predicable union since Celine Dion marrying music promoter René Angelil or Tina Turner marrying Ike (although, Tina Turner managed to transcend the ridiculous narcissism of marrying the man who promises to make you a star.

Beyonce is so utterly one of the most formulaic products of our time. She’s a corporate brand. Jay Z is a hard core driven music producer.

The way it works is, the female star stuffs her humanity into a weird but very tight corset (figuratively speaking) and becomes the brand so she can be adored by every person on the planet. She’s created into a totally translatable, globally viable cultural object, she more or less gives up her humanity, cashes in and then goes and lives in her mansion in LA or castle in Europe. Her best friends are always going to only be the moronic, catty gay stylists, assistants and publicists who hang out with her all day and pander to her every whim. They’re not sexually threatening, they make her beautiful and they’re sycophantic enough to laugh at every joke she tells which makes her ego feel safe. The stylists love her because under the plastic exterior is an emotionally immature and chaotic, very needy but complex and interesting woman. They identify and want to be her in many ways because she is famous and adored and slim and wanted. They’ve never quite gotten over being beaten up in High School.

Some divas like Kylie Minogue, Liza Minnelli and Paula Abdul don't manage to get married for one reason or another but they do get the rest of the formula in place.

But she could ever marry them because they’re gay. So, she marries her father complex riddled producer bully associate and then everything is in place. There’s no social slack – no people in her life that aren’t about her maintaining her status – and while she may be treated like an accessory and a wind up toy at least she’s famous across the world and at least she’s pretty. I mean, apart from those chronic sweat stains. [source]

The new Marc Jacobs shots of Posh Beckham have come out and she’s basically rolling around on the ground dressed in what looks like a regurgitated Andrew Lloyd Webber prop, sucking her thumb.

For all his ludicrous behaviour when it comes to the men he dates, Marc Jacobs is a rather interesting and subversive man. I can just see her arriving for the shoot and Marc Jacobs taking over while she just does whatever he says because he’s Marc Jacobs. He could have been half awake after doing meth for three days and she wouldn’t have questioned his ideas.

I completely doubted him when he chose Posh as one of his muses because I really figured that she was this utterly unrescuable pointless chav slag who managed to buy her way into various circles but who would never really have the actual substance to prove anything more than the fact that no matter how much money you have you can never buy talent or class. And the thing is, it really seemed weird to me that a fashion designer would want to point that out. If Fashion doesn’t stand for money being able to buy you substance then what does it stand for? Oh, ok…yes, whatever…it’s about self expression blah blah blah

But these shots give her a skerrick of depth by making her look slightly hipster which, of course, is equally as nauseating, but I mean, at least it looks like she has the capacity to do something slightly less exhausting to look at besides going through the motions of a career as a pop star and sucking in her cheeks while not smiling a lot.

Oh who am I kidding, hipsters are just as exhausting. God, culture sucks right now.

Well, Marc Jacobs is interesting. And also, Meryl Streep doesn’t suck. And I’m into Steve Reich and Goldfrapp right now. Oh, wait, no I’m not. My computer was stolen. All my Steve Reich and Goldfrapp are gone. When I find that kid that stole my stuff I’m going to systematically take apart his or her life and laugh. [source]

Jennifer Lopez has asked Tom Cruise to be godfather to her twins.

Ok, I had this inkling that J Lo was the contemporary Joan Crawford when she spent several million dollars on the space in which she was meant to give birth and then charged 6 million bucks for the rights to the first photos of them. She actually made profit from having kids. This confirms it.

Despite the fact that her weird assed husband Marc Antony is legitimately concerned because they’re both Catholic and Tom Cruise is a freakish delusional cult member, she’s pushed ahead with the weird union. I actually think Marc Antony is the sane one in that marriage but he’s so completely beaten down by J Lo’s gargantuan ego and relentless cunnilingual demands that he’s sort of like that character played by Bruce Willis in Death Becomes Her. Except that the amount of ego in J Lo is equal to the amount of ego in both the Goldie Hawn character AND the Meryl Streep character and those two weren’t even vaguely human.

I think it’s safe to say that there would be no Scientology without Tom Cruise. I mean, he’s the head of United Artists and as a result the only reason the swarms of vulture like narcissistic celebrities like Leah Remini, J Lo, Will Smith, Kirstie Alley and John Travolta are involved is for the networking potential.

J Lo made the startling discovery that having kids was far more lucrative than making films and actually trying to have a career so she’s bitten the bullet and gone in for the soul sell.

And that means that if J Lo is the contemporary Joan Crawford, Tom Cruise is the contemporary, bipolar Satan who stands at the crossroads and makes deals with people in a Faustian plot that happens in real life. He doesn’t appear in an explosion of fire though, in a red lycra jumpsuit with a red tail and horns. Well, not unless he’s coming straight from a circuit party.

By selling her kids to Tom Cruise and the media, J Lo might JUST have a career yet. [source]

Avril Lavigne just said this to a crowd of people in her homeland of Canada:

“I love you Montreal, I'm so happy to be back home … in Ontario, Canada,"

Montreal is in Quebec. Avril Lavigne, just to recap, is FROM CANADA. Therefore, Avril Lavigne is a freaking asshole.

It’s a shame that Lavigne can’t seem to get actual critical acclaim or press for doing anything right. The only press she seems to get is this kind of thing; coverage of her douchebag bullshit fake punk, ill-educated crap. This is the kind of thing Mischa Barton and Lily Allen do. Oh god, and Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag. Actually, maybe Avril Lavigne is becoming like Ann Coulter and Michael Lucas. Those two are like the leaders of the pop culture dark side.

But just in general, Avril Lavigne is a ridiculous farce, I mean, we’re all well aware of that, right? She’s this petulant entitled idiot kid who was used to be the anti-Spears when Britney was really at the height of her powers. The record company made P!nk and they also made Avril. The reason it worked is because she was too stupid and spoilt and rancid to realize she was a product and therefore some level of authenticity ran through the whole, faux punk karate leg kick in the air, eyeliner, skull and cross bones bandana wearing, fake story about beating up random people in the street telling bullshit.

There’s really no authenticity with her, she was taken so young that she was frozen into that role as faux punk douche – in much the same way really that that woman who was 5 saw her entire family shot I front of her by the Nazis and so she just stayed mentally 5 for the rest of her life.

I mean, sort of. That cheapens the plight of that woman though and it gives Avril Lavigne an excuse. I really don't think there is an excuse for Avril Lavigne and it's not responsible to give her one. Shame on ME. [source]

Scarlett Johanssen has an album of actual music out called Anywhere I Lay My Head which is basically just a whole heap of Tom Waits covers and one original song. The only thing that makes sense to me about this career move and cultural manifestation is the title because if you replace the word Lay with Aim and Head with Ego it sort of explains the type of headspace it requires to do something this unnecessary.

Who told Scarlett Johanssen it was a good idea to do this? Who? Who were they? Why are they employed?

Only dumb ass freak movie actors do crap like this. Releasing an album when you’re an actor is the kind of thing actors do when their egos are so exhaustively inflated that they think that any manifestation of their expression is gold and they think that because they’ re famous they can sell and do anything. It’s been proven that that is fundamentally not the case time and time again. Just because you’re a movie star and everyone says yes to everything you want, doesn’t mean you need to DO everything that comes into your head.

Plus Scarlett Johanssen doesn’t even suck! I mean, sure she sometimes wears a bullring through her nose which makes her look like a bullock but I mean, she’s walking sex appeal. She was astonishingly hot in Match Point. She has this demeanour that seems to make her the cool, mature, popular girl at school but what am I to make of this new horror?

Now she’s less the popular girl at school and is one of those exhaustive tuna ho bitches that gets together with her friends and choreographs some rancid girl band dance routine to a top twenty hit and then performs it in front of the school. Really sexualized dance moves that go way over her head.

My entire head is bleeding at the thought of this now. Not just my ears. And they’re bleeding in anticipation. [source]

Naomi Campbell was enraged when one of her three bags was sent to the wrong place on a recent flight. So enraged was she, reports the Sun, that she spat at a security guard and laid into him with her fists and was escorted off the plane and arrested. This was at Heathrow in London.

I don’t actually think she was actually that enraged, she was probably just mildly upset. This is how she registers being mildly upset. Someone misplaced her bag in an era of airline travel where everything is completely traceable by computer and can be returned within a day and so she got mildly upset and merely assaulted three security guards.

Now it would be a different story if say, she were at a restaurant and someone walked up and threw a bucket of paint on her mother and child (let’s pretend she has a child – it’s funny for like so many reasons to think of her as a mother). If that were to happen, actual rage would register and it’s reasonable to assume that she would pull a rocket launcher out of her bag and fire it into the crowd of restaurant guests while standing on the table in her Prada black dress screaming hysterically like some kind of Heraldic Beast.

For someone who so successfully embodies such an easily translatable form of physical beauty, she really is an oddly complex and unusual woman.

I’d like to know exactly what the problem with her really is. I mean, what exactly happened to her as a child. You know, you do tests and you find out that it’s something simple like a sugar imbalance. I know that before I took alpha lipoic acid every day I would sometimes get genocidal after eating a pound of gummi bears (which I’m sometimes want to do…that’s when cans of frosting aren’t available across the road at 11:45pm weeknights). Maybe she just needs to not eat cake? Either that or she should get fired and have to work in an office in suburban Florida forever more. That’d shut her violent ass up. [source]

John McCain went on Joe Scarborough for a bit of a love in and to be fair it was much the same as when Barack Obama or Chris Dodd went on Keith Olbermann – no one particularly disagrees with one another and everyone sits around patting each other on the back.

McCain did admit to the fact that even though he said he was a great fan of the show “the Hills” and that Heidi Montag is a great actress, he was lying. Which is a far more important point to make than merely saying that he was happy to have Montag’s endorsement.

His people had to have ascertained that attention from Montag was somehow worth something in mobilizing a demographic of young people otherwise there’s no way he would have bothered. Although, the idea that Heidi Montag has actual loyal fans is essentially preposterous to me.

Of course, then John McCain goes on to talk about how Montag isn’t the only popular actor endorsing him. Well, no…that’s right. He’s got plenty of celebrity endorsements. He’s totally hitting the impossibly fickle, trend crazy youth vote now.

Why, let’s recap: he’s got Kid Rock: a fat idiot reality TV star ex rocker, Chuck Norris: an advertorial starring ex-action hero, Wilford Brimley: a disease addled, cantankerous old man with a stupid moustache, Sylvester Stallone: a steroid poisoned meat head douche bag and Clint Eastwood: an admittedly talented but cranky old man. Plus, now of course, with Montag he’s got a vacant, innocuous airhead generic LA bimbo who allows her boyfriend to treat her like she’s his Islamic wife/property. Oh wait, no…in the current seasons of The Hills, she’s challenging her chauvinist douche bag husband which of course makes her a feminist hero. How silly of me to forget that. At this rate he's totally on his way...

Last night I went to the screening of a film called Postal with Randy Jones from the Village People, we went to dinner at B Bar in the East Village and then went around the corner to this small club where the old Slide used to be, I think it's called Antique now, with a bunch of people including Michael Musto and Ben Widdicombe from the Daily News, some girls I didn't know, a model named Py (I can't be sure of the spelling but it sounds like pie) Randy and I met at the screening and Keith, Randy's nephew.

This is the preview of the film:

But the thing is: I had my backpack which I use to carry my laptop and hard drive. The laptop had hard drive are chock full of everything important and basically everything I've done for the past four years professionally.

At the end of the night someone had taken my backpack - along with my laptop and hard drive. It seemed completely implausible because the place is really small and it was with a pile of our group's stuff including another backpack but it was taken.

So, now I'm working off this other computer but I don't have any of my personal files , e mail or anything to work from.

I'm kind of unsure what to do now seeing as it really does contain my entire life. The laptop is password protected but the hard drive is not - I mean, not that there's anything on there besides my entire portfolio and all my archived blogs etc. but it's a really horrific feeling.

Consequently, I can't really blog today. It's technically difficult and I'm not really in the right headspace.

Oh Jesus, Heidi Montag has told In Touch Magazine that she’s honored to be considered a “Feminist Hero” – which is what the New York Times called her when they reviewed the new season of The Hills.

“I was very honored to be called a feminist hero,” Heidi tells In Touch. “It’s a big deal to be even acknowledged, let alone complimented by The New York Times by such a profound, famous TV critic.”

Even though she definitely considers herself a feminist, when asked who her Feminist Heroes are she said, “ Um… I’ll get back to you on that one!”

So, I think essentially there’s really no need to argue or even discuss the extent to which she’s a pointless dumb ass ho. No, she’s cleared that up quite cleanly. Of course she doesn’t know who her feminist heroes are. She probably can’t even spell the word “feminist”. She has one routine with the press and that is the mindless ramble. She’s never asked complex questions because nothing about her is complex so most of the time so she just repeats key words to the interviewer and then smiles and does her dead behind the eyes laugh.

I really just resent writing her name.

Actually, no – give her her own show. Come on, let’s really entertain the idea of Heidi Montag as a fully actualised cultural artifact. Great. Oooo, look how much she has to offer. Wow, I’m so enriched.

Unless Spencer Pratt takes Michael Lucas up on his offer to get plowed by a power top on film I refuse to write about either of them. Oh Jesus, who am I kidding? I'll probably write my PhD on them. Maybe then they'll know who I am.... [source]

All rational sources would suggest that there is no truth to the rumour that Johnny Depp will be the new face and er…groin of Trojan Condoms.

Even thought I know that there are press outlets that seriously do just completely make crap up to sell papers there’s a part of me that really doesn’t believe that the lies are ever just blatant, constructed deceit. Like, I just have so much difficulty believing that editorial staff literally sit around saying things like, “Hmmm, ok…Madonna - let’s say she’s a fat Satanist who is forcing her children to give blood for her demonic ceremonies…everyone ok with that? Great. Everyone ok with Turkish for lunch?”

In this case, it really seems like basically everyone involved had no idea about Johnny Depp being offered this multi million dollar deal with Trojan. Johnny Depp’s people had no idea, ok, fair enough, Trojan haven’t responded but probably only because they can’t be bothered.
God, it’s a boring ass news day. I have half a mind to just go see a movie. [source]

Here’s something interesting that really lets you in on the intricate workings of the minds of famous people and the way information can be reported by random people with their own agendas. And by random people, I might mean "publicists".

Gatecrasher reports that on a recent trip to Sydney, Celine Dion wasn’t a high maintenance whore as you’d expect. No, apparently she was a model guest. It takes a lot to arrange for press like that. I mean, when you read it in Gatecrasher you know Ben Widdicombe was told what went on by someone he knows in Australia because he is Australian etc. I mean, ok sure. Ten bucks says the source was a star struck diva crazy queen who worked at the hotel.

But the thing is, I simply don’t believe that a narcissistic freak gorgon cannibal like Celine Dion was a model guest both then or in any situation. I have problems believing it. I refuse to believe it.

What is far easier to believe about Celine Dion’s stay in Sydney is that she had the entire wing of the Park Hyatt Hotel decked out in mirrors that are somehow slimming because she can never be too slim. Except for the face part which makes her face less horse-like by being one of those hilarious circus mirrors that makes you look like a short fat gangster. And also, she insists that no one comment on or make reference to the noise she makes during what her staff call “the Dark Hours” that is, the time between 2am and 4am where she looks out at the sky and shrieks like a peacock that has been essentially disemboweled and is really consciously aware of the fact that it’s dying a slow and painful painful death. But one that it opted for somehow.

That’s far more likely as far as I’m concerned.

The other tidbit of information that sounds about as planted as the news that he was frustrated and annoyed at the idea of having to wear white tie for the Queen’s visit is that George W Bush continuously ordered fried rice even after eating at official state dinners. Oh why…because the food was too fancy and uppity? Please. Actually, yes, I’d believe that he would want shitty food after being served top notch diplomatic fare. Yes. Because he’s an idiot. Plus, apparently he’s obsessed with blueberries. In what respect? Their rolling capability? I sort of feel cheap writing about how stupid George W Bush is based on this but it’s a really slow news day. I just don’t care that Dane Cook isn’t funny and I also don’t care that Miley Cyrus lost her freaking dog. [source]