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]