Things that are neat: Friday Before Holiday Edition

Hey, guess what: it's Friday.

And better: Friday Before A Three-Day Holiday Weekend.

For a job-hating cubicle rat such as yours truly: ever so much more significant because it means 3 whole days away from staring at this:

That's the screen at which I sqiunt for 8 hours a day, logging little notes about software support issues.

Anyway - in honor of the fact that my brain is pretty well toasted after a long week and I'm looking forward to several days of blissful nothingness, I'm going to skip the celebrity commentary and toss up a list of Neat Things. Things That Are Neat.

Roll with it.

Neat thing #1 - DiorShow Airflash Spray Foundation

I love this stuff. Don't use it so much as an all-over foundation (though in that regard, it is by far the best I've ever used) as I do a spot concealer; it's got a great, moisturizing texture that keeps it from looking too matte and "cakey" when used to cover up those hormonal breakouts or whisker-rash on the chin from kissing Man with Facial Hair, or under-eye circles, or whatever else you need to conceal). I use it as an eye shadow base, as well -- or sometimes, when my skin is more fair, I'll use a darker shade of this foundation as an eye shadow shade all on its own. It goes on smoothly, stays put, looks creamy and flawless and dewey. Highly recommend it. Tips for applying to the entire face as foundation (as it's intended): use a sponge or foundation brush (I even had some success with a kabuki brush). You waste less product and can apply it more precisely. While it's marketed as a "spray straight at your face and you're done" concept, that's more wishful thinking - it ends up in your hair, eyebrows, lips - may as well save yourself the vague sensation of "Mystic Tan Booth" and actually put the makeup where you want it.

Neat thing #2 - Chewy Lemonhead & Friends Candy

 

The sad truth: they're not Twerpz (my all-time favorite candy, since discontinued.....and may you live a long and miserable life listening only to Michael Buble music and John Mayer diatribes, Twizzlers people. You killed my favorite junk food), but they're a pretty good substitute. They don't have the delightful white sugary coating like Sour Patch Kids or the neat "flesh-like" spring of Gummy LifeSavers, but they're good. Dependable. Sort of like what Jelly Beans would taste like if Jelly Beans actually tasted good. Doesn't hurt that there are 5 flavors per package, so each bite is sort of a fun, pleasant, tart surprise. Well played, Ferra Pan Candy People.

Neat thing #3 - This top

Target: you nailed it here. Nothing about the fabric feels even remotely chintzy, the cut of the neckline, the amount of ruffle, the length, the adjustable straps - all combine to make this the perfect Girlie Tank Top in the perfect shade of cobalt (I have it in several colors, actually). It's timeless: not too trendy, not likely to date itself for years, but current, classic, endlessly wearable. For instance: can be worn right now with skinny jeans and boots, or later with city shorts and strappy heels when the weather gets nicer (here in Seattle, I suppose that equals July 5th). Toss a cami over the top and it's great for the office, add a funky necklace and it's "evening out" gear. The perfect tank top. Love it. Thinking of springing for the "electric fuschia" shade as well, since I've already worn the black color more times that I wear most pairs of my jeans in their lifetime. Amazing clothing success, Target.

Neat thing #4 - The brilliantly hilarious minds behind Go Fug Yourself

I love witty writing, love good satire, love blogs in general and ALWAYS love oogling celebrities in their fancy clothes. This website has stood the test of celebrity gossip time in my book - over the last 5 years of my blogging experience, this is about the only site that I still visit almost daily. The ladies that come up with the absolutely excellent commentary for each and every red carpet misstep are my pop-lit heroes. They're at their best when they're "speaking from the perspective" of Kanye West while making fun of someone's hideous red carpet getup. All caps. All hilarious.

Neat Thing #5 - Horrible "Sex and the City" movie reviews!

Reviews have been nothing but scathing since the first unnaturally photoshopped movie poster hit the webernet - now that the movie's open, there's not a single good thing anyone can think to say about it. Roger Ebert was more relentless with this film than I've ever seen before (and also more entertaining), opening his review with "Some of these people make my skin crawl" and taking it from there. The New York Times says "Your watch will tell you that a shade less than two and a half hours have elapsed, but you may be shocked at just how much older you feel when the whole thing is over." The LA Times gets irritatingly alliterative by saying "In this second screen incarnation of the fabulous HBO series, the satire is sagging, the irony's atrophied and the funny is flabby." And Entertainment Weekly weighs in with "Mood swings similar to those experienced by menopausal Samantha are a common side effect of exposure to Sex and the City 2." Frankly, the first movie was awful enough, so I'm delighted that the sequel takes the awful to new heights. I'll go see it on a weeknight after it's been open for a week or so and heckle to my heart's content.

Neat thing #6 - Domaine Carneros' Le Reve

I'm a bubbly fiend. Drink of choice, hands down, every time, no questions asked. Hold the dorky flute, please, I prefer mine in a nice white wine glass. And I'll happily spend nearly as much on a bottle of bubbles as I will on a pair of Hudsons after a hard week. This particular bubbly comes from Domaine Carneros in the Napa Valley - the winery is owned and operated by Tattinger, meaning there's a certain respectable French cache to their operation straight out of the gate. But while their signature brut is outstanding, this Blanc de Blancs is absolutely superb. Surprisingly, it's 98% chardonnay, 2% pinot blanc - by my usual wine standards, I shouldn't enjoy this (I struggle with sparklers heavy on the chardonnay) - but it's one of the best. Finishes with creamy notes of vanilla - it's the reason I joined the Carneros wine club and do a giddy little happy dance every few months when a bottle of this shows up at work. Delightful.

Neat thing #7 - Ke$ha - Animal

I'm being perfectly serious. I hated this chick - found her stupid Tic Tok song about as vapid as any song I'd ever suffered through while inside a Forever21. And then it started to grow on me. She seemed almost sarcastic, the more closely I listened. Almost like they'd deliberately produced an ironic pop cd. Decided to test the outer limits of my very high pop tolerance and listen to the rest of the CD. It's a ridiculously good time. There's not a song on the album that isn't "stuck in your head catchy." It's sort of a "who's who" of pop influences - she rips of the styles of everyone from Imogen Heap to Tiffany to Justin Timberlake as far as I can tell, and she has fun doing it. She knows who her audience is, she knows she's obnoxious, she revels in it. So do I. Give it a listen with an ear to the sarcasm - she's laughing at us, she's laughing at herself, she's having fun....I don't see a huge market for a follow-up release, but it's sugar-coated, auto-tuned, 808-drummed party fun. Not kidding. Track to listen for: "Blah blah blah" is gloriously gender-bending.

So that's that. About another 2 hours and I will happily join the ranks of working stiffs fleeing the city by sitting in probably record-breaking traffic on my way to a weekend-kickoff happy hour and three glorious days away from this particular computer screen.

Cheers!

Bristol goes Bazaar

Oh, the sins of the Mother are most definitely visited on the kids. Most definitely.

There's no other particularly legitimate reason for so many people to react so viciously toward little Bristol "Red Carpet" Palin and her $30,000 public speaking fee.

Oh, wait......

No, actually I'm going to take the "In defense of Bristol" stance on this one. After reading this article in this month's Harper's Bazaar, I see nothing but a pretty honest kid who loves her son, was justifiably horrified to find out she was knocked up, and has the benefit of a famous mother and an infamous baby-daddy (or is it infamous mother, famous baby-daddy?) to allow her some creative financial leverage that most other teen moms would kill for.

In college, a friend and I used to play this "game" of sorts where we'd imagine we were unexpectedly pregnant and then visualize having to sit our familes down and tell them - then we'd delight in writhing around, imaging how miserable that would be (for a couple of 18 year-old church girls in a Nazarene college dorm it was worse than the threat of cancer. See: the movie "Saved" and the "Please let it be cancer, please let it be cancer, please let it be cancer" pre-preganancy-test-chanting. Too true, too true. Also see: the fact that our freshman girls dorm was referred to as the Virgin Vault and men were only permitted "on deck" 2 hours a week.....we'd had the fear of God struck into us when it came to sex).

So, for all of the critics spewing self-righteous amounts of "you shoulda used a condom, idiot" sentiment in Bristol's direction, I'd like to walk us all through "A Church Girl's Guide to Not Getting Knocked up" in the hope that we can better understand how this happened and why Palin Lite isn't such a horrible person for admitting she was humiliated through the entire process.

It's true that we received some form of sex ed in the classroom from a pretty young age. But, we can look back at the D.A.R.E program and see how well a lot of programatic indoctrination really sticks when you start kids too young and don't provide a lot of practical advice to back up rote facts...It's all a little too theoretical. And that "one week a year" health class bit where your teacher rolls condoms on bananas and explains again what an erection is and we all giggle and blush and loathe that the teacher is so anatomically frank? Well, that's all very practical as well, but is duly filed away back in the part of a Church Girl's brain reserved for "things she won't need to worry about until she's married," and that's that.

Sure, Church Girl had a discussion or two with her mom about the birds and the bees back in the day with ingenious visual desciptions of puzzle pieces and references to "Days of Our Lives" characters Patch and Kayla (remember them?) and mention of "the dangly things" boys have which made Church Girl giggle to no end, and Church Girl understands that under no circumstances is she to tangle with those dangly things before she gets married, so again - this is all very theoretical and not anything she actually needs to worry about.

This idea sticks pretty firmly, in fact, and well into the high school years Church Girl is pretty decently convinced that lightning would absolutely strike her dead if she were ever to end up in a pants-off situation, because if nothing else, she's well aware of the fact that God sees everything. Everything.

There's also that small matter of the fact that in this context, even raising the question of birth control would be tantamount to standing up on the family's kitchen table during dinner and announcing that she intends to sleep her way through the entire JV football team.

Church girls have no need for The Pill, of course, because Church Girls have no need for the dangly thing.

This is all very simple.

It also means that there's a good chance she's never going to be in posession of such a thing as a condom should she ever unexpectedly find herself doing what she never planned on doing until she was good and hitched, so there's that sort of two-fold problem. One: asking about protection is a very uncomfortable, taboo, off-limits subject in Church Girl's family. Two: having such a topic be off-limits virtually guarantees she'll end up wholly unprepared should the unexpected Patch & Kayla moment arrive.

So, really, it's actually perfectly conceivable (pun. intended.) that a girl, such as one Bristol Palin, brought up in an exceptionally conservative environment could have been told  "No, don't you ever do that" right up until the point where she found herself actually having sex, and she is, at that point, too terrified of punishment and repercussions to bring up the subject with her parents, and -- in some cases -- even her friends.

Good thing it takes two to make a baby. In the event the girl doesn't have the birth control, stands to reason the guy can save the day.

Oh.

Levi Johnston didn't have any condoms, either? Well, we could give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume he, too, was brought up in a similarly conservative environment where a certain amount of fear kept him from being comfortable talking about being prepared to protect himself and his girl from a baby. In that case, it's a little silly to condemn the poor girl so openly while not pinning equal culpability on the Mister. Which is what's been happening in the blogs. All judgement is on her for being "ready for sex but not ready for the consequences."

I'll say this much: somewhere in the vicinity of 6 acquaintances from this Church Girl's high school days ended up with babies before graduation. One of those girls was a school acquaintance. The other 5 or so: other Church Girls.

My take on the situation is this: while it's biologically indisputable that the only 100%, guaranteed, signed, sealed, delivered way to say baby- and STI-free is NOT to have sex, there's another discussion we need to be prepared to have in conjunction with that abstinance conversation. We need to be comfortable admitting that, try as we might to protect our Church Girls from sex until the ol' marriage bed, there's still that chance that they won't make it to that finish line. AND, if they don't, they need to have access to what it takes to prevent the baby. Sex is one thing. Motherhood: an entirely separate trip.

I don't know what the Palinette abstinance stump speech reads like, but if I were the one collecting $30,000 per engagement, I'd probably want my platform to be very practical - to be very honest - to say something we haven't all heard a million times before. To be frank about the fact that it's not enough to say "don't have sex," that it needs to be accompanied with the realistically compassionate companion message that, "if you do, please be prepared to protect yourself from pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections." Would have saved a lot of Church Girls a lot of surprises.

And as far as the folks that are ripping on this kid for being very honest about the fact that the entire process has been mortifying, at times humiliating, that she was devastated: hearing that is not going to damage her son. Being loved, cared for, looked after, nurtured, and having his mother AROUND, that's going to more than cancel out the honest truth that she WASN'T prepared to become a mother. No kid, once old enough to understand they were a "surprise" to say the least is going to feel any less loved in the face of that recognition. Just glad they've got a mom who loves them. Simple.

Anyway - check out the article - I think she manages to sound pretty balanced given everything she and her family have been drug through in the past several years. And particularly balanced given her lunatic mother. Well played, Little Palin, well played.

The Gaga = refreshingly down-to-earth.

I dig me some Lady Gaga. On the one hand, she's delightfully, unapologetically unusual. On the other, underneath the bizarro costumes and head pieces and army of supernaturally dedicated fans, she seems to have her head screwed on remarkably straight, particularly given that she's - currently - one of the most famous characters in popular entertainment culture.

She's 24 years old, but manages a markedly removed, observant, even sedate brand of wisdom that's disarming when it comes out of the mouth of a pop star who soared into the public consciousness a few years ago with a club anthem that invoked the every-girl's dilemma of lost keys, lost phone, lost drink, room spinning, GREAT song playing - all problems solved by dancing. It's an interesting juxtaposition of public and private personas.

She stays pretty well out of the paparazzi and gossip-hound circuit and has a fantastic perspective on maintaining her privacy, even going so far as to suggest in this UK Times article that celebrities complaining about being unable to escape the flash bulbs are, really, actually enamored with them and, with proper effort, conscienciousness and -- yes -- cash, would be perfectly able to escape the broad reach of the public's curiousity. Spend less money on diamonds, more money on security. Do it The Gaga way.

Other favorite excerpts from the article (which, by the way, was a lot of fun to read - music journalist Caitlin Moran (whom, I've decided, is endlessly witty, well-spoken, and has a career I envy to no end) followed her around for a night on the town) touch on possible Gaga health problems, the Gaga take on feminism, why we rarely see Gaga on the red carpet (it clashes with most outfits), and how many drinks it takes for the Gaga to get "knackered." Hint: when scotch is her poison, it requires somewhere between three and five before she's lounging on tabletops in German sex clubs discussing her rare brand of sex appeal. She's cute, actually. Falls back into moments of sounding very 24, reminding us that she is -- at least mostly -- human.

Here's the bit that generated the hum about her secret battle with Lupus:

But it has to be said, for a 24-year-old, death is a recurrent theme in her performances. The thematic arc for the Fame Monster tour was “the apocalypse”. On the current Monster Ball tour, Gaga is eventually eaten by a gigantic angler fish – a creature she was terrified of as a child – only to be reborn as an angel. Her MTV Awards performance of Paparazzi, back in September, had her being crushed by a falling chandelier – amazing – before bleeding to death while singing.



“What’s the nearest you’ve ever come to death?” I ask her. “Do you have any recurring illnesses?”


She goes oddly still for a moment, and then says, “I have heart palpitations and… things.”


“Recently?”


“Yes, but it’s OK. It’s just from fatigue and other things,” she shrugs, before saying, with great care, “I’m very connected to my aunt, Joanne, who died of lupus. It’s a very personal thing. I don’t want my fans to be worried about me.”


Her eyes are very wide.


“Lupus. That’s genetic, isn’t it?” I ask.
“Yes.”


“And have you been tested?”


Again, the eyes are very wide and steady. “Yes.” Pause. “But I don’t want anyone to be worried.”
“When was the last time you called the emergency services?” I ask.


“The other day,” Gaga says, still talking very carefully. “In Tokyo. I was having trouble breathing. I had a little oxygen, then I went on stage. I was OK. But like I say, I don’t want anyone to worry.”


It’s a very odd moment. Gaga is staring at me calmly but intently.


Lupus is a connective tissue disease, where the immune system attacks the body. It can be fatal – although, as medicine advances, fatalities are becoming rarer. What it more commonly does is cause heart palpitations, shortness of breath, joint pain and anaemia, before spasmodically but recurrently driving a truck through your energy levels, so that you are often too fatigued to accomplish even the simplest of tasks.



Suddenly, all the “Gaga cracking up” stories revolve 180 degrees, and turn into something completely different. After all, the woman before me seems about as far removed from someone on the verge of a fame-induced nervous breakdown as possible to imagine. She’s being warm, candid, smart, amusing and supremely confident in her talent. She’s basically like some hot, giggly pop-nerd.



Of course, she hasn’t said, outright, “I have lupus.” But the suggestion throws the whole previous year – being delayed on stage, cancelling gigs, having to call the emergency services – into sharp relief.

Interesting.

Basically, it's the first full-length interview I've ever read, rather than just excerpts here and there that make her out to be a bit out-of-touch, aloof, chilly, unecessarily Queen Frostine-esque.

I liked her in the first place - but now she's close to edging out my beloved XTina (who, by the way, just cancelled this summer's tour, new dates to be announced later this year).
Anyway: check out the full article here.

When bad clothes happen to hot men.

Ok, first things first, Adrien, my love:

Step AWAY from Paris Hilton.

Atta boy.

Now, let's tackle that issue of what you're wearing.

I'll make a broad, blanket statement. I LOVE a man in leather pants. Love. Remember Heath Ledger in "10 Things I Hate About You," in that scene at the chick rock show where he shows up to buy Julia Stiles a bottle of water and hollers about how she's never looked so sexy? Dorky scene, Hot Leather Pants.

Hot, hot, hot.

In fact, I thought it was damn near impossible for a man to go WRONG with leather pants, especially a man like you. They say, "I'm equal parts rock star and biker stud," so there's a certain urban cache to the look of, oh, leather pants, combat boots and a white tee-shirt. Can't be beat.

Actually, add a shaved head and some tattoos to that equation and....oh. You've got Vin Diesel. Hmm. Well - as long as he just stands there, glowers, and keeps his mouth shut I think we can handle that image.

Anyway.

Adrien, darling. You're this very rare, very unconventional brand of foxy and you usually nail the fashion thing. But you've pulled off the impossible: you've managed to give leather pants all the sex appeal of NSync, circa 1998. It's the train wreck of Cannes fashion this year - and believe me, the Cannes fashion railroad tracks have been VERY busy this year. Lots of near-misses (think: Rachel Bilson in a faux-tuxedo-styled, dropped-crotch pantsuit romper).

Add to your mess the hideously sack-like jacket over the top of the Lady Gaga t-shirt and the Wretched, Horrible, Fresh Prince-esque shoes poking out from under those three-feet-too-long-and-seamed-down-the-front "pants" and you've got what amounts to the sort of fashion choice a middle school kid hopped up on Mike's Hard Cranberry dons before riding his bike to the spring dance (if one of his parents happens to be a buyer for Hot Topic and they've got an end-of-season pleather overstock).

A fully-grown man does not wear this outfit, dear Adrien.

A fully-grown man does not debase the sexiness of Leather Pants by using them to make some sort of "Devil-May-Care" statement about the meaninglessness of fashion and the fact that you're above it all. It's just a sacrilege.

And Adrien, sugar: if you think this is sexy, I'll just leave you there with Paris Hilton, where you clearly, obviously belong, in that case.

For shame, for shame.

You ready to laugh until you cry? WATCH. THIS. NOW.

I haven't giggled this hard in ages.

Could hardly keep my eyes open.

Tears. That's how hard I giggled.

This is very difficult to conceal while watching the video at work using headphones. And equally difficult to explain in a sentence or less to whomever popped their head over the cubicle wall wondering why Heather was making weird snorting sounds and crying.
In a word - and I'm not kidding: An Anti-Kissing video of the 80's Evangelical Pursuasion, Edited For Maximum OOKINESS.

There's a poor-man's David Hasselhoff feeding his daughter fantastic anti-kiss propeganda in this absolutely, almost indescribeably lecherous way. There are some Saved By The Bell-type Pro-Kissing hooligans that get to squint and lurk and oogle our good little Lip Lock Virgin ("She's sweet sixteen and never been kissed....mmmm") while trying to entice her to SIN.

There's an ominous piano soundtrack that harkens back to the "Life Lesson" section of every Full House episode....you know, the part where Danny or Jesse or Joey would come in and sit at the foot of DJ's bed and tell her that whatever she did in this week's episode was wrong, but they still love her and still hope she grows up and finds true love with a Canadian hockey star. That sort of piano music.

But this is pure cinematic gold.

At 0:56 one of the Kissing Goons leans in to Force Our Non-Kissing Heroine Into SIN, but she runs far, far away from that guy, through the snow, back home, back to creepy rubber-lipped daddy (next to whom she sits just a LITTLE too closely on the couch), leaving our Kissing Goon out in the cold, rolling his eyes in the only believable moment in the entire clip.

It's magic.

Then there's this side bit where her obviously morally loose Pro-Kissing Friend gets forced to, "ummmm, you know," by her boyfriend. The best part: they don't come right out and say exactly what "ummm, you know" is, precisely; our little evangelical brains are stuck taking ominous cues from the soundtrack, because, obviously, if kissing is *SUPER TABOO* it stands to reason good little church kids' heads would promptly explode if someone uttered the word "sex." Except in this clip, they'd probably say, "made love."

BUT, then they'd be putting ideas in our heads. Best to discourage kids from "giving their love away" by kissing, best not let them know such a thing as "ummmm, you know" is even possible until you've landed obliviously in your marriage bed or we'd all want to run off and try it. Except, not so much, because this video did such a great job of showing us that "making out" leads to, 'ummmmm, you know" against your will, ladies. Because "If we really loved the guy, we'd, 'ummmmm you know' to take it to the next level."

Maybe they're on to something here.

I mean, once upon a time I got kissed, too. Er, I mean - Gave My Love Away. That lead down the slippery slope from which there is no return. Eventually - ooh, "making out." I guess that's pretty much the same as grinding on a stripper pole for my lunch money in terms of this video clip. So, after that, eventually -- it's true -- I, "ummmmm, you know." So probably, if I'd put off that Kissing SIN and held onto my "love" until my wedding, I'd have been saved a world of inconvenience. HOWEVER, if the pressing of lips is tantamount to forking over your soul, I wonder where holding hands or exhanging hugs falls in that continuum? If holding hands is the new....spooning, in that case, let's call hugging the, uh, dry-humping of the Non-Kissing spectrum. One of those things your parents probably wouldn't technically approve of you doing, but hey, you won't get knocked up.....but we won't tell our Non-Kissing Heroine about that...

The happy ending in our little story is that our very kiss-free babe finds a Non-Kissing Husband with whom she shares that wedding day smooch (and how do we know he's on the side of Jesus? We know because he has a nice, conservative bowl cut instead of Kissing Goon Mullet). Non-Kissing Man confesses to Poor Man's David Hasselhoff that The Lord told him to go find a Non-Kissing Woman to marry. Probably easier that way. Then neither of you will have much idea if the other is very good at the kissing. Neither of you will be necessarily disappointed, because there's no competition. Blank slate. Very nice.

But I'm being much too literal about this.

Bottom line - this entire vignette made my day.

Haven't gotten such a kick out of kitsch in ages and ages and ages.

Not since I first watched the SNL "Natalie Raps" bit.

This one scores high on the "ow...my eyes" meter.

Oooooooookay.

I'm a little late to the game on this one, but important stuff like Shia interviews bumped this back a few days.....anyway - read about these little dancing queens last week and expected it was another case of over-reactive judgment. And, as I'm particularly difficult to offend, I was getting ready to prepare another "oh, chill out already" rebuttal along the lines of my recent defense of both Miley and Shia.

And then I actually watched the video.

Here's the situation in a nutshell:

7, 8 and 9 year-old girls in a big, fancy, dance competition staged a routine to Beyonce's "Single Ladies" tune. They wore teeeeeeny tiny little costumes that involved naked bellies and knee-high boots and frilly little lace numbers masquerading as "shorts." Oh dear, right there.

And then I watched them dance.

Watched them shake little boobs they don't have.

Watched them, um, essentially "caress" themselves in ways they don't understand.

Watched them fling their arms and legs and non-existant busts and hips and what-nots around in ways they should not.

It was -- frankly -- enough to make any full-grown adult feel dirty for even having watched it. Oh, I felt dirty.

And horrified.

And -- for once -- absolutely believe any parent who dismisses this as "just a dance" perhaps needs to unplug themselves from the Jon Benet network and very quickly throw some big, fluffy bathrobes over these girls and teach them some nice little ballet moves, instead.

I'm serious.

I'm no prude - in fact, I'm the first to say "girls will be girls" and remind us that we all put on high heels and mom's makeup and maybe even giggled over stuffing little bras with kleenex and feeling grown up from time to time. Our Barbies figured out how to make out with Ken under our watchful care long before we actually entertained the idea of kissing real boys ourselves.

BUT - I read this rather flip dismissal of the dancing girls and think "you're kidding, right?"

"These girls are wildly talented dancers. Their costumes are no worse than a two peice bathing suit. To interpret this sexually is disgusting. It shows how bad our world has become, that we think of seven year olds as sexy. These girls are doing nothing more than showing off their amazing dancing abilities, and they should not be punished for it."


Back that up for a second, please? It's NOT sexy. That's what's horrifying. The kids aren't sexy, they're sexualized - it's creepy. AND - there's pretty much no way these girls came up with that routine on their own. It had to have been choreographed, rehearsed, and approved by adults. There's no way this was orchestrated without some sort of adult involvement. And THAT is where this gets so creepy. We're not "creating" something sexual out of nothing - we're watching something that was created to be exploitive.

Of COURSE the girls are just out there to dance their hearts out and win a competition.

Of COURSE they're just having fun - and while they're at it, there are some grown-ups out there that sanctioned the boob-shaking, hip-thrusting dance moves of EIGHT year-olds.

Seven, eight, nine years old....tiny little elementary school kids. Not ten, twelve, fourteen (though I'd still go out on a limb and call that too young for some of the moves these tweaked out second graders managed). At about the 1:47 mark there's the part that strikes me as the creepiest, or most pole-dance-esque move.

That these kids are talented ISN'T in dispute. Yep, they're definitely talented - but why exploit talented little kids by allowing them to emulate "stuff" about which they should still be blissfully ignorant. Because it doesn't cut it to say, "they're young, they don't understand what that means, they're just dancing." Fine - then, as these kids' parents, I'd be seriously disturbed to watch my kid do something "she doesn't understand" when it's as grossly inappropriate as what these girls managed.

It was the entire package - the outfits, the song choice, the choreography - we SHOULD be disturbed to watch that. Parents should want to protect their kids from that sort of exploitation. We shouldn't just write it off as "just kids dancing," because - at eight years old, they're not old enough to make that call on their own.

Ok - stepping off of soapbox.

Over and out.

*Shudder. Ugh.*

One more reason to love this kid:

It's been awhile since I've waxed infatuated over my favorite kid in Hollywood, Shia LeBeouf ("kid" as in "the only actor under about 50 over whom I can manage much excitement these days"). Christopher Meloni he ain't, but I do love a man in a suit.

Other things I love: brutal honesty.

This kid doesn't seem to beat around the bush much when it comes to talking about his work. Actually - mild side-trip for a second...I just got completely derailed trying to research the origin of that "beating around the bush" idiom. Apparently it has some hunting origins. As best I could find:

"The likely origin of the phrase, beat around the bush, is derived from early hunting techniques in which unarmed men would walk around the forest beating tree branches and making noise, so as to flush the game from the bush. This allowed the hunters to avoid directly approaching the animals. This technique was most often used in boar and bird hunting. In boar hunting, this was done as a safety measure due to the razor sharp tusks and the likelihood of a boar charging a hunter. In bird hunting this was to scare the birds from their cover so that hunters could take them easily."

So there you have it.

But, back to LeBeouf.

He's at Cannes this week, and chatted pretty candidly with the LA Times about both Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Both turkeys.

Both huge cash cows.

Both disappointing to -- apparently -- both audiences and Shia alike.

Excerpt from the LA Times article reads like this:

It's official: Shia LaBeouf has no filter. While hardly no one can blame the 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps' actor for recently saying he "wasn't impressed" with the Michael Bay-helmed 'Transformers 2,' his latest comments about another film and its much-more-famous director may actually catch some heat. Interviewed at the Cannes Film Festival, LaBeouf came right out and said he was saddened by 2008's 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,' saying he and everyone involved -- including director Steven Spielberg -- "dropped the ball" on the blockbuster sequel.

"I feel like I dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished," LaBeouf told the LA Times, apologetically. "If I was going to do it twice, my career was over."
Oh, and LaBeouf wasn't the only principle actor bummed out by the movie.


"We [Harrison Ford and LaBeouf] had major discussions. He wasn't happy with it either. Look, the movie could have been updated. There was a reason it wasn't universally accepted."


While the film may have been a financial success, earning nearly $800 million worldwide, LaBeouf believes Spielberg needs to hear it from a friend that 'Skull' was a mess. He urges the director to not let one bad movie get to him.


"I'll probably get a call [from Spielberg]," LaBeouf rightly predicts. "But he needs to hear this. I love him. I love Steven. I have a relationship with Steven that supersedes our business work. And believe me, I talk to him often enough to know that I'm not out of line. And I would never disrespect the man. I think he's a genius, and he's given me my whole life. He's done so much great work that there's no need for him to feel vulnerable about one film. But when you drop the ball you drop the ball."


LaBeouf fully admits he wasn't very convincing as a leather jacket-wearing action hero, saying he just wasn't up to the task.

"You get to monkey-swinging and things like that and you can blame it on the writer and you can blame it on Steven [Spielberg]. But the actor's job is to make it come alive and make it work, and I couldn't do it. So that's my fault. Simple."


LaBeouf begins filming the third 'Transformers' movie on Tuesday, but last week he said he "wasn't really impressed with 'Transformers 2'" and that despite having "some really wild stunts," the flick's "heart was gone."


On Michael Bay, who directed 'Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen' and will also helm the third film: "Mike went so big that it became too big, and I think you lost the anchor of the movie."

He's totally right.

Loved that he specifically touched on the swinging through the trees with monkeys bit. Because that (along with the "surviving a nuclear blast in a fridge" bit along with the "going over waterfalls in a jeep" bit, along with the "aliens making Cate Blanchett explode with knowledge" bit along with the "wedding at the end bit" along with the entire "Presence of Karen Allen" bit) was a definite low point in a movie full of low points. But I liked that he took the high road and admitted he wasn't "action hero" enough to carry it off believably. Not that it had anything to do with him, it had more to do with the presence of a completely computer-generated jungle and awful computer-generated monkeys. That's a no-win situation, right there. To me, that says this kid "gets it." They made a bad movie. He probably had FUN making the bad movie - all of them probably did....but at the end of the day, it wasn't worth the franchise coattails it road into summer blockbuster status.

So, too, with Transformers.

The first one was a great, guilty pleasure. A few laughs, some good action sequences, Megan Fox in a little denim skirt bent over under the hood of a car. All good things. The horrible shortcomings of the sequel made a little more sense when I realized the second installment was a casualty of the writers strike and that the script was patched together at the last minute by a handful of different people - that actually excused quite a bit. But what the first movie did right, the sequal drove into the ground without any finesse ("quirky parent characters" anyone?). Audiences recognized that. Shia isn't saying anything the rest of us hadn't thought through already.

So, I'd take issue with that opening line about the kid having no filter. I think he filters just fine. He didn't sabotage the movies while they were still in theatres by bashing the direction at the premiers or during the press circuits. He was decently self-effacing even here and acknowledged some culpability in the equation.

I guess the question at this point becomes "what happens if 'Wall Street 2'  or Transformers 3 or whatever he tackles next likewise lacks heart, falls flat, and fails to deliver?" Does HE become the X factor in all of these rather lackluster movies? The "Eagle Eye" lover in me says Nope!. But I'm a sucker for this guy, and -- apparently contrary to popular belief -- think he's actually a decently believable actor with plenty of charisma and silver screen appeal.

It was interesting to see an immediate reaction in the blogs against him - accusing him of biting the hand that feeds, of being too cavalier in doling out the condemnation, of being an ungrateful, spoiled little hack that doesn't show proper respect to industry elders, even suggesting that he'll end up unemployable if he makes statements like that about directors like Spielberg.

Ehhhhhh, I'm thinking he hasn't really damanged anyone or anything that wasn't already damaged the second we watched Indy bounce across the dusty plains in the fridge or the second we watched a yellow Camaro give that obnoxious blonde a facial with mystery green car....goo. And I suspect (though who knows for sure) that it's BECAUSE Shia's got a solid relationship with The Spielberg Hand That Feeds that he's able to make these sort of observations in a respectful way (ok, yes, a very public way, sure, but......). And is verbalizing what the rest of us have thought for ages really being terribly flippant? Nah.

Basically, I think this is a great case of folks overreacting. Aha - my theme lately: I'm having a good time acting non-plussed while people get called out for being inappropriate.

Hey, the 4th Indiana Jones was 20 years coming - the least they could have done was made a GOOD movie after 20 years. As for Transformers: we all know the second movie in a multi-movie franchise always blows. Now it's just up to them to create a great third installment that makes us forget about, oh, EVERYTHING from the second.

You know what I want for my birthday????

I want an ass-grab from a sock-less man in high-water pants while we're wearing Matching Jaunty Hats.

Whoa - hold up....you mean I'm copying Pacey and that National Treasure chick with my glorious, one-in-a-million birthday wish? You mean someone else already tackled the ass-grab in Matching Hats, but with the added sparkle of being IN ROME while it went down?

Wowza.

I'm so behind the curve now.

They totally just ruined my birthday.

Ok - fine, the birthday is still a month away, I've got time to come up with another perfect wish. OK - here goes - I've got it:

I would like to go do some shopping in the city....I would like a man in a mock-turtleneck to come along to help me carry my shopping loot. We'll go big - I'll bring along something like a saddlebag to keep all of my cash in. I'll wear fantastic riding boots - it will all be very equestrian. Best birthday ever. And the icing on the birthday cake: this bag-carrying man and I, we'll be wearing Matching Jaunty Hats.

Get out. Are you serious? Pacey and that National Treasure chick ruined that completely original birthday wish, too? No Flipping Way:

They're killin me here. Taking absolutely all of my great ideas and sucking the originality right out of them. I mean that saddlebag, cropped riding jacket and funny boots while shopping thing, that takes some creativity - not every girl thinks that would make the ultimate birthday gig....

Damn those two.

OK - I won't be outdone. Another birthday wish. Third time's a charm. I'd LOVE to get runway-side seats to a fashion show. Doesn't have to be anything big and fancy and Valentino, even a little Tommy Hilfiger debut would be fine. Yeah - a Tommy show, we'll be ringside, I'll take a nice man friend along. We'll look very styling, very cutting edge - we'll even take a fashion risk and wear sunglasses indoors for the entire evening (because, you know, at this point there's a certain amount of deliberate, retro kitsch about wearing sunglasses while indoors - I think it'll be a smash hit). And while we're at it: how about we both wear Matching Dashing Scarves. Art Deco-esque printed scaves, maybe? Because that says "whimsical. fun-loving. quirky." And one of us in a scarf is fine, but I think it really projects an image of style solidarity if BOTH of us are in Art Deco-esque printed scarves. Yes! That would make for a Perfect Birthday.

Oh.

You don't say:

No sweat. I'm aiming too high, here. I mean, it's just another birthday. Think local. I'll just grab my man, my bike, my motorcycle boots and head to my favorite local parking garage to go for a spin. I'll put a trendy twist on biking by bustin out my best Pocahontas earrings and a sort of bohemian-looking vest. It'll all be very free spirited. But I've learned my lesson -- we won't wear anything matching this time....apparently Pacey and that National Treasure chick have tackled that pretty well already:

Happy Birthday, me.

Meh. Basically.

Alternate title: in defense of yet another unnecessarily criticized music video.

Victim this week: Miley Cyrus.

*****ARDENT DISCLAIMER: because I take fiendish pride in the fact that I've never listened to a single Miley/Hannah tune in my life (and will go to great lengths to keep it that way, though I won't speak for whether or not I own *cough* a pair of stretch pants with her name on the label *cough*), I actually watched this "Can't Be Tamed" video with the sound off.

My rationalization: I figured I could focus more directly on the actual imagery getting all of the attention without the distraction of her obnoxiously grating, cigarette-voice. And I just keep telling myself that.....

So: "people" (primarily -- and my personal favorite -- the righteously indignant gossip site COMMENTERS) are putting on their best "Appalled-Disgusted-and-Taken Aback" hats at the "Overtly Sexualized Image" dear lil Miley has managed in this video.

Because, you know, birds are sexy, naughty creatures. And our influenceable daughters totally know that channeling a vulture will make all the little boys hot.

And seventeen is clearly too young to sit in a cage with a faux-nest (whether that's what she's sitting upon OR what's sitting upon her head is yours to decide) and fling her little feathers around. Because that's about as sexy as it gets. She's wearing an ugly metal costume. She dances a little bit.

There's one scene where she's actually - GASP - laying on her back. Uh oh. Because our influenceable daughters also totally know that the second you're laying on your back in an ugly costume, you're toeing the Lolita line like nobody's business.

"Uh, Heather, in case you didn't NOTICE, she totally had her hand on her, um...upper ribcage in a few shots. That's like, totally too close to her little seventeen year-old...uh....breast for our parental comfort. Did I just say breast?"

To which I say:

"Oh, sorry, I didn't realize this was the first teenager to ever look sexy for money."

"Uh, also, Heather - in case you didn't FURTHER notice, we think we might have possibly seen her do a little hip-thrust-ee thing there in the middle of the video. Maybe. We think she was GRINDING on an invisible something. Seventeen year-olds should never do that with their hips. Not when there are children watching."

To which I say:

"I carried a watermelon."

Ahhh. Catch that reference there?

Baby? Johnny? "Entertainment staff" anyone?

Yeah - uh, Miley's hardly covering new ground here.

Well, new avian ground, maybe. I don't know that we've tried to do "hot, sexy bird" in recently history. So she's the first barely-legal BIRD to toss her hair around on screen in awhile. Ok, we'll give her that.

Basically, she just looks ANGRY. She can't be tamed, dammit. She's got some seventeen-year old IRE to vent on our judgemental asses. She can't be tamed, won't be tamed, hasn't been tamed, don't we dare try to tame her. She'll sic daddy on you if you try to tame her. Can't be done. Disney will make sure of it.

Yawn.

What's the point?

We've seen younger girls do worse, MANY times. It's like a rite of pop passage to titilate the middle-aged masses. If they're not gnashing their teeth and deriding you as inappropriate, you need to ditch your agent and take up with a new producer. Really. Unless I've just become completely desensitized to what's appropriate and what's not these days (and, ok, I'll allow a nod in that general direction, because I'm exceptionally difficult to offend, which may very well mean my "inapprorpriate radar" is also a little fried), it seems to me this is just a sort of dark, squinty, befeathered take on the "look at me, I'm grown up!" schtick that's been done to death by generations of Not-Yet-Girls-Not-Yet-Women.
Here's hoping this halloween sees a huge "Sexy Bird" trend. That'd be hot.

Met Gala Re-cap

So, apparently I don't like famous women named Jennifer. Except Jennifer Connelly. She's exquisite and can do no wrong.

But most other Jennifers rub me the wrong way. Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jennifer Lopez - they all drive me nuts. I find reasons to dislike everything they do, even if I'd have done it the same way. Case in point: I don't care how well put-together and mink-eyelashed out JLo is, I've still never looked at a picture of her and thought, "wow, she looks amazing." Her style is not my style. Usually her dresses are too drapey and her hair too tightly wound. She tends to look like she's so carefully constructed shrill alarms would sound if you got too close to her...because, you know, she wouldn't want to get accidentally bumped and have her perfectly drapey grecian sherbet-colored gown swoop the wrong direction or something.

Anyway - caught a picture of her at the Met Costume Gala "Ball" event this week and was absolutely stunned: she looks flippin INCREDIBLE. Absolutely incredible. Not a thing I would change about her look:

Seriously. Click the picture (the original is giant). The eye makeup is staggeringly well-done. The hair: for once not pulled facelift-tight. The dress is picture-perfect, her skin looks positively luminous: she absolutely killed it. Whoever styled her for this even needs a permanent position. She even pulls off the glamourous "don't you want a piece of this" carpet pose with just enough edge that she doesn't look Zellweger-prissy. Love it.

ON THE OTHER HAND.

This girl usually nails the red carpet. I (ordinarily) like her style. She's ambitious - doesn't stick to safe dresses, she'll push the envelope (in a less obnoxious way than, say, SJP and in a less smug way than Kristen Stewart), she'll try high-concept fashion, she almost always looks age-appropriate and always keeps it simple (and chic) with the hair and makeup.

And then This Happened:

I'm not entirely sure where to start.  Do I pick apart the limp, sloppy hair? The chewing gum? The lackluster skin, the "applied while driving" makeup, the dress that looks like equal parts 1976 Christmas tree skirt and runner up in the Junior Miss Star Trek Siren competition? It's like she just stepped out of sparkly tar. And yes, that's a flower chain of some sort on her head. Except its metallic? The dress does nothing for her rack, and those strange hip-level seams make her look frumpy. This girl is not usually capable of frumpy. Major fail, Leighton Meester. Major fail. Especially the flutter shoulders. I'd have been a lot more forgiving of this entire misstep if we didn't have flutter shoulders to contend with and if she'd had the good sense to groom the eyebrows or style the hair before wandering in front of the cameras....

Here, how 'bout some more: I can't explain it, but I don't hate this. I don't. Maybe because the color is so vibrant, maybe because her makeup looks great and her hair is actually a nice, soft complement to the severe neckline of the dress, maybe because it's one of her less-kooky getups in recent history, but it works for me. I don't even hate the shoes (though on the legs of a less svelte woman they'd have been a major, outfit-killing blunder). All-in all, it's actually sort of dainty. Sort of. Nice, sedate little earrings, clutch to match the shoes...I dunno, I think it's actually quite eye-catching. And few others could pull it off, so well done, Chloe Sevigny:

We'll follow that "Quirky & Cute" brand of kooky up with a healthy dose of "When Mystic Tan Attacks" brand of kooky. I'm a fan of the body that is Blake Lively. I'm just no fan of what she usually choses to dress that body in. But that's not the problem in this case. Well, ok, it is A problem, but not the primary problem. Normally, she's got a great, sort of naturally sun-kissed complexion (let's go with "Mystic Level 1). I think she stepped it up a few too many notches. I thought it was the cardinal rule of spray tanning that Mystic Level 3 is ALWAYS ill-advised for us white folk. Particular blonde-haired white folk. SO, even putting aside our impossibly tiny Miss America Runner-Up dress and shoes that remind me of something The Little Mermaid's Ursula might wear, the decision to pull all of her pretty blonde hair back so severely (presumably so that we can enjoy the Seasame Street roadkill on her shoulder) leaves us with nothing to look at but her orange pallor. And for a leggy, busty, well-proportioned beach-blonde, we should never have to resort to thinking, "if only she wasn't so Creamsicle-colored."

 

On the other hand: I suppose I'd rather look like what happened when Stretch Armstrong knocked up an Oompa Loompa than like Elizabeth Banks (because under the banner of ill-advised mating, she looks like what happens when a big, vicious snake decides to nail a crow instead of eating it for breakfast):

 

Also: as long as I'm being catty....she needs to take a cue from Jennifer Lopez on the proper hue of smokey to use when doing the dramatic, smudgy eyes. Her shade of grey sort of comes off more like High School Cheerleader in the Wet & Wild section of a drug store and less sultry-chic. I'll choose to believe, however, that the dark roots are strategic rather than, um....an oops. Because on the one hand, they do match her shoes (the only bright spot in this outfit....and had she passed on those wretched tights, they actually would have been a runaway hit).

BUT, she's never been ORIGINAL, just BETTER.

Here's the thing. I adore Christina Aguilera.

ADORE.

She's one talented itty bitty little woman. Huge voice. Adorable as sin.

I know every word to every song on every cd she's popped out. Squished myself into a stadium full of barely legals when she came through town on her first big tour years and years ago.

Am sort of hopelessly devoted to the girl, caked on makeup and all.

So by now we've seen her new "Not Myself Tonight" video.

And yes, she tries to be edgy, she tries to shock, she slithers all over a girl, uses a sort of facelessly hot guy as a stripper pole toward the end, sits around in bondage gear and pasties, rocks all sorts of vinyl outfits and ugly hairstyles - generally channels every Madonna and Lady Gaga video out there, fails to break any NEW video ground and is being taken to the rug for a decided lack of orinality.

But here's a thought:

Xtina's NEVER been original.

She's just been better.

She popped onto the pop scene behind Britney - her song and dance routine (even back then) was initially derrided as being a copycat act - another young blonde Mickey Mouse Club grad in a post-"Oops! I Did It Again" world.

And then we discovered she was actually a better singer.

In this case, it's been years and years since her last studio release - she's been off playing mom and now she's back on the promotional circuit with a new single, new video, and new CD due out June 8th. And since Christina was last seen, Lady Gaga became the pop heir apparent, pushed the limits of CGI costumery in her videos and slowly garnered all sorts of international pop love in a post-Xtina top 40 landscape. So what's a grown-up, married off mom to do in order to feel relevant again (or at least generate enough hum to guarantee that we download the CD out of curiosity, if nothing else...)??

Lick things. Flip us off. Not-quite-go-down-on-a-girl. Pour something black and sticky all over herself (you can call it chocolate if you like, I'm thinking it looks decidedly more like something that has the power to create little Batman spawn....). Hump the floor. Play with a whip.

Anyway - she needs to put herself back on the map, so she comes out with a video that sort of bombards the senses with lots of quick flashes of skin, weird eye makeup, strange hair, and some sort of tired, recyled, hair-tossing "dance" moves.

She's in incredible shape, we'll give her that. Looks amazing, actually. Probably better than she did in the assless chaps of "Dirrty" days past.

But here's the question, I suppose:

Why do we point fingers and scream "Unoriginal! Ripoff! Recycled!" when we watch her video, as though visual innovation was the only thing that mattered? Why not call it a striking homage? I mean, it's fun to watch. Nope, it's not really covering any new territory, but I suspect we'd agree she looks great, the song is catchy and well-produced (if a little predictable, and no, not altogether unique) and frankly, the "name the video she's copying there!" game is fun. It's like Skittles. You know what you're getting when you rip into a bag of Skittles. They're good. They're colorful. They're tasty. You never get a "bad" batch of Skittles. They're yummy comfort candy, sort of like Christina's yummy comfort pop.

She's good.

She's talented.

She can sing.

She choses good songs.

She waits and comes ot with great (read: catch) music, the sort I leave in my car cd player for months at a time. We have fun singing along with her (er, try our best to keep up with some serious vocal acrobatics...).

She seems stable - settled down. Normal, almost. That's more than we can say for the high drama, high-exposure lives of everyone from Britney to Rihanna to Jessica Simpson and JLo.

My suggestion: use the fact that she's getting all of these Lady Gaga comparisons to her advantage. Everyone loves the Gaga. In my fantasy pop music league they'd collaborate on something, actually. There's lots to love about both ladies.

Anyway: I'm excited for the CD. I enjoyed watching the video. Who says it has to be original - it's a fun, guilty pleasure and the song isn't too bad, either.

But I'm biased: I adore this girl.

final mention of the Chickenwich: it was SO. GOOD.

First off: I'd say "hormones made me do it" (which is 50% true), but really, honestly, I've just been enamored with this thing I've deemed Chickenwich since before it was even officially on the menu.

Yesterday I got myself my very own Double Down ("Original fried" not "grilled" because, frankly, as sis and I agreed - two slabs of grilled chicken with some cheese between them sounds, um....slimy? messy? Like a chickenwich anti-climax).

It was - surprisingly - absolutely, incredibly, exceptionally delicious.

It was - also, surprisingly - not messy.

It was cheesy, chicken-ee perfection. I'm (unfortunately) hooked.

I'll describe it this way:

2 perfectly peppery, oversized chicken nuggets with some slightly melted cheese and a slice of bacon in the middle. Add some mystery orange sauce (which could have been messy, but was slathered in reasonable proportions and managed to just seep down into the little fried chicken crevices and didn't so much as leak down my fingers or even dribble into the little protective paper wrapping). Has all the potential to be the new Taco Bell of late night post-drinking, booze-absorbing junk food.

Nearly finished the entire thing. This is significant because I have trouble finishing an entire McDonald's cheeseburger on an average day (call it more an exercise of conscience rather than lack of appetite, I guess).

Couldn't tell you the last time I actually ate something from KFC. Now I'm afraid it will be my go-to PMS antidote (previously I'd run to the loving embrace of something like Stuffed Crust Pizza Hut when I need to get my greasy fix for those "I"m already retaining water, what's a little extra sodium and fat?) days.

It was better than I imagined. I'd feared dry chicken. Or drippy, greasy, slips-from-your-fingers chicken. Or tough, rubbery bacon. Or oozy, sticky, running-for-its-life cheese mess. None of the above. It really is a masterfully engineered beauty of fast food.

And I just keep telling myself "the cravings will subside, the cravings will subside." Praying that's true. I'm already wearing an extra eight around the hips these days - I don't need Double Down on the thighs as well. But really: SO. GOOD.