Superhot Advance Fashion Tip

The single glove, the surgical mask, the braided jackets, the bandage as accessory. Michael Jackson has always been ahead of the trends. Now CNN has caught Jackson wearing a ski mask in a Wal-Mart and the fashion world holds its collective breath.

"When the officer stopped the vehicle, Michael was the only one with the mask on. He removed it so the officer could see who it was and the officer found there was nothing to it, and that was the end of the story," said Lt. Bill Kimminau of the Glenwood Springs Police Department. "It was a routine call, other than the fact that now it's Michael Jackson."

Next thing you know, Blanket will be the hot new name for newborns.

The Gift of Grab

Hey. If former Versace model Leslie Ann Woodward was presenting an award at the Oscars this Sunday, she'd make out so much better financially than she did trying to wangle a divorce settlement out of husband Robert Evans. The 34-year-old sixth wife of the famed movie mogul, 73, was denied in court the $35,000 per month she requested for candles, flowers, vacations, dog care and pool maintenance. This year's 125 presenters at the Academy Awards, however, will each receive a bag of swag worth $110,000. It's filled with all of the above, plus jewelry, spa treatments, a Samsung HDTV, and lots more. While the marriage lasted only nine months, the ceremony seemingly never ends. But I'd still take the bag. (NY Daily News, 4th and last items)

Doin' Time Steps

Remember that nutty musical episode of HBO's prison drama Oz a few years ago? Now comes the song-and-dance revue Prison Boyz, an off-Broadway production inspired by artist Sam Wagner's Website, hotprisonpals.com. Producers are looking for muscular tattooed types (ideally those whose prison-release dates precede the show's summer opening). (Page Six)

Starwash

How much would you pay to see George Clooney, in a toga, washing your car? $500? How much if he was wearing something other than a toga, arguably the single most unsexy garment? $4,000? George's dad, Nick, is running for the U.S. House of Representatives in Kentucky's 4th District and George will be holding a fundraiser for him in Studio City, California. "I'm having a cocktail party at my house on Saturday March 6, at 7 p.m.," George wrote in a letter to potential donors. "It's a benefit so there will be entertainment, hors d'oeuvres and booze. And I'll wash your car every week till it's paid off and Armor All the tires . . . in a toga." (Page Six)

The Good, the Bad and the Trophies

This Sunday, the Academy Awards ceremony will take place in Los Angeles, at which gleaming statuettes will be presented to Hollywood's finest from 1993. The day before, in Santa Monica, the Golden Raspberries will be awarded for the worst that Hollywood produced that same year. Oddly, the nominations are not the same at both ceremonies. Catherine Siepp, in LA City Beat, says the media have developed a habit of using the Razzies to needle nominated celebrities.

In an interview to promote the opening of Paycheck in Europe last month, French journalist Didier Verdurand asked Ben Affleck if he planned to attend the Razzies, since Gigli looks like it might collect many Framboises d’Or for Affleck’s trophy shelf. (At least in theory: Actual gold-painted plaster Raspberry Awards are in short supply, so Raspberries founder John JB Wilson usually sends out certificates instead.) “I assume we’re heavy favorites to win,” Affleck answered about his Gigli chances, adding that he might indeed show up.

Click here to see all the 24th Annual Razzie Award nominations.

Dude, How Old Am I?

Have we all been hunk'd? Is Ashton Kutcher a lot older than he acts? Is he 30 rather than 26? Is it even important? The National Enquirer expands (a bit) on its recent discovery, changing forever the notion that he and Demi share a May-December romance. It's closer to May-June.

According to a bazillion press clippings, actor Christopher Ashton Kutcher was born Feb. 7, 1978, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. But Los Angeles County Registrar's voter registration records show a Christopher Ashton Kutcher who was born in Iowa and currently residing in Beverly Hills with a birth date of Feb. 7, 1974. Pure coincidence? A clerical error? Call us skeptical, but we think not!

She Was Riveted to Her Seat

How dangerous is it to go to the movies these days? Quite dangerous, it would seem. First, legendary actress Celeste Holm was rushed to the hospital during a screening of Bernardo Bertolucci's full-frontal The Dreamers. Now, according to Fox News, a woman dropped dead watching Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Probably the film's worst review yet.

Scott was attending a 9:30 a.m. showing of the movie with some co-workers from Clear Channel Radio when she collapsed about 20 minutes before the end of the movie. KAKE-TV, which was filming a story on local reactions to the film, reported that Scott collapsed during the film's bloody crucifixion scene.

It Pays to Get in Bed with Jacko

Martin Bashir, the British television journo whose documentary, Living With Michael Jackson, was seen by 27 million people in the United States last year, is said to be on deck to replace Barbara Walters when she leaves (and not a moment too soon) her post on ABC's 20/20 in September. The Guardian UK says the deal could be worth a million bucks to Bashir.

TV executives were not aware of the move until yesterday afternoon, when they were still celebrating Bashir's success at the Royal Television Society's journalism awards on Tuesday. Living with Michael Jackson, an edition of the Tonight programme presented by Bashir, was named programme of the year at the ceremony.

While the Jackson documentary capped Bashir's career, there was a backlash when the singer made his own film that showed Bashir praising his relationship with his children. Jackson launched a legal action that is still outstanding: at the time his spokesman said Jackson felt "betrayed" by Bashir's portrayal. The singer has since been charged with molesting a 12-year-old boy with whom he was shown holding hands in the film.

Stopping Shorts

The NY Daily News' Rush and Molloy report (3rd item) that the delivery of a gift basket (so to speak) of white undershorts from 2(x)ist to newbie Yankee Alex Rodriguez was intercepted in the lobby of Trump World Towers, where A-Rod has recently taken up residence.

"The building called and said the package was a security threat, and that it had to be picked up immediately," laughs our snitch. "I don't know what they thought was in there. It was a gift bag - anybody could have seen it was just some shorts."

Perhaps security thought the gift package would become a threatening package when the ballplayer put the tighty-whities on.

Bush Bush

With everything that's going on now and the elections virtually around the corner, it's time to resurrect this site, don't you think?

The Category Details

In the "Calendar Weekend" section of today's Los Angeles Times, the hilarious Paul Brownfield (my favorite journo at the moment) laments that he never remembers who won what at the Oscars. Which turns out to be a common malady. (Quick: Who won best supporting actor two years ago?)

. . .Oscar amnesia has chilling implications. It suggests that the hundreds of hours of Oscar-related programming on E! Entertainment Television, "Entertainment Tonight" and "Access Hollywood" don't actually mean anything. More important, it illustrates a yearly Oscar fallacy: We watch the buildup, talk about the buildup, read about the buildup, and then it all goes poof from our minds not a moment later. What's the point of the intense focus, if it's only to be followed by the intense forgetting?

Blogged Down

The New York Times reports that more than 300 Web sites and blogs went grey yesterday, staging a 24-hour online protest over a record company's efforts to stop them from offering downloadable copies of The Grey Album, which mixes tracks from the Beatles' classic White Album with raps from Jay-Z's latest release, The Black Album.

The Grey Album is a critically praised collection of tracks created by Brian Burton, a Los Angeles D.J. who records as Danger Mouse. Mr. Burton created the album by layering Jay-Z's a cappella raps from The Black Album, released on Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella label, over music he arranged using melodies and rhythms from The Beatles, commonly known as the White Album.

Dish Watcher

Husky-voiced actress Tara Reid (a fleeting cameo on last night's Scrubs) had to be carried out of a Miami nightclub again after she had one too many cocktails and wound up passed out on the floor. Pretty. Should we start to worry? (Page Six)

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Rick Salomon, who made a spectacle of himself recently when he costarred with Paris Hilton in that sex tape, claims to have slept with Drew Barrymore when she was 15 and he was 20. Top of his latest wish list? Christina Aquilera. (Page Six)
Now Hilton can add "film director" to her résumé. A lawsuit brought against Salomon by an Internet company states that "Ms. Hilton offered directorial comments and physically controlled and directed the camera" during taping. Of course, we the people already knew that. (IMDb)

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Thesmokinggun.com invites you to be its guest in examining freakish celebrity husband David Gest's current pain meds, which are legion. In addition to the 28 daily Botox injections to the head he receives to relieve migraines, he ingests a minimum of 16 pills a day, including OxyContin, Vicodin and morphine sulphate for severe pain. Yummy. But the WOW Report wonders: Is Gest's head really shot full of Botox as he would have you believe or is he wearing one of those chilling Female Latex Masks by Kerry?

Severely (A)Cute

All the rage in Japan (Fenton brought this mask back from Tokyo), but not a single one seen on the streets of New York or LA. Which is why I (hack hack) thought I'd been stricken with SARS last week.

Symptoms of SARS In general, SARS begins with a high fever (temperature greater than 100.4°F [>38.0°C]). Other symptoms may include headache, an overall feeling of discomfort, and body aches. Some people also have mild respiratory symptoms at the outset. About 10 percent to 20 percent of patients have diarrhea. After 2 to 7 days, SARS patients may develop a dry cough. Most patients develop pneumonia.

Son of Chuckie

Killer Michael Alig doll up for bid on eBay. Wears a straightjacket and silver jeans, ships in a lunchbox. Heroin and Drano not included. But perhaps you actually are Michael Alig, or one of his friends. Find out here.

Looky Loo

It's all dun with mirrors. A London art exhibit features a functioning toilet enclosed in a box of one-way glass on a sidewalk by the Thames, across the street from the Tate Britain Museum. A person inside the outhouse can see passersby while remaining unseen by them. OK, but you go first and I'll watch. (MSNBC News International)

The Passion of the Critics

The reviews are in. Here, a clutch of blurbs not likely to make the ads.

More...

The Academy would like to thank Janet

A five-second delay will be inaugurated at this Sunday's "live" Oscarcast on ABC, so expect nothing spontaneous. Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences president Frank Pierson tells the Hollywood Reporter that the delay "introduces a form of censorship." Ironically, or sadly, the censorship comes on the 30th anniversary of the ceremony's famous streaker incident.

Are you old enough to remember that fateful night? A naked 33-year-old man named Robert Opal streaked briefly into view, flashing a peace sign, as NBC cameras cut away to avoid a full frontal assault, as it were. In a truly inspired bit of ad-libbing, the ever-poised David Niven -- standing on stage to present an award -- deadpanned, "The only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping ... and showing his shortcomings."

Puddle in a Muddle

Seems like only yesterday an entire audience was the plaintive in a lawsuit brought against arena rockers Creed for putting on a lame show. Now Stereogum.com reports that Puddle of Mudd frontman Wes Scantlin was abandoned mid-concert by fellow bandmembers for being non compos mentis.

MTVNews reports: Four songs into a Puddle of Mudd show in Toledo, singer Wes Scantlin's bandmates walked offstage, leaving a stumbling, hostile Scantlin alone. Scantlin was, by his own admission to the crowd, "too f---ed up" to perform. Still, he remained onstage for half an hour after the band's departure, shouting insults and profanity at the audience and singing songs that he seemed to make up as he went along.

Scratching in the Catbox

As the final episode of Sex and the City fades from memory, the merchandizing shifts into full gear. HBO's official Website is crammed with product, from tees to athletic shorts to camisoles to martini glasses, champagne flutes, and tumblers--all with logo, of course. Not to mention the separate seasons on DVD and the Bushnell books and the hot-off-the-press companion book Kiss and Tell--and a tote to Carrie it all around in. (Pun inspired by the series, sorry.) It may seem like an after-the-fact overload, but perhaps it's just what we need right now: some positive, overpriced merch we can clutch onto in the wake of learning today of the hostility Kim Cattrall has been receiving from her costars. Upsetting.

Rumors have circulated for years that the show's two biggest stars do not get along," reports today's "Page Six," but insiders now cite specifics. "Two years ago, while filming in Atlantic City, Sarah Jessica rented a house for herself, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon. Kim was left out on her own," says an insider.

Sources say Parker has cultivated [executive producer] Michael Patrick King to get more airtime for Carrie Bradshaw, while Cattrall became more demanding as her sexually voracious character Samantha became more and more popular. "By the end, no one would talk to Kim. Not even in the makeup room," our on-set insider said.

Pearl Necklace

Simon Napier Bell, the scandalous music svengali best known for managing Wham!, took WOW's fearless leaders Fenton and Randy to dinner at the Oriental hotel while they were in Bangkok interviewing him for their Inside Deep Throat doc.

Being at the hotel reminded Bell of the time when a famous pop personality friend of his rented the suite that prime minister Margaret Thatcher was to occupy the next night. The popster orchestrated an orgy with 30 hustlers and before they left he had them all shoot their loads on the mattress the Iron Lady would be sleeping on. Audacious.

"But it really was a public service," says Fenton. He recalls how no less an expert on ejaculate than Helen Gurley Brown rhapsodized about the rejuvenating effects of spunk when she talked to the Inside Deep Throat cameras. "Ejaculate," she said, "I've always known, is good for the complexion. It's full of babies, it's full of protein, it's full of plasma. To rub it all over your face and neck and chest--a lot of women know that that's a good thing to do." And if anyone needed moisteruizing, Fenton reminds us, it was Thatcher.

Vagina Monologue

Speaking of psychedelic, porn star Marilyn Chambers uses the word when talking about blowjobs in Inside Deep Throat, the new documentary about Linda Lovelace and the Seventies porn industry. "Your mind just gets into a whole thing where your throat does feel like a vagina," she says. "You get confused; it's like you go into a trance basically, and, it's really, um, I was going to say psychedelic, but that's kind of an old word." Old Humphry must be tripping in his grave.  

Recently Dead

Fresh on the heels of the death last week of Madge the manicurist ("you're soaking in it"), comes news of the demise, at 86, of British psychiatrist Humphry Osmond (at right), coiner of the term "psychedelic," bless him. In 1957, Osmond presented the term at a meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences, saying the word meant "mind manifesting." He'd come up with the word after Brave New World author Aldous Huxley detailed his experiences on mescaline in the book, The Doors of Perception. Huxley had sent Dr. Osmond a rhyme with his own word choice: "To make this trivial world sublime, take half a gram of phanerothyme." Thymos means soul in Greek. But Osmond rapped back: "To fathom Hell or soar angelic, just take a pinch of psychedelic." Of course, the word would come to be inextricably linked with the drug LSD. And we've been soaking in it ever since.

Marathon Man

In a charitable Sunday New York Times profile that is not quite a Puff piece, Sean P. Diddy Combs, comes off as, well, a sympathetic renaissance man. Imagine. The man who wears more career hats than he has names (or hats) is a rapper, producer, dancer, party host, fashion mogul, talent scout, boyfriend, marathon runner, philanthropist, and actor.

More than anything else, of course, Mr. Combs is the pre-eminent hip-hop capitalist. He has mastered the art of conspicuous consumption, and over the years, his excesses have often provoked four stages of envy, no less acute than those five stages of grief. First comes shock: he chartered what? Then scorn: who does he think he is? Then amusement: I suppose he'll want to pilot it himself. And then, finally, understanding, maybe even sympathy: how else were all those guests going to get to his birthday party?

False Alarm

The Alarm, a Brit band known primarily for its 1983 hit, "68 Guns," changed its name temporarily to the Poppy Fields, hired Welsh teen punks the Wayriders to pose as them and lipsynch in the video for "45 RPM" and--voila!--had its first top-30 hit on the UK charts in 15 years. The Alarm said it pulled the stunt to show how much image affected sales in the music industry. I had no idea.

Apocalypse Now, and Then

I came back to LA from New York last week sick as a dawg with what could only have been SARS (Sorta Almost Radical Sickness). Being plunged suddenly into New York's sub-zero, windchill-factoring temps after years of not appreciating LA's unrelentingly moderate climate was a harsh experience: Why didn't someone remind me to pack a sweater at least? Feverish and gasping for air, I was in no mood to report on my trip (though I did manage to mention it, albeit briefly and somewhat obliquely, on Feb. 18). Now I feel comfortable reporting that most really best parties these days seem to feature something, someone, or everything from the Eighties. In November, the New York party for photog Patrick McMullan's so8os, a virtual high-school yearbook for anyone whoever did a bump during that decade, took over New York's Avalon nightclub, the redecorated former site of the notorious Limelight. It seemed everyone from back in the day and the index of the book returned to the scene to celebrate with McMullan, and looked none the worse for wear. (Apparently, a steady diet of drugs and alcohol has the same effect as moisturizer--who knew?) On a smaller scale, the hilarious Fred Rothbell-Mista, who ruled the VIP room at the Limelight, has just opened a wine-and-sake hotspot in the East Village called the Apocalypse Lounge, designed as a kind of eye-popping down-the-rabbit-hole adventure for artists and their groupies, a throwback to the true spirit of the East Village. Its glamorous cocktails-and-conversation opening drew a host of biggies from the Eighties, like Danceteria's Rudolf Pieper, Jackie 60's Johnny Dynell and Chi Chi Valenti, Culture Club's Boy George, and others. It's why I went to New York. Michael Musto writes about it in his latest Village Voice column, La Dolce Musto.

Rivers of orange juice and vodka led to Limelight legend Fred Rothbell-Mista's sceney new Apocalypse Lounge, an East Village artists' hangout with cute, sick touches, like furniture marked "Gas Masks" and "Morphine," and a hidden cabinet filled with bottles and tubes labeled "Jacko" and "Gest—Apply locally to bruised areas only." To christen the joint, I helped throw a party there for Stephen Saban, the club columnist turned World of Wonder blogger who could have probably used the gas masks and morphine for his stay at the Howard Johnson's. Onstage, Antony Zito uncannily painted Saban's visage on a found object, while in the back, a photographer was snapping Boy George, who kept doing his famous sideways slant. "It has to be frontal," said the photog. "Don't you tell me how to pose, honey," deadpanned George, who stayed sideways. As '80s Warhol "It" girl Maura Moynihan took over the stage to do nutty modern-dance moves—frontal—a thief ran out with some decorative items and had to be chased down the block by Fred, who impressed everyone with his sudden butchness. Don't worry—the next day we were all complete girly girls again.

That '70s Scam

Dude! This just in from 7online.com and the Eyewitness News Team:

Baby-faced actor Ashton Kutcher may be older than he's admitting. The Hollywood hunk claims he just turned 26, which the National Enquirer thought sounded fishy. So they did the math and then went digging. They found that Kutcher's California voter records and birth records in his Iowa hometown show he was born in 1974. That makes him 30, not 26. So far, no comment from the aging actor.

(Has it all been a tissue of lies?)

Little Women

Apple-cheeked plain-folks celebrity Renée Zellweger recently told the generically named Austrian magazine News that she deserves to win the best supporting actress statuette this year for her role in Cold Mountain. "I've certainly earned the award," she said modestly. "Last year I was nominated for Chicago but I left empty-handed." That is so desperately sad, to be nominated--and not win. But she's a trouper. "I think this year Hollywood will be fair," she added. And present the Oscar to Sohreh Aghdashloo?

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British director Duncan Roy told London's Evening Standard that a very spoiled Elizabeth Hurley had sex with her boyfriend Arun Nayar so loudly on the set of Method that her trailer was "really shaking," and the entire cast and crew could see the couple through the curtains. Provocative. "Whenever there was a spare five minutes [Arun] was down there. All over her like a rash." Nasty. "She thinks she is really beautiful," he said. "Well, when you have seen her first thing in the morning using a spatula to trowel in thick globs of foundation on her old acne marks, she's not that attractive any more." But Hurley's spokesperson said the actress was "astonished" over Roy's "awful lies," and the film's producer insisted Hurley's behavior during production was impeccable. Puzzling. But wait, it seems Roy is no paragon.

Can I Get a Whitney?

Is Whitney Houston pregnant? Um, if you care, a fan who saw her concert in St. Petersburg, Russia, reported on the diva's Website that, "I could see her pregnant belly and she even told about her pregnancy from the stage. She said, 'As you can see, I will have another one!'" Of course, by now it's not unusual to hear Whitney announce she'll have another one. And another one after that. NY Daily News (2nd item)

Ad Nauseum

How did these spongemonkeys from the little Brit site rathergood.com get to be an ad for Quizno's? What, exactly, was Quizno's thinking? And what do people think?

Surely you've seen them; those strange little monkeys, windmill-strumming their acoustic guitars like Pete Townshend, all the while belting out their love for oven-baked sandwiches in a near-incomprehensible whine. The ads are for Quizno's Classic Subs. And they've got people talking.

Is it just me or do those Cheesy Domino's Dots that roll over a quiet neighborhood in the TV commercial look like the heads of burn victims? Unappetizing.

And how difficult would it have been for the Yoplait ad to get the lyrics right to Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-dot Bikini? It's only two lines, for crying out loud.

A Chorus Line

This just in. James St. James, Seth Green, Macaulay Culkin, Randy Barbato, and Fenton Bailey do press for Party Monster, the movie, in Tokyo. Foreign.

Crap Game

Okay, here's who's gonna get Academy Awards this year, according to Vegas oddsmakers. So you can start filling out the six top categories on your Oscar party ballot early. But as you've learned from past disappointments, winning the pot depends on what you haven't seen and what you couldn't possibly know. (Hmm, will it be Harvie Krumpet or Nibbles in the animated film short category? Think!) Good luck.

Dish and Dat

According to The Sun, the UK's best-selling newspaper, Justin Trousersnake (as they call him there) has been stepping out on girlfriend Cameron Diaz, and was caught canoodling with this after the recent Brit Awards.

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It's been reported on several sites that Diana Ross is the lucky girl hunky homebody David Gest will propose to after he extricates himself from his current wife. If she accepts, it'll be a sure sign she's still on the sauce. Still, a marriage made of Botox and detox does sound blissful.

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Did you think Eighties supermodel Janice Dickenson was finished with you when she wrote the last chapter of her memoir, No Lifeguard on Duty? No way. There's more to come. In an unprecedented (in this genre anyway) sequel, Everything About Me Is Fake and I'm Perfect, Dickenson claims her mind wandered while kissing JFK Jr., she stole Donald Trump's limo, blew off Charlie Sheen's coke, and was blown away by the young Madonna's crotch odor at Danceteria. Spicy.

"Before the Material Girl got it together and started removing hair from her pits, she had the most vicious odor coming out from I don't even want to know where. Believe me, it was no holiday dancing next to Madonna way back then."

Isn't the baby itself gift enough?

Mr. and Mrs. Debra Messing, who sometimes go by Debra and Daniel Zelman, are expecting a baby sometime this summer. As if she doesn't make a quarter mil per episode on Will & Grace, they've registered their want list on babystyle.com. Appalling. The good news? The only item purchased so far has been the Pointy Playtime Cap in tangerine for $7.

The OC OCD

Everybody's favorite Wednesday-night drinking game has been updated and improved. Not that you couldn't totally get hammered in the old game just from doing shots every time Ryan featured his signature sideways glance, now more of a tic, really. Foxy.

Recently Dead

To honor the remarkable women who died this month, including women's-prison reformer Sybil Brand, why not put on your favorite female mask and march for girrl empowerment. Way retro. What? No female masks at home, you say? That won't do. Although the mask pictured here may look a little skeevy, like something you might have found in the toolshed or kitchen at Ed Gein's house, masks from Female Latex Masks by Kerry are of course not real flesh, but something other. Hours of fun.

This mask, according to its accompanying caption, "was created from the lifecast of a woman. Only her face was cast, so the back was improvised from a 'Klassic Kerry' mask. Plastic eyes were glued to the inside for added realism, the eyebrows are made from fake moustaches. A tiny hole over one of the eyebrows allows for vision. This was a one-off mask just to see what it would come out like." It come out real good.

Destroy All Monsters

To make the audio commentary for Party Monster, the shockumentary about Drano killer Michael Alig, James St. James, author of Party Monster, the book (and breakout star of the doc), was put in a room with the DVD and left to rant unrestricted at the TV. The result is very. . . well, St. Jamesian. They tell me. I've managed to put off hearing it. More interesting are the extras, in particular "Nelson Sullivan's World of Wonder," an hour-long, grippingly blasé verité of East Village life in the early Eighties. Sullivan and his video camera captured the gay, pre-club kid scene with an intimacy that is both funny and touching. There is early footage of John Sex, Michael Musto, Dee-Lite, and RuPaul, and Sullivan takes trips to see drama queen Sylvia Miles in Woodstock and drag queen Christina at the Chelsea Hotel (a character memorably portrayed by Marilyn Manson in the Party Monster movie starring Macaulay Culkin and Seth Green, just out on DVD). Another extra, "Clara the Carefree Chicken," defies explanation.

Sickening Self-Promotion

Yes, that was me mentioned in today's "Page Six."

THE downtown demimonde turned out to fete former Details columnist Stephen Saban at Fred Rothbell-Mista's Apocalypse Lounge on East Third Street the other night.

Omitted from the boldfaced celebs who showed up to Fred's new lounge, however, was the cowboy from the original Village People, Randy Jones, looking like a young Robert Goulet. What's he up to? Check out his blog. Then check out, again, my mention in "Page Six."

Tuning Japanese

At last, from the country that brought you Yoko Ono, comes the bone phone. It's like hearing voices in your head. Disturbing.

Turning Japanese

Those World of Wonder boys, Randy and Fenton, along with James St. James, Seth Green, and Macaulay Culkin (with girlfriend Mila Kunis), are in Tokyo for the opening of Party Monster. Fenton Bailey sends this letter from his room in the very hotel where Charlotte and Bob frolicked in Lost in Translation.

As I type, the sun is setting behind Mount Fuji. Hard not to remember that this awesome snow-capped peak is a volcano, even if they say it is extinct, and that in its lower slopes there is a forest where people go to commit suicide, hanging themselves in the trees like Christmas ornaments. I am also reminded of the worst air disaster in Japanese history that was caused when the pilot of a commercial plane flew close--too close as it turned out--to the mountain to give passengers a better view. They all paid for it with their lives.
The highlight of this trip for Randy, James, and me have been the loos, which in addition to being heated have a deluxe assortment of adjustable water pressures and every anal-spritzing option from mist to spray to oscillating. It's hard to get James out of the bathroom.
What you don't get from watching Lost in Translation is what a truly amazing hotel this is. Although we've left the hotel only once so far on the trip, the truth is there's no reason to leave at all; the spa, the restaurants, and bars with their double-height floors are so luxe and the staff so sweet, polite, and solicitous of your every whim that you can't help wondering what Bill Murray and Scarlett thingummy were complaining about. And though people are too discreet/nice to say anything, they don't seem overjoyed about the movie, which in years to come may well be seen as politically incorrect. But no one cares about Asian bashing right now.

Butt Pretty

In Butt magazine, published in the Netherlands by Gert Jonkers and Jop van Bennekom, two self-described blond and uncut homos from Amsterdam, one can find stories with headlines chock full of random information: "Roger Payne: Interesting Artist Is Extremely Well Hung and Lives Next Door to Boy George"; "Marc Jacobs: Friendly Homosexual Fashion Designer Likes Dogs But Finds Fashionable Men Terribly Unsexy"; "Casey Spooner: Circumsized Electro Pop Star Sings in Fischerspooner."

Butt, in its nine issues so far, is kind of like a gay Interview, if that's not redundant, with a grim European art sense. The Q&As, conducted by Gert and Jop, are often in-depth, in that they go deep. In a Jeremy Scott piece, in issue 3, called "Fashion Designer Loves Michael Jackson and Starred in a Porn Flick at Age One," the designer talks to Gert about his inspiration, his mother, his music career, and his preference for brown pubic hair, apparently all the while soaking in a tub. Top shelf.

Recently Dead

Remember when Britney's wedding was all the talk, in the papers and on all the TV magazines? I'm thinking, What kind of faith can we have now in the Las Vegas promise of What Happens Here Stays Here?

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I don't remember his name right now, but the guy who introduced popcorn to movie theaters, bless him, died the other day. I wonder if his ashes were placed in a medium, large, or extra large urn.

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Also dead this week, at 73, is former BBD&O adman James Jordan, a man who some consider advertising's greatest sloganeer. He was responsible for linking product with its most important aspect, a practice he called "nameonics." He coined, among other slogans, "Delta is ready when you are," "Zestfully clean," "Wisk beats ring around the collar," "Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch," "Quaker Oatmeal--it's the right thing to do," and "Schaefer is the one beer to have when you're having more than one."

Smells like teen resentment

If you think American Idol stinks, wait'll you get a whiff of the perfume it inspired. Idol Moments for Women and Idol Spirit for Men are two fragrances unleashed on an unsuspecting public in January, retailing for $8 to $35, but selling on eBay starting at $9.99. (Hey, why can't a man have a moment?)

The packaging is as aggressively gaudy as the show--all fuchsia, purple, and navy. And the scents have all the wrong notes, of course, because, it's said, they were suggested by antsy, nervous, Idol contestants as they waited on line to audition. Though Idol Moments could have smelled like sweat and halitosis, it instead reeks of bitter disappointment and cruel rejection. Call it Chanel No. 86.

He Bangs

Is it only the boys in the corner offices here at World of Wonder, or is everyone wild about William, the tone-deaf American Idol reject? Wait, I've just been informed that it isn't just Randy and Fenton. It seems William Hung has more fansites on the Web than Britney, Whitney, and Gene Pitney combined. Maybe not. But a lot. Here's one. And here's another one.

Fenton Bailey is smitten: "This guy was the best on American Idol! He could not sing, could not dance, but had such great spirit. He's the new Bobby Trendy, but less jaded."

Except for the scabrous audition eps, American Idol is unwatchable, as you know. Even Paula, once the "nice" one, is now as arbitrary in her choices as Simon is in his sexuality (someone please make room for him on Queer Eye as, possibly, the unFab one). Anyway, I have a feeling we'll be hearing a lot more about Mr. William Hung in the labyrinthine corridors here--but I better not see anyone wearing or quoting his whiny "I have no regrets" speech. Reality Blurred, the reality tv weblog ran this recent item on the Berkley engineering student:

American Idol 3 auditioner William Hung "has become UC Berkeley's newest celebrity." Berkley's Daily Cal talks to him, and William says the judges made the correct choice: "To an extent, they're right. I don't think I should have made it to Hollywood." He also says he "seriously hadn't planned" to go to Hollywood. However, he's apparently still delusional, or still acting: "I feel the producers really exploited my lack of talent at this time. I looked like an idiot up there. I want to be good, not something that people will laugh at."

Stuff

"Page Six" today reports that Sean Combs aka P. Diddy was boasting backstage at the Grammys that if he'd known Miss Jackson was going to toss a tit to the Super Bowl crowd, he'd have "whipped out something on this world that you would have never forgot." Assuming he meant his penis, now we know what the P stands for.

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Ever wonder how they tell time after dark in Lancaster, Pennsylvania? Check out this Amish digital clock.

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And now there's some flack about poor little World of Wonder girl Anna Nicole Smith lying about her latest dress size since shedding all those pounds on the (apparently miraculous) diet drug Trimspa. A dress was specially created for her by designer Pierre Carrilero to wear in his show during New York's fashion week. But the dress turned out to be too small.

It was revealed that Smith, Trimspa's spokeswoman, was actually a size 10, not the size 6 she has claimed. Our spy says after Carrilero made Smith a size 6 knit dress emblazoned with the Olympus logo--the official sponsor of Fashion Week--Smith's handlers said she couldn't squeeze into it. "I was upset because I had the garment especially made for her," Carrilero told PAGE SIX. "But I have no grudge against the lady. At least for the first time I was able to design for a person with b- - bs and an a- -."

Okay, but here's my take on that story. You can't print the word "boobs" in the New York Post? It's boobs, for crying out loud. Also, it's New York. Boobs is an innocuous, descriptively bouncy word, virtually intended for sitcom banter and mainstream publications. As b - - bs continue to knock about more frequently on national television (see next item), the coy censorship is just c - - - y. Unless, of course, Carrilero is a stutterer who actually said "b - - bs and an a - -." In which case, never mind.

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And in a related story, a follow-up on the Grammys, in the New York Daily News, the word "b - - bs" was not used at all. In its place were "breasts," "bosoms," "them," and the knee-slapper "global assets."

Christina Aguilera risked the wrath of CBS honchos by wearing a plunging satin halter gown. Though she managed to convince her bosoms to behave when she accepted her Best Female Pop Vocal trophy, one of them made a break for it when she slipped while returning to her seat. Courtney Love, bashful as ever, gave photogs a peek at her global assets outside EMI's Grammy bash at the L.A. County Museum of Art. She boasted that her dress cost all of $32.

Dressed to Ill

A flesh-eating disease need not feel like the end of the world anymore, nor smallpox a plague. You can brag about your herpes and flaunt those running sores that won't heal. Come out of the dark wearing your lymphomas, as Donovan once said about love, "like heaven." A company calling itself Infectious Awareables has launched a line of fashion items designed to promote awareness, but which can also instill pride. From their Mission and Philosophy statement:

Our mission is threefold: to generate interest, discussion - even excitement - about serious public health issues which affect us all. Infectious Awareables, Inc. applies a unique perspective to its mission. Believing that humor can be a powerful educational tool, IA takes a slightly irreverent approach to some very serious subjects. To reach a desensitized public already gridlocked on the Òinformation superhighway, we focus on innovation, creativity and “smile power!” Availability will vary depending on seasonal epidemics. Watch for regular outbreaks of new designs and conditions.

The company sells boxer shorts, scarves, and neckties with festive diseases and complaints--from dust mites to ebola--printed in a repeat design. It's like having a petri dish around your neck or under your pants. If you've got it, you can wear it: gonorrhea, malaria, SARS, rhinovirus, chlamydia, hepatitis, every disease you've heard of and some you haven't. Parkinsons? You bet. Anthrax, polio, and West Nile, too. The boxers are ideal for dressing the kids in before dropping them off at Sunday school or the Neverland Ranch. You can pretty much count on the little tykes coming home still wearing them.

On the left, staph-infected boxers;
on the right, an e. coli tie

Just because. . .

Once there was a time when the Fab Five were only four in number--and straight. If it seems like only yesterday, you're really old. Because it was 40 years ago today (how many times have you heard that lately?) that the Beatles came to America. We've been living in their yellow submarine ever since. I don't know about you, but I have to get some air.
Photo: Harry Benson

Miss Jackson Regrets

Although Janet Jackson didn't attend the Grammys last night (her loss: she wouldn't agree to CBS's demand that she apologize onstage for, ah, that thing that happened last week), her breast was everywhere backstage. "I think it really needs to be put to bed," dirrty Christina Aguilera told Steve Hockman of the Los Angeles Times, referring to the titty tumult. Hmm. Aguilera was (un)dressed in such a way last night that she herself seemed ready to be put to bed. And that's beautiful. Veteran troublemaker Yoko Ono, who in 1969 caused a brouhaha when, among so many other things, she posed naked with John Lennon on their Two Virgins album cover, shrugged, remarking to Hochman that attitudes are mercurial over the years. "Sometimes it goes very conservative," she said, "sometimes controversial, like breathing in and out. All is in flux." Do I smell a haiku? A wise Dave Matthews said that "there have been [breasts] since before there was entertainment." He was shocked only that "such a big stink could be made over such a little [breast]." Dave, of course, rocks. (Although in his Beatles tribute with Sting and Vince Gill, he sang, "since I saw her dancing there," instead of, you know, standing.) And P. Diddy, who was a halftime participant, responded as any family-values spokesman would to the heavy-metal nipple. "I have three sons," he said. "I was very happy they got to see at least one of Janet Jackson's breasts. We talked about it afterward and they're going to be OK." But America's going to have to make a decision soon about which is more obscene: her rack or Iraq.

Out front, the Grammys were the best they've been in years, like a three-hour-plus, non-stop, Britney-free concert. Totally unexpected. I almost didn't watch, remembering the numbing effects of past shows. But this one was so lively I didn't even notice if there were acceptance speeches honoring all the Higher Powers. Surely there must have been some; I mean, there were winners, right? Maybe they were all like Andre 3000's simple "Thank you"--almost subliminal. (Later, though, he would make up for that brevity by repeating "Stank you very much" many times for OutKast's album-of-the-year win.) I didn't realize how much I'd missed Prince; he and Beyoncé are the new Ike and Tina Turner Revue and should tour with the act. I'd go. Ironically (or perhaps redundantly) they're the new black. Keeping it white--blindingly so--the White Stripes nearly blew out my TV screen. Martina McBride brought the show to a screeching halt and me to a crossword puzzle with her dirge about an abused child. Aren't country singer supposed to sing about doing shooters and shooting doers? Ozzy and Sharon have become anime characters, don't you agree? And where were Nick and Jessica? Queen Latifah's black leather jeans and green chiffon whatever-that-was and the Evanescence chick's shredded leather number were by far the worst outfits; so bad they wouldn't have worked even on notorious fashion idiot Carrie Bradshaw, who was there in the person of Sarah Jessica Parker looking her usual. . .awkward. OutKast's "Hey Ya!" number was the fashion winner, with Andre and co. in fetching brave-and-squaw costumes that easily could have passed for today's Paris couture. The pairings of Justin Timberlake with Arturo Sandoval and the Foo Fighters with Chick Corea were inspired. The Black Eyed Peas are the best act in show business right now, period, semicolon; they should hook up with OutKast and tour. I'd go.

Of course, not everyone liked the show. If every performer and winner isn't in your iPod, it's a lame night for you. I understand. Whatever. And speaking of whatever, if you'd like to read a long and snarky report on the ceremony reported purely for snark's sake, get comfortable and click here.

Throne Together

England's randy Prince Harry (the new Princess Margaret) was caught in heavy canoodle with a "Page 3" girl at a London nightclub, reports the London Sun, and no one felt obliged to apologize, even though "Page 3" girls never wear nipple brooches and always treat their breasts as a set. “She was leaning over and whispering in his ear," said a clubber who witnessed the royal romp. "At one point she popped up on to his knee and he draped her arm around him. She kissed his cheek and he was like the cat who got the cream.” I'll bet.

Double Tasking

A.J. Daulerio says that Michael Musto's column in the Village Voice is "one of the only fun things left in the Voice besides the personal ads for. . . chicks with dicks." His questions for the perennial talking head during an interview for BlackTable.com defy normal Q&A conventions, even by today's hip-hop standards, but Musto, as usual, meets the challenge hard on.

BT: Would you rather let a howler monkey give you head while you're riding your bike through Chelsea or pull a potato out of Nat Hentoff's ass with your teeth?

MM: The potato thing sounds fun. I don't get to do enough stuff with Nat.
BT: Would you rather stick a live, active beehive on your dong-ee or knock all your teeth out with a hammer?
MM: The beehive thing because I need my teeth to pull the potato out of Nat Hentoff's ass.
BT: Would you rather be a fluffer for Rip Taylor for a week or give Charles Nelson Reilly a coffee enema?
MM: I could combine the two. While I fill Charles's hole with the hot java, Rip could watch and get bone-hard. It's called double tasking.

Pitt Stop

While dreamboy Michael Pitt is exposing his junk for all the world to see, over at Gawker.com they're posting their Pitt sightings for all the world to read. Here's my experience with the piping-hot It boy of the second (because it's not guaranteed he'll be the It boy by the time you finish reading this). It boys are the new It girls. And. . . Where was I? Oh yeah. So while the Sundance film fest was happening, I get a phone call from Mike. "You owe me money, man," he says into the receiver, all homes-like. "I want my money. You know what you owe me. I want my money, man," etc. I figured that a friend of mine must have handed him the phone and told him to speak, but, frankly, it was enough for me. I mean, really, right?

Of course

Oh, okay. So it must have been that her "I'm a Slave 4 You" performance at the MTV awards that time was just Britney wanting to see what it was like to be a slut.

"Honestly, I really wanted to see what it was like to be married," the pop tart said last night, still trying to explain away her two-day marriage to childhood pal Jason Allen Alexander. (And so on.)

Who?

There's an item in "Page Six" today that I've attempted to read several times but each time I try the type seems to spin and gives me motion sickness. The item contains so many names and sons and daughters of names that it makes me gasp for breath, like Celeste Holm at an NC-17 screening. So I've cleaned it up for you, removed all its fabulousness--just as the FCC is currently doing with breasts and such on TV--so that you, the gentle public, will not come over faint and have to be rushed to the hospital. Oh, and it also reads so much simpler now. But if you're a hardened name pervert, you can click here for the full dirt.

Couple Sean and Bijou just went bust. The four-year relationship has ended "for good," reports a magazine. Someone said that Bijou had an affair with Sean's friend Max, which prompted Sean to admit his own infidelities, including affairs with Aimee, Courtney and Casey. Max confessed earlier this month to his longtime pal Sean (they grew up across the hall from each other). Sean then kicked Bijou, 24, out of the home they had been sharing and boxed up her belongings at his brownstone. "He told her that if she came to his house she'd be met by armed security guards," burbled a source. While she looks for a new home, Bijou has moved in with her half-sister Chynna and her husband, William.

Removing the Boobs from the Boob Tube

Janet Jackson's tit (just the one) keeps making news. Don't you hate it when your left breast doesn't know what your right breast is doing?

On Monday, Jackson received 60 times as many searches than perennial chart topper, the "Paris Hilton sex tape," and 80 times as many as singer Britney Spears. By Wednesday Jackson broke records on Yahoo, accounting for nearly 20 per cent of all terms searched on the site. The next closest on the list was the Super Bowl, garnering 2.7 per cent. (Reuters)

Again, not that newsworthy, really, and certainly not surprising or shocking, because--hello!--people love to look at tits. Repeatedly. And often. Even when it's an incomplete set. But the backlash from the Jackson snafu has been cruel and swift. Because of parental protests, a high school in Laguna Beach, California, has cancelled an MTV documentary that was to be shot on its campus and would have profited the school as much as $40,000 for its college scholarship fund; NBC has snipped a shot of an octogenarian patient's jugs on tonight's episode of ER (check local listings--is Celeste Holm guest-starring?); and there's talk of censoring the headlights in car commercials until public outrage subsides.

NBC has agreed to edit out a brief shot of an 80-year-old woman's breast from tonight's episode of medical drama "ER." In the scene, the breast is visible for less than two seconds in the background of a scene where doctors are giving the woman emergency care. NBC's decision was finalized late Tuesday, two days after the Super Bowl halftime shocker in which singer Janet Jackson bared her breast, which has spurred the national debate about indecency on television and triggered an investigation by the FCC.

How did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?