November 30, 2005
How to Stuff a Wild Podcast
Tom and James and Randy and Moye convene in the conference room and conference Fenton from London. Fantasy Christmas gifts (or gift ideas) are exchanged. Fenton raves about the black Christmas tree fad in England. Black trees with blue balls? Goth X-mas? Nick and Jessica's ill-timed divorce. Is Nick's lover the father of Jessica's expected child? Discuss. The similarity between Bret Easton Ellis's Lunar Park and Madonna's new album. Discuss. Oh, and Randy swears off Madonna. Ex prez Jimmy Carter goes from reviled to revered. Fenton pronounces Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Angelina Jolie three world powers of almost mythical proportions. Madonna vs Angelina. Prison Break's disappointing finale. Wentworth Miller's unintentionally hilarious '40s femme fatale acting style. Desperate Housewives suddenly improved. Bree! Kristen Chenoweth's horrible Old Navy commercials. Other commercials come under attack. The seasonal light festival in Griffith Park. Brokeback Mountain – how will it play? Is Jake the new Harry Hamlin? The 15-year-old Buddha. Would Tom Wolf have sex with Jesus Christ if He suddenly came on to him?
The St. James Version
THIS 'N' THAT FROM THIS MONTH'S PERIODICALS
1. It was Marilu Henner, of all people, who taught me one of the most important "rules of thumb" when dressing for a big event. It was in the movie LA Story with Steve Martin, so it’s not like I was actually getting fashion tips from Marilu Henner – CAN YOU IMAGINE? – it was just something her character said that really resonated. She was explaining how to accessorize an outfit. She said to stand in front of a full-length mirror, turn your back to it, then SPIN AROUND quickly. THE FIRST THING YOU SEE, TAKE OFF. That’s the ONE THING that’s ruining the outfit. It’s the one thing that’s "too much." Now, regarding the ladies in the picture at right. Oh, I totally get where they were both going with their outfits. I can just hear Eva saying, “Quel chapeau!” and Chloe saying, “Don’t I look sophisticated?” And don’t get me wrong, they both look perfectly DIVINE. I’m just sayin'. If it was up to Marilu, they would both lose their charming little hats, and maybe then they wouldn’t be made fun of in the pages of Us magazine.
2. What is Paper magazine's Mr Mickey doing in this Slim Aaron photograph from 1961?
3. Maybe Prince Charles' penis is a little smaller than we were led to believe.
More...All I Want for Christmas
Moye Ishimoto writes:
The holiday season has officially begun, and everyone's still clamoring to find that perfect "it" gift of the year. Tickle-Me Elmo? So 1998. The new pink RAZR, iPod Nanos, and Madonna's album? Five letters: Zzzzz. This year, the only thing everyone will want for Christmas is Chuck Norris. No, not a Chuck Norris action figure or all 15 seasons of Walker, Texas Ranger on DVD, but the ultimate one and only CHUCK NORRIS.
In a time when legends are scarce, this hard-hitting, high-kickingTexas Ranger rides around in the battle for justice, and makes sure law and order are always on hand. But I'm really talking about his two legs. You know, rumor has it that he tried to sue NBC's Law and Order since he had trademarked the words "law" and "order" as names for his left and right legs. And any of the lawyers who tried to argue back in court were instantaneously killed when Chuck Norris stared back at them from the stand.
More...Snap!
I just saw your site via witz.org (via fark.com). That was funny. It reminded me of the night I was scrolling through the TV listings, when I came across this description for Oprah's show. "Child molester; Leonardo DiCaprio" (the semicolon was so small, it could've been a colon).
– Joanna Hennessy
When Sceneagers Attack!
Twenty-five teens armed with a boom box staged outlaw dance parties at Wal-Mart and Target stores on Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year – and have the amateur videos to prove it. Watch and learn at Toilet Paper. (Ahh, reminds us of the good old days in New York, when this sort of thing happened all the time – with liquor.)
A Man in Full Animation
Tom Wolfe, iconic author of The Bonfire of the Vanities and A Man in Full, is a fan of The Simpsons. It's "the only show of any sort that I watch on television," he says. So he's agreed to play himself in an episode that will air a year from now. As will fellow writers Gore Vidal, Michael Chabon, and Jonathan Franzen. The episode, written by Matt Warburton, will parody highbrow literary culture when Lisa discovers barfly Moe is a secret poet along the lines of Charles Bukowski.
Atticus Pinched!
In broad daylight – broad California daylight, no less – someone or ones stole Gregory Peck's star off the Hollywood Walk of Fame. No mean feat, since it's embedded in the sidewalk and the thief or thieves had to use a concrete saw to cut through terrazzo and cement to dislodge it. Peck's star, which is worth about $5,000, was placed on the Walk of Fame in 1962, the year he starred as the beloved Atticus Finch in the now-classic To Kill a Mockingbird and two years after the Walk was inaugurated with the placement of Joanne Woodward's star. In the photo above, honorary Hollywood mayor Johnny Grant, posing next to Peck's partial replacement star at Hollywood and Gower, appears to be telling the police that the heist was most likely pulled off by perpetrators dressed as city workers.
The Debasement Tapes
The Lady Bunny is for sale. So what else is new, you ask? What's new is that you can buy her this time and not have to worry about picking up an STD. Now it's only her DVD you'll pick up, if you're smart. And it's highly contagious. That's right, her hilarious comedy package (and, oh boy, she has one!) is called Rated X (for Xtra-Retarded!), and is not available in stores, such is its filth factor, but only on her website, LadyBunny.net. But we've edited and clipped some of it for you right here, so you can get a taste of Bunny before you bring her home.
Saving Face
A woman in her thirties who was attacked by a dog has been the recipient of the world's first face transplant. The woman had her nose, lips, and chin bitten off in May, and underwent surgery in France over the weekend to have the features (including tissues, muscles, arteries, and veins) replaced with those harvested from a brain-dead donor. Her new face will not look like the donor's, nor her own, but like what surgeons are calling a "hybrid" and we're calling the "Mary Shelley." The operation is a dream come true for scientists everywhere. Now, finally, they can begin to concentrate on a cure for cancer.
No word on whether the dog suffered from pancreatitis after ingesting the woman's face.
When Will It End?
For real, it doesn't get any gayer than the Mischievious [sic] Boys lipsynching out of sync to Madonna's "Hung Up." Really, it doesn't. See for yourself.
Black Christmas
Jeez, you'd think it was Satan's birthday. (When is that, by they way? Anyone know?) Fenton Bailey, who's taking meetings in London, reports that artificial black Christmas trees are the must-have holiday item in the UK. They're selling out at the shops, and the website iwantoneofthose says, "Black and pink are this year's colours when it comes to retro cool fake trees." That does sound chic, actually. Now if we can just get Santa to dress down a bit.
Conanism
Late Night with Conan O'Brien is still ruling after-hours TV. Last night, for example, O'Brien said the good news is that Mary-Kate Olsen has gained 20 pounds. The bad news? Ashley Olsen is missing. Come on, you know that's funny. And then he poked around in the oft-resurrected business of his resemblance to Tarja Halonen, the president of Finland. Always hilarious.
Jackson Shocker! The Kid Is Not His Son (or Daughter)
More disturbing news from the endless source of disturbing news that is Michael Jackson: He is not the biological father of the two children that were born during his three-year marriage to medical assistant Debbie Rowe. This from the mother herself; though she's reportedly bound by a confidentiality agreement (and barred from telling the kids she's their mother, she revealed to an Irish newspaper that Prince Michael, 8, and Paris, 7, were the product of anonymous semen acquired from a sperm bank. "Michael knows the truth, that he is not the natural father," she said. "He has to come clean." Apparently, he already came clean – clean away from her.
November 29, 2005
100,000 Hindus Can't Be Wrong
If this 15-year-old Nepali boy, Ram Bahadur Bamjon, is the reincarnation of Buddha – and some 100,000 devotees are betting on it after the teen's been meditating for six months without food or water in a village near Kathmandu – then we're a believer. A side-by-side comparison of Buddha (above) and Bamjon (below) tells you the life-after-death thing is at least worth looking into. If just for its slimming properties.
"He sits motionless from dawn to dusk when visitors are allowed to see him," said a local journalist at Bamjon's encampment. "This demands something." But he has doubts Bamjon is an incarnation of Buddha. "We don't know what he does at night. This must be investigated." The boy's mother, who perhaps only coincidentally has the same name as Buddha's mother, describes her son as a quiet boy who kept aloof from friends.
Such disquieting news from Mom casts a shadow over the light and suggests the zen hottie could be either a god or a serial killer.
The Rights' Stuff
Think we're too left-leaning here at the WOW Report? We're so LEFT that we think everyone has a RIGHT to their opinion. No matter how wrong. So here are the Right Brothers (get it?), a country duo sporting the slogan "Truth disguised as music." They have a new single out called "Bush Was Right." But we're fond of a little ditty called "Hey Hollywood," about all the liberals in Tinsel Town who hate America.
Human Beings
Randy Barbato writes:
In Mary McNamara's wonderful profile of Shirley MacLaine in the LA Times, the actress discusses the possibility of beings from another dimension walking among us. She speculates that Nicole Kidman ("far too ethereal to be completely human") might be one of them. "I mean seriously," MacLaine says. "Would it surprise you? It wouldn't surprise me."
No, Shirley, it wouldn't surprise me. We all know that Nicole's skin is totally alien! And we've all heard the stories about how it's "falling off." MacLaine got me thinking about other potential aliens on earth:
• Dakota Fanning
• Diane Sawyer
• Randy Jackson
• Condi Rice
• Miles O' Brien
• Iman
• Fergie
Confessions of a TiVo Addict
Randy Barbato writes:
Martha. I know, I said I was over her. I am. I promise I am. I just keep her on the TiVo in case there's an interesting guest. Like Carly Simon. Of course I'm going to tune in to watch Carly perform – with her hot kids as backup! Helloooo. (See Ben Taylor, pictured.)
Yesterday, when the talent bookers fell short, Martha did her Nutley, New Jersey special. The audience was filled with Nutley residents, even the high school marching band showed up. We learned that Martha wasn't the only famous person from Nutley, there was also Annie Oakley (though Martha failed to mention Nutley native Robert Blake). Sometimes I feel like a nut.
More...November 28, 2005
Sitings
• Jagshemash! Borat's official site, direct from Kazak! (t/y Emo)
• "Edge of Seventeen," the Stevie Nicks song appallingly reinterpreted by Lindsay Lohan. Lohan's performance of it at the recent AMAs took people's breath away, and not in a good way. (courtesy of Popbytes)
Snap! Cap
After her singing career hit rock bottom again, Ashlee Simpson decided to try modeling. (Pete)
The St. James Version: Tear-Stained Edition
Dear fans of the St James Version,
I just finished writing what was probably my finest blog entry ever. It was a thrilling piece about almost being mugged last Friday night, full of thunder and tears, heartache and pain. I was thinking of turning it into a novel – IT WAS THAT GOOD. I wove into the heart-pounding narritive all sorts of interesting anecdotes, including one very funny story about living in a transient hotel in Harlem in the mid-'80s, roaming the halls in full Carmen Miranda drag, that you would have absolutely ROARED at. ROARED! I’m telling you, folks: THIS BLOG ITEM WAS THE BEST THING I HAD EVER WRITTEN.
Unfortunately, some bitch is sitting at my old desk, so I had to use the Squirrelmail feature on another computer. And who knew that Squirrelmail times out after 15 minutes? NOT ME. And who knew that, consequently, when it was time to send the glorious three-page document that would have gone down in the annals of blogdom as one of the all-time greats, that a giant red ERROR sign would pop up? Who knew that it would be LOST FOREVER?
It’s your loss, fans. You will never know the glory of that lost St. James Version. You will never hear the story of my face-off with two mildly thugged-out cholos on Sunset Boulevard, who were trying to steal my new Burberry Prosum jacket and thought, for some reason, that I was the skinhead who jacked them earlier that night.
I just don’t have the heart to go through it all again.
No, no, no, I’m just going to go home and cry now. Right after I choke the bitch sitting at my old desk.
– James St James
Circus of Horror
If you wait long enough, you will be rewarded – if only with death. Here, at long last, is the meeting of The Family Circus and HP Lovecraft that you thought would never happen. (Accordion Guy via BoingBoing)
Piece in the Middle East
The end of the world, as predicted, is nigh. The sides have been chosen. Rock royalty has rolled up its sleeves. In this corner, for the Arab world, stands Michael Jackson, the "King of Pop." In the other corner, for the Jews, poised to recapture the temple on the mount, is the new Queen of Pop, Madonna, fresh from her post mortem victory over Elvis, "The King."
Madonna ("Esther" "Madge" "The Queen") the new champion of the kabbalah and all its mysteries, has vanquished the old guard, and has heard the fightin' words Michael has thrown down. "Leeches!" Which side will win? Was the Arabian side wise in choosing such a controversial spokesman? Is Madonna really Jewish enough to call the power of Abraham and Moses to her aid?
Armageddon will finally settle this once and for all. Have any Christian rockers had the hubris to crown themselves king or queen lately?
It's Just Nuts
We may be carbon dating ourselves but we remember a day when no one had to make urgent phone calls all day long or was plagued with an insatiable thirst that required constant infusions of bottled H20. Really, as recently as the early '90s people were still surviving on dialing from home and enjoying a glass of water with lunch.
And when did this allergy to peanuts become such a commonplace menace? Christina Desforges, 15, died in a Quebec hospital Wednesday after doctors were unable to treat her allergic reaction to the kiss she received from her boyfriend the previous weekend. He had just eaten a peanut snack when he kissed her, and some of the nutty detritus on his lips was transferred onto hers during the moment of intimacy. The symptoms of peanut allergy (so called anaphylaxis) can include hives, plunging blood pressure, and swelling of the face and throat – all of which grade-schoolers in our day attributed to the rigors of recess, not our PB&J lunch.
You'd think, wouldn't you, that if young Desforges knew of her allergy, she'd have washed her lips off with water from her bottle of Arrowhead and used her cell to call 911.
(Photo: Posed by Carson Kressley professional model)
Colombian Gold
Here's "Your Embrace" from Shakira's Oral Fixation Vol 2 album that drops tomorrow. It's so thisclose to pure country, all it needs is a slide guitar. (courtesy Popbytes)
Ass Fat
Sad. We are now a planet of people so fat that syringes require longer needles to penetrate our lard-asses and deliver the goods. Because they were carrying full-capacity J. Loads, two-thirds of the patients, ranging in age from 21 to 87, participating in a study at a Dublin hospital didn't receive the full dose of a drug that was supposed to be administered intramuscularly. Most of it lodged in the fat tissue of the buttocks, which can result in infection and irritation. Standard-length needles are just not up to the task these days. "There is no question that the increasing amount of fat in patients' buttocks is the underlying cause," said a researcher. "The amount of fat tissue overlying the muscles exceeds the length of the needles commonly used for these injections."
Recently Dead
Keith Andes said he never had a relationship with Marilyn Monroe when they costarred in 1952's Clash by Night, but the rumors still persist. The handsome actor who played on Broadway with Lucille Ball in Wildcat in 1960 and appeared in more than 20 movies, including 1947's The Farmer's Daughter and 1970's Tora! Tora! Tora!, committed suicide two weeks ago at his home in Santa Clarita. He was 85.
This Monkey Shines
In David Gordon's early – and rave – review in Newsweek of Peter Jackson's King Kong, has he inadvertently described the big ape as a typical studio executive in Hollywood's metaphorical jungle?
Jackson's updated ape is still king of the jungle, but he's getting a bit long in the snaggletooth. In human terms, he's pushing 50. His jaw is offset and his right eyebrow droops from long-ago scrapes with dinosaurs. His fur is matted and mucky, with bald patches here and there from the scar tissue. And he's developing a potbelly. "Peter really wanted a sense that Kong is old and grizzled and scarred," says [screenwriter Philippa] Boyens, "because it tells a story of being alone. And of having to survive in the most dangerous place on earth." Kong's existence is pure brutality – until Ann comes along.
Jock Cock Frock Shock!
Life in the armed services is ever differing from the utopian vision that the Village People created. Just as the Ministry of Defence release a £2 milllion recruitment campaign, a video is published on the internet of a strange initiation ritual in which a "tribe" of Marines stand around, all naked except a man dressed as a waitress and another as a medic, as two officers beat each other senseless with and without sleeping bags on their arms. The public, as ever, met the findings with a combination of aghast shock and apathy. (Watch the video here)
"If these guys want to box naked with sleeping bags on their arms while the referee is dressed as a woman, then fair play to them," said an ex-soldier. "Violence is what the military is all about," said another. "It's the naked bit and wearing a frock that I find a little disturbing." (Metro)
– Tim Hancock
November 25, 2005
To the Manner Bourne
Say what you Will about Matt Damon, he's good hunting for the paparazzi and fans. In this clip from Lulop.com, look how cooperative, patient, and affable he was with autograph seekers on a Manhattan sidewalk last week.
Recently Dead
George Best, English football legend died at 12.55PM GMT today, although most British newspapers had pre-empted and spread his face over their covers this morning. One of the most heralded figures ever in the UK, his drink problem gave him a human edge, and also a surreal twist. An ex-girlfriend speaks in The Sun today:
"One time there was literally spaghetti bolognese all over the ceilings. The kitchen was wrecked and the furniture was everywhere. I followed this trail of destruction to the bedroom where George had left a huge signed poster of himself as a young man on my bed, just to let me know he had been round."
(Also)
– Tim Hancock
November 23, 2005
Thank Heaven for Little Podcasts
Reasons to be cheerful, part who's counting. It's Thanksgiving-adjacent in the conference room and Randy, Moye, Fenton, James, and Tom reveal what they're thankful for – when they remember that's the topic. James wears his crown of thorns in honor of his being crucified last week, but he, sir, is no Jesus Christ. There's talk of WOW's potluck lunch and Martha Stewart and her Desperate Housewives psycho pharmacist guest (James rattles off the guy's résumé, scarily). Randy says he's thankful for mint chocolate chip ice cream, Moye wonders if it tastes like toothpaste, and Fenton thinks Listerine should come out with an array of ice cream flavors. There's mention of Maureen Dowd's lockjaw, and curiosity about who could have written Nicole's novel. Everyone but Tom, who has never watched an episode, is thankful for Lost, and the fabulousness of the recent installment in particular; now Fenton wants to see who lives on the backside of Wisteria Lane. And thanks are given for Prison Break's leading-up-to-commercial cliffhangers. Mention of the impending AMA's brings up Madonna, of course, and this time her lyrics come under harsh scrutiny, which leads to female bullies, Bush's waning popularity, politics, GOP vs Dems, and then Fenton brings out a calming gadget, causing less than a second of quiet. The gang says no thanks to the upcoming gay trade on Wife Swap, but sends props and best wishes to Christina Aguilera for marring an ugly man, who must be the most thankful of all this holiday.
The St. James Version
RANDOM THOUGHTS ON LAST NIGHT'S AMAs
1. DAYUM, Mariah, those are some drumsticks you got there! Are you SURE you want to wear a dress slit up to there? Are you SURE, dear? Those hamhock thunderthighs of yours could have been discreetly hidden, if you weren't so hell-bent on barrelling onstage with your dress half-sewn on.
2. Listening to Lindsay Lohan mewl like a kitten on a kabob was SO DEEPLY SATISFYING. Possibly even more satisfying than Ashley Simpson's SNL debacle. How dare she think she could take on Stevie Nicks? And give it an "ironic" twist? What an insufferable bitch! Such ego! Such hubris! "An erratic and miserable performance," said the Boston Herald. I WISHWISHWISH they had shown the faces of the audience.
More...Shelf Life: Paging Paris Hilton
Well, you didn't expect Paris to let Nicole be the only one to have a book in the stores, did you? We found Nicole's novel curious in positive ways; Paris's book is curious in so many ways. According to Randy, who's into numbers and counting, Paris's Confess It All to Me has 187 pages and 237 pictures. You do the math. It was coauthored by Merle Ginsberg, who helped Paris write last year's Confessions of an Heiress, which actually had pages and pages of text since it was a memoir of sorts; this is meant to be used as a diary, so most of the pages are blank, ready to be filled in by you. (We assume the blank pages were Paris's contribution.) Paris calls Merle her "voice" and Merle has said that writing as Paris is the closest she'll ever come to being the breathy blonde she's always wanted to be. "I write, and she looks good." Phone calls to Merle on Thanksgiving eve were not returned.
Let It Feed
While most wags like to call Thanksgiving "Turkey Day" (oh, hahahaha, stop, we're peeing!), we, after our First Annual WOW Hollywood Good Luck for the Holidays Pot Luck Luncheon Extravaganza 2005, will forever call it Turducken Day. Thairin Smothers, who chaired the covered-dish church social with the delicious Moye Ishimoto, hand-cooked the fowl hybrid of turkey-stuffed-with-chicken-stuffed-with-duck that was the centerpiece of the feast that featured the "famous" home cookin' of our tasty staffers, from Honey Baked Ham (OK, that was bought) to mac 'n' cheese to cornbread to baked beans to stuffing to asparagus, yams, tamales, roast beef, green bean casserole, Filipino noodles, banana pudding cake, cranberry upside down cake, apple pie (burp), plus wine (hic). Sara Kordy, who was drunk, followed us around with a camera while we ate, and this is what she saw. (t/y Eduardo)
Mary, Mary
That Vatican document, the one that's coming out, so to speak, next week? The one banning gays from the priesthood and generally hating on homosexuals, supporters of homosexuals, and people contemplating becoming homosexual? It's really upsetting. What it's saying is that, tragically, the Catholic church, doesn't in fact love everyone as advertised. And it's doubly upsetting because, as you know, gays just love Mary to pieces. How many times have you been with your queer friends at, say, a rave or circuit party, and one of them will intone a campy "Oh, Mary, I know" to a guy named, say, Kevin? Too many to count? Of course. Mary's like a god to the gays. It's so sad.
Recently Dead
Jeez, the dead keep coming so fast we can't keep up. But Ruth M Siems couldn't have chosen a more apt time to pass on, though, with Thanksgiving nipping at her 74-year-old heels. Back in 1975, it seems Siems was listed as a main inventor on the patent for Kraft Foods' now-classic Stove Top stuffing. It's said that 60 million boxes of the stuff(ing) are sold at Thanksgiving, mostly to trailer folk. Siems died from a heart attack at her home in NewBurgh, Indiana. It's not known whether she left instructions for her body to be stuffed.
Recently Dead
"I don't think there'll ever be another Sam," said Susie Lockheed, about her beloved fug ugly pup, who died last week of a failing heart (and euthanasia) short of his 15th birthday. She admits that "some people would think that's a good thing." The hairless, snaggletoothed Sam, a rescue dog, was a purebred Chinese crested and an Internet star, his image and title, World's Ugliest Dog, traveling from blog to blog like an STD. He led a full life once he was adopted by Lockheed, with TV and radio appearances, world travel, newspaper interviews, and a personal meeting with Donald Trump (we can only assume they talked hair grooming).
Tom Coos
A friend of a friend is editing the trailer for Mission Impossible III, and was recently paid a visit by Tom Cruise. His visit to the edit bay was preceded by a fussing assistant, who suggested the editor say hello to Cruise before leaving the room and making himself scarce. However, Tom was having none of that, and upon his entrance proved himself to be most affable, albeit in that intense-eye-contact, invasion-of-personal-space, scarily-wide-smiled manner of his: "HEY! WHERE ARE YOU GOING? PULL UP A CHAIR NEXT TO ME AND SIT DOWN! WHAT'S YOUR NAME?"
Fifteen minutes into the trailer re-edit, Tom was joined by Katie Holmes. Tom leapt up excitedly and wrestled Katie to the edit-room couch, and for the next 20 minutes, between calling shots on the re-edit, cooed over her like a puppy in love: "LOOK AT HER FUNNY PREGNANT BELLY! LOOK AT FUNNY PREGNANT KATIE!" Before all this, the editor was as cynical as anyone about the seemingly impossible love-union, thinking Tom gay and Katie a brainwashed spawning vessel. Now he is CONVINCED that they are the most adorable, genuine couple in the world, and won't have a bad word said against them.
I find this very confusing.
– Steven Corfe
Hard Eight
When some photos of Las Vegas star Josh Duhamel from photographer Greg Gorman's book As I See It circulated on the web a few years ago, we dragged them into a file because we'd been a fan of his since he played Leo DuPre on All My Children. We came across the forgotten pics the other day and figured we'd share them with you. Click on the image to view the other side of Josh.
Nothing to Sniff At
Hot air meets blowhard? Balloonist and airline mogul Sir Richard Branson wants to make fallen waif Kate Moss the face of Virgin Mobile. And, despite some criticism, he's offered her a contract. So perhaps now we can all exhale and resume our normal lives. Even though Moss was unceremoniously dumped by several big-time companies, like Chanel, immediately after that video of her coke binge hit the public, the good and kind – and savvy – Branson not only thinks there should be life after lines, but knows the scandal has made her more famous than ever and added a certain je ne sais quoi to the supermodel's image, ironically making her an ideal spokesperson for Virgin's youth market. A Virgin insider said, "Kate is one of the most recognizable faces in the world, especially after her drug problem. We think she deserves a second chance. We are delighted to have her on board." Spoken like a true stewardess.
(Previously) (Previously) (Moss-Branson compatibility) (What about Pete?)
November 22, 2005
Snap! Cap
Brad just rolled his eyes when Angelina came home from yet another shopping spree. (Matilda)
Booty and the Priest
The Vatican says sexually active homosexuals and those who support "gay culture" are unwelcome in the priesthood unless the candidate has overcome homosexual tendencies for at least three years, according to a church document posted on the Internet by an Italian Catholic news agency. "Those people find themselves, in fact, in a situation that presents a grave obstacle to a correct relationship with men and women. One cannot ignore the negative consequences that can stem from the ordination of people with deeply rooted homosexual tendencies," the document said.
(CNN)
Ground Zero Percent Down
The Port Authority of New York has decided to – what the hell – erect the World Trade Center memorial itself, after being a quiet behind-the-scenes voice in the brouhaha over what it will be and who will be doing it. Also, says Curbed, Port Authority will build Cortlandt Way, a massive retail complex (shopping mall), across the street from it. Lucky tourists and pilgrims alike will be able to sip a double latte from Starbucks, browse Bloomingdale's and the Gap, and try on shades at the Sunglass Hut on their way to the memorial. "Well, George Bush did stand on the ruins after 9/11 and exhort people to go shopping as a way to fight terrorism," remembers Fenton Bailey, wryly. But MemeFirst mourns that it looks as if there won't be "New York's shopping mecca" known as Century 21; artist renderings of the proposed complex do not include the store. Fenton calls Century 21 "Wal-Mart for metrosexuals."
"And just yesterday," says Fenton, "Oprah underscored shopping as an article of faith when she rewarded her audience of handpicked hurricane heroes with grace and Hope in a Jar (premium face and bath products from Philosophy), plus brownies, video iPods, and bathrobes on her annual Oprah's Favorite Things show." Commence screaming.
Shelf Life: Richie and Famous
So we're reading Nicole Richie's novel, The Truth About Diamonds, and it's a curious thing indeed. Firstly, it's highly, swiftly readable. Smart, smooth, natural, and conversational, with quirky twists that don't seem forced (she calls the pre-renovation poolside bar at the Roosevelt "cabana non grata" and describes someone wearing "a tie-dyed onesie and a tutu"). Secondly, although she swears – and writes – up, down, and sideways that the book is fiction through and through, the book's narrator is named Nicole, was adopted at a young age, has a famous father, and is on a reality show called The Simple Life. So: Um. Also, Paris and company are easily recognized through their thin veils. And she gets the going-out, rich-kid indulgence thing right, right down to its mundane core. Oh, and for some reason there's a multi-page insert of surrealistically glam color shots of Richie that are so styled and super airbrushed that they appear to be oil paintings. Thirdly, and most remarkably, the book reads like it was written last week. It's so current that songs mentioned in the text are still rotating on MTV, events that actually happened recently are witnessed by the narrator, and there are references to TomKat and websites like Pink Is the New Blog. We wouldn't be surprised if Richie stopped by our house to pencil some updates in the margins. Uh, yes we would.