Homina. Homina nomina homina.

Okay. I know this is a terrible cliche. I'm not proud of it. I know I'm just being shallow. But...


Beyonce...Bikini! Beyonce...Bikini!

If I told you I tried to fight the temptation I'd be lying.

Watching the lame duck fly

I thoroughly enjoyed tonight's "Studio 60," returning to NBC's schedule to air its last episodes. Undoubtedly it helps that, since it couldn't matter less how many people watch it any more, I was free to watch the show feeling like it was just me and the rest of the cult.

Something the show played up to, however inadvertently. There's some black humor to be found in the title of the episode alone. This first episode to air after a long hiatus, during which the long ratings-challenged series was officially cancelled, was entitled "The Disaster Show."

And the episode itself was the kind of thing some of us were wishing they'd done more of all along with the "live comedy show" idea: What happens when the prop department-including the cue card holders-go on strike 10 minutes before a broadcast?

They kept the pace snappy (I'm sorry to feel that I have to add "for once"), remembering to bring the funny and leave behind most of the things that were weighing the show down. What things?

Well, I'm really sorry to feel that I have to add this, but Danny, Jordan and Matt didn't even appear. And the show was better than it had been for the last several episodes I remember.

There might have been a lesson in that.

Plus for us serious "West Wing" fans, there was the added value of that series' star Allison Janney, playing herself as the host of the beleaguered show. The script reunited her with "Studio 60" cast member Timothy Busfield, who was Danny on "West Wing."

His character and Janney's C.J. Cregg were the Tracy-Hepburn of that show, and watching them work together is nothing but sheer pleasure.

For those eight or nine of you who were also following the series, in case you didn't know, it's back. Catch it while you can.

It's been some time since I've commented on the fact that Marilyn Manson is not a man

So let's post another announcement. This is the woman that he couldn't keep pleased.

(Or, talk about your Venus, for Goddesses' sake...)

Men are from Earth. Women are from...

About Venus, first things first: Peter O'Toole says "cunt" better than any man alive. The jokey thing to say next here would be that the movie is worth seeing for that alone, but it would be worth it even if not for that.

It's the kind of small film I like a lot, one where how it is played, written and directed matters. As opposed to your big movies where heart, charm and wit are basically irrelevant; some have them some don't, but they're going to succeed anyway.

The story is about a man near death and his relationship with a woman in almost precisely the opposite position. Played or told wrong it could give audiences a sinking feeling, but it's a sweet and fragile film with a vision of maturity that I can only hope to.

There may have been actors who could have played this role as well as O'Toole, but I'm not sure I can think of any, and it's impossible to think of anyone better. It required a genuine character in his 70s; a man that you would believe not all that long ago was a master of women.

(Inasmuch as any man is ever a master of women, which is kind of what the film's about. I should explain: I'm using "master" in the sense of being skilled and learned about, not in control of.)

Do any names come to your mind besides Peter O'Toole? He floats buoyantly throughout, treating his friends, and his life, with a kind of loving disrespect. The woman he attempts to master here is played by a relative newcomer-then again, compared to O'Toole, who isn't?-named Jodie Whittaker.

In some ways it's the harder role, because I'll tell you a secret: I think this film is full of symbolism. This is just what I saw, because I stopped the "making of" doc a few seconds in when I realized I didn't really want to know what the filmmakers thought.

The direction, by the way, is by Roger Michell. It doesn't surprise me to see that one of his other movies was Notting Hill, also notable for its warmth and human interaction. The writer is Hanif Kureishi, whose other films I don't know, but think perhaps I should. This is the kind of movie I'd like to write.

Getting back to the symbolism, I think what's being examined here is not just a bittersweet, winter-spring quasi-romance, I think it's the beauty in all women that all men, at least all men worth aspiring to be, worship.

That's right, I think Ms. Whittaker was playing Everywoman, and having to do it opposite Peter O'Toole. So no pressure there, right? Fortunately, Ms. Whittaker is simply perfect.

It's not a showy performance at all, but a perceptive and candid one. And everything her character does-both her tenderness and her lack of concern-is consistent with the wounds women have inflicted, and the healing they have administered.

Thank you, Kurt

There is this: Attempted seductions are so cheap for would-be-ink-stained Don Juans or Cleopatras!They don't have to get a bankable actor or actress to commit to the project, and then a bankable director, and so on, and then raise millions of buckareenies from manic-depressive experts on what most people want.

Still and all, why bother? Here's my answer: Many people still need desperately to receive this message: "I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don't care about them. You are not alone"

Kurt Vonnegut, from Timequake, as quoted in Like Shaking Hands With God by Vonnegut and Stringer.

Okay, boys and girls, see if you agree with me on this:

Here's a local story from here in Washington State:

This year's "Women of UW" calendar has been pulled from the shelves of the University Bookstore, apparently because of a protest by some students.

[Cover girl Jeatt] Walker, 20, said she had no doubts about signing up.

"It was classy enough that I was not embarrassed to show it to my family. It was the first big thing I've been in."

She said the calendar "displayed a really good fact that women can be smart and beautiful. The UW is full of really powerful women."

But other students weren't so taken.

"As I flipped through its pages, I became increasingly upset at its blatant objectification of UW students," some wrote in an open letter to UW President Mark Emmert.

"More importantly, I was horrified at the prominent display of the University of Washington's name and trademark logos spread across the pages of the calendar, providing the background for female students posing in provocative outfits against campus settings."

Here's what I think: Nobody, ever, in the history of mankind has ever honestly thought, said or written anything like that. That's not how somebody really feels, that's how somebody thinks they should feel.

That's somebody-or more likely, a committee of somebodies-who's read a few "women's" web sites and now thinks they're "empowered" and antisexist. So they're therefore deciding that only they can perceive sexism while their fellow women who posed aren't smart enough.

As Heinlein said, "A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain."

BTW, I've never bought a "Women of..." calendar and probably never will, so it's not about that.

Some might infer something about the fans from this.

Not me, of course. According to the Summer Music Preview issue of EW, after Kelly Clarkson's

performance on the Idol Gives Back charity show last month, one message boarder dubbed her "Mama Cass."

Apparently they thought she was a bit hippy.

This is Kelly Clarkson backstage during that show...

...and this is Mama Cass on the cover of a Mamas and the Papas album.

You know, watching "That '70s Show" doesn't really get me nostaligic for the '70s

It does make me nostalgic for when cute Laura Prepon was a redhead as god intended.

Classic Of Western Literature or Tales Too Tickleish To Tell?

Whatever else it was, Bloom County was one of my favorite syndicated comic-strips.



Here's an interview with writer and artist Berke Breathed.

Like Candy Spelling, Joss Whedon gets his ideas from me.

Whedon, the "genius"(?) behind Buffy, comments on that same "Captivity" movie I wrote about earlier this month. I would have liked his article a lot more if he hadn't decided to glorify and reward a violent and vicious would-be rapist punk in his own "feminst" series.

And if he'd ever been able to write out a strong woman character without killing them.

In fact, I would like all of Whedon's work a lot more (and I do like it) if that were true.

But that's me.

Y'know...as it happens, it hasn't been my day, my week...(UPDATED)

Thanks to my Mann James, who sent me...my man James. That is, my guitar-loving sometime colleague James Mann-who makes me look like a Bush-loving warmonger-sent me James Brown's 20 All-Time Greatest Hits! from my Amazon list.

He doesn't say why; it's not my birthday for another three months and change (September First, for those of you who want to do your shopping now). If I had to bet I'd say it was because he somehow sensed that I only had a couple of JB tracks in my collection on soundtracks and compilations. And judged me a failure because of it. Quite right, too.

Baby baby baby, baby baby baby, baby baby baby, baby baby baby...

(UPDATE: James wrote, in his blog, the strongest post I've seen on the news we had earlier this week that sex-phobic babbling idiot Jerry Falwell is dead. I hadn't posted about that here because I really had little else to say, apart from his being a sex-phobic babbling idiot.

James has more.)

We try.

A comment on my Amazon.com Customer review of the book Memories Of John Lennon quotes my statement

"Never trust anyone who says their favorite John Lennon song is 'Imagine.' They're drippy people."

And writes...

Wow. That's about the most pompous, asinine statement I've ever heard.

I wish you had, Amy

Amy Sherman-Palladino Q & A about the finale of Gilmore Girls and the beginnings of her new show, The Return of Jezebel James. She ends by saying,

I don't believe that bull----, ''If you love it, let it go.'' If you love it, stay there and make sure no one else f---s it up.

And my first response was: Yeah! Just another one of the many reasons why I have a crush on Amy Sherman-Palladino. But then I thought again. Isn't letting Gilmore Girls go and letting other people fuck it up exactly what she did?

It's just problematic to have to add this codicil to her statement:

Unless you can't come to terms with the network. If so, then walk away only after having painted your characters into piss-poor positions. So that even if the new showrunner had been a more distinct writer, he still wouldn't have been able to save the ship.

My admiration for her sharp writing remains undiminished, and I'm looking forward to the new series. But...

It's as if someone wanted to create a person just for me

Sandra Lou. She's sexy. She's adorable. Actually she looks a little like Christa Miller. She sings daft electronic/techno-pop, with an emphasis on the "pop." In French.


The first verse of her song in English translates as:

That would not displease to me that you embrace me
NA NA NA
But is necessary to seize your chance before it passes
NA NA NA
If you seek a trick to break the ice
BANANA BANANA BANANA

Which is just genius.

She wears mini-skirts, hot-pink and fluorescent yellow.

Best of all, she looks like she's having fun, and dammit there's life in her eyes. She even got through an entire video for a sugary pop song about a banana without once resorting to that shot.

She shakes her hair.

I think I'm in love.

What a great video this would be for a Monday morning, if only I could tell one day from another.

With much love to the Zaius Nation for showing me her beauty.

I want to be John Legend.

TMZ.com

However, in a pinch I'd settle for being a certain blue dress.

Happy birthday, Jane Wiedlin!

Okay, so it was yesterday, but some things should be noted and celebrated, and the birth of one of the primary composers from the Go-Go's is one of them. She is-brace yourself, TTEC-49.

That first picture, BTW, comes from Ms. Wiedlin's own journal, so it's not like I'm presenting her in a way other than which she would wish to be represented.

The second picture is my favorite of her solo albums (actually, the only one I own).

Personally, I wish she wouldn't go and do things like The Surreal Life which make it harder to defend her from accusations of being a has-been.

But I choose to believe her and the other Go-Go's accomplishments will outlast that.

This is always good news, no matter where it comes from.

The Toronto Star is carrying a story from the Wall Street Journal about how reportedly, Japanese women's breasts are getting bigger and they are in general become curvier. This is always good news, and I mean that for both men and women.

Curvier=healthier, as far as I'm concerned. The fact that it also=sexier to my gaze is just a delightful bonus.

The story carries the perhaps-inevitable headline of

Japanese women bust out

It also contains the four sexiest paragraphs ever to appear, certainly in the Wall Street Journal, but probably in the Toronto Star as well.

Nami Sakamoto, an advertising-agency employee, embodies the new look. The 26-year-old is tall – by Japanese standards – at 5 feet 5 inches. She's also voluptuous, with a 35-inch bust and 35-inch hips.

"I had a hard time finding button-down shirts that would close," says Sakamoto, especially when she was in high school and there were fewer foreign retailers in Japan that actually sold bigger sizes.

"Sometimes the buttons would burst off." Now she buys clothes at Western retailers that carry larger sizes.

Other young women are buying special items to flaunt their new physique. "It's just more fun to show some skin," says Ayami Arii, a 19-year-old vocational school student, who recently sported a tiny denim mini skirt and an iridescent push-up bra that peeks out from below her low-cut blouse. Her bra, a big seller at boutiques in Tokyo's Shibuya 109 department store, is called a "Showy Bra." Similar to a string bikini top, the $60 bras, made to be peeking out of a low-cut blouse, started appearing last year and come in a variety of colours, from red patent leather to leopard print and orange sequins.

My stars! (fans face) It's getting hot in here...

And...Random Flickr-blogging 5183

"Say Mabel."
"What is it, Gertrude?"
"You see where Alberto Gonzales, Bush and his cabinet are going mad?"
"I saw, I saw. You reckon they'll ever be above 50% again in their lives?"
"Not hardly. That'll teach 'em to stop the ballot count and just install a President in the name of the party for which I've worked all of my adult life."
"You're bitter, Mabel."

Photo credit

Random Flickr-blogging 5183

Some weeks, you get lucky. Today I found over half a dozen pictures that all seemed to remind me of a song one or two of you may also know, one way or another. So here's the lyric. I've put the video at the end, too, for those of you who don't know it.



When the leaves
Turn from green to brown
And autumn shades
Come tumbling down
To leave a carpet on the ground
Where we have laid


When winter leaves her branches
bare



And icy breezes chill the air


The freezing snow lies everywhere

My darling
Will we still be there?

When spring rejoices
Down the lane
And everything is new again

Will everything be
Just the same

Will we be there?


Julia, Eurythmics. One of their best, most beautiful songs.

Photo credits: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8

On the other hand, maybe I don't miss the '80s as much as I thought.

Calvin Harris, a Scottish producer and singer, hit number 10 on the UK charts with this record. He is now reportedly writing for Kylie Minogue, and supported Groove Armada among others on tour.

Harris is only partly responsible for this version of the video-the sections where you see him lipsynching come from the original. The rest were put together, in the main, by a YouTuber called LoveSoldier106.

I should probably be required to watch this video every time I go on one of my "totally tubular '80s child" rants. Because it's an affectionate, loving tribute to just what was considered..."Acceptable in the 80's..."

Simon LeBon thinks he's Mick Jagger

...in this clip of Duran Duran performing "Notorious" live. This song originally came out a few years before I started liking Duran, but in retrospect I like it a lot, even though (as with most of their records) I have no idea what the words are supposed to mean.

I only know what they mean to me, and to me, the best words, the reasons why this dance song takes me to a pretty dark place, have always been

I heard your promise
But I don't believe it

I don't really trust anyone outside my own head. I mean I know why; I was betrayed at a very early age by someone who everything, inside and out, tells you you are supposed to trust above all others.

And the pattern of my life, at least as it seems to me, is people speaking pretty words to me and then fucking me over and going away.

So I hear your promise.

But I don't believe it.

For those of you who don't watch the show, that's Dr. Zoidberg

Which Futurama Character are YOU?
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A fan has written a little character bio here.

Who do I root for in a case like this: Motel 6

The widow Spelling v. Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis

Actually I suppose I'll root for Mrs. Spelling on account of I once had a little completely-wrong crush on her daughter. And I really don't like Joe Francis, who's managed to take something that should be all about appreciation-girl watching-and turned it into something that from where I sit is almost as humiliating for the "boys" as it is for the "girls."

He's been the worst thing for women's breasts since Demi Moore.

I thought so.

(Quizilla being Quizilla, you may need to highlight the text under the picture to read details. BTW, Quizilla is the worst.)

Which Scrubs Character Are You?

You're Doctor Cox!
Sarcastic and cynical, but deep down we know you care.
Sometimes it's ok to let that show.
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And hey, this means I get to be married to the most beautiful woman on television (1995-2005), Christa Miller.

Albums you (probably) haven't heard and need to

Starflyer 59's Leave Here a Stranger.

Please forgive me in advance for this joke

When his girlfriend asked Marvin why he was always hanging out at the golf course, he said, "Oh, y'know...the view...the excercise...the silent contemplation...the view..."

If our love song Could fly over mountains; Sail over heartaches

Or: 2,570 entries, and I haven't posted any David Bowie videos. Let's rectify that right now, being as he only invented rock and did anybody bother to thank him for it?

I'm semi-serious when I say that, BTW. For the kind of rock I like (which is pretty broadly defined, admittedly), Bowie, Kraftwerk and Roxy are basically the Robert Johnson, Chuck Berry and Ray Charles.

Plus it was a show on his "farewell tour" where I kissed Ginger. Those of you who know what that means, know what it means.

Here's "Absolute Beginners."

Forget it, Veronica...it's Neptune

As you didn't have to be a fortuneteller to predict, Veronica Mars has not been renewed for next season. SAP and Keith the Reel Fanatic are in mourning and I know they're not alone (in fact SAP links to another).

Veronica Mars has been one of my favorite TV shows literally since the day it premiered and I can prove that. I spent what seems like a year or two badgering people to recognize its superiority, or even just try it.

I can't bring myself to get too crazy about its cancellation; I went into this season knowing it was do-or-die time for Veronica ratingswise. Nor do I think I can really call the CW stupid (or threaten, as Keith does, never to watch the network again).

They cancelled a show that after three years was still at the very bottom of the ratings for the week. That doesn't make them stupid or mean I should deprive a future show I might like of my viewership, or myself of the pleasure of viewing.

The show blew its chance to expand on the cult and critical following it had acquired over the first season when the second season's writing spun wildly out of control. Although the third season has been a marked improvement, it's still (for me) too often been in fits and starts.

I hope everyone involved both in front of and behind the camera on Veronica Mars will go on to other things, and I'll certainly be watching for them.

This made me laugh.

Via Feministing.

see the sights

This is Field Work by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Thomas Dolby. The part where the record proper starts (after all the bleeps and bloops while they set up the concept of the video) is one of my favorite song inroductions ever. Serious "walking on stage if I were a pop star" fantasies here.



And this is Wise Up Sucker by PWEI (Pop Will Eat Itself). I love the destructive but controlled feel that runs through this record like an electrical current.

I'd just like to officially be the last guy in the world to say

Oh my god does Ocean's 12 suck beyond all previously accepted definitions of sucking. I'm a big fan of its predecessor, but this may be the worst follow-up I have ever seen. Boring where the first one was fun, dull where it was shiny, and where the first story had a kind of absurd reasoning, this one throws all reason out the window.

It's essentially over two hours of Clooney, Roberts, Soderbergh and the rest holding up a great big "fuck you!" finger to the audience.

"We don't need a script, we're movie stars!"

As I say, I realize I'm probably about the last one to come to this realization. Some comments I have seen from Clooney about the forthcoming ...13 suggest he knows it too. But I just had to get that out or it was gonna stick in my craw.

You know how it is.

I always knew you had it in you, Tara

TMZ is shocked-shocked!

Breaking News: Tara Reid Gets Classy!

Tragic party girl Tara Reid managed to pull it together, and dare we say, actually looked good last night.

Some people can wear a gay flag for a dress and some people can't

Further to my latest Kylie post, here's Lindsay Lohan at Maxim's Hot 100 party. Click to make it bigger.

A short review

According to Rotten Tomatoes, the critical consensus for the film Shortbus is

The sex may be explicit, but Mitchell integrates it into the characters' lives and serves the whole story up with a generous dose of sweetness and wit.

No, he doesn't.

i'm old, not wise, just worried

the best man's fall
could i interest you in a little something special
pay the earth but if you have no money
your attention'll do
and if you don't give a damn
you're welcome to keep it
it's a hard road when you know where you're going
and it's harder when you know where you're not
so i'll stamp my clay feet till the staggering stops
but good god give me strength to face another lazy day of
"if i was a millionaire i'd be a million miles from here"


hands of the clock give me a round of applause
for getting out of bed and the scars of the night before
have turned into scabs and still I'm seeing double
and i'm looking twice my age
it's getting to the stage where
i'm old, not wise, just worried


stories of rags to riches leave me in stitches
and with a thread that's hard to follow


you came into my life like a brick through a window
and i cracked a smile
remember those good
who remembers the good old games
that seemed to fill our days
like a kiss, cuddle and torture and
i-spy, s-p-i-t in your eye


those around me who came up trumps
would always get down on their knees to brag

the trash can sinatras

Poetic

Le Coeur
Henri Matisse, French, 1869-1954

This is my contribution to today's offering of Poetry Corner at If I Ran The Zoo. I found this poem and the artwork I'm posting with it in one of my "Desert Island Books:" Art & Love: An Illustrated Anthology of Love Poetry, put out by the Met Museum of Art. 150 poets matched with pieces from the musem.

My first, first (and to date only) produced play was originally named after this poem. I changed the title, but it still contains a scene where a character quotes:

somewhere i have never travelled

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which
enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring
opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world
equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

E.E. CUMMINGS, American, 1894-1962

The Garden at Vaucresson
Edouard Vuillard, French
1923 and 1937.

Sarah Silverman is mocking me with her Jewish star good looks

I tend to be a little ambivalent about Sarah Silverman. When I think of Silverman, I often think of something Dorothy Parker once said about herself,

"I was just a little Jewish girl trying to be cute."

But that thought in itself is ambivalent. I mean it, in one sense, in a desire to decrease her celebrity in reaction to the idea that she is somehow state-of-the-art in comedy. When I sometimes think that at least as much of her success is down to the fact that men like an attractive woman who is willing to talk filthy.

Yet comparing anyone who writes and can be witty (man or woman) to Dorothy Parker in any way is, inherently, a compliment. And I mean it in that sense, too. Sometimes she doesn't make me laugh as much as squirm...but sometimes that's my favorite thing that she does, as in her appearance in The Aristocrats.

All that to one side... I love this picture of her that appeared in Maxim.

I love it not just because it's a picture of a good-looking woman in her underpants (although, god knows...). But because I think it's a reference to one of the more famous scenes from the original Cabaret.

In the scene, Joel Grey as the MC of the title show in 1930s Berlin dances with an actor dressed in an oversized gorillia suit and sings lovingly "If they could see her through my eyes, maybe they'd all understand..." Originally, the last line of the song was-"If you could see her through my eyes...she wouldn't look Jewish at all."

It was meant to be chilling, and reportedly it was too much so. As happens, what was intended to be a scathing satire of anti-Semitism was taken by some to be the real thing. The creators, against their better artistic judgement, changed the line, although Grey would sometimes use the original and claim he "forgot." Bob Fosse also restored it for his film version, and I believe it is mostly used in productions today.

I should say that I don't know if that connection was intended, and if it was I don't know that it was Silverman's idea and not the photographers. But it seems so typical of Silverman that she would have things working on at least two levels even for something that's usually just as honestly sexist as Maxim photos.

I have to admire her for it.

(Photos source here. There's one or two more sexy ones, too.)

On the other hand

As most of you know, I have been writing/trying to sell a play/screenplay/novel for a few years that features a couple of characters who happen to be gay. As many of you may also know, it is a characteristic of the "struggling artist" that we sometimes feel sorry for ourselves when work that we perceive to be not as good as our own does well.

Or even just the fact that it gets made or published, even if it dies on the vine, while we still struggle. It can be disheartening, my friends, when you know that you've spent great amounts of time and care trying to create people an audience will care about. With good things to say, and a compelling story to tell.

Meanwhile, stories that seem to you to be more about exploitation and/or tokenism are put out there.

But, as in all things, there is balance.

you can get Mary Cheney's memoir for six cents (***NEVER USED***) at Amazon.

Gracias to Blue Gal.

There are exceptions to every rule

Speaking of actresses that I don't find quite as pretty as the rest of the country seems to, I've written in the past of how Jessica Alba doesn't get me that hot.

However.

Sweet Lord, her legs are about eight feet long!

This blog needs to return to its higher purpose

Over in thoughts from an empty head, SAP replies to Maxim's naming of Lindsay Lohan as The Most Beautiful Girl in the World.

I can personally think of at least seven women right off the bat who are infinitely more beautiful than Lohan.

And so SAP features them. My favorites on that list: Freema Agyeman (I think a better picture might have been found, but that's me) and Jewel Staite (hey, just because I don't think Firefly was all that doesn't mean I don't know a hot babe when I see one) .

So I figured I could also think of at least seven women who are more beautiful than Ms. Lohan. And I figured, just for the challenge and to keep you all entertained, I would do so without relying on Anne Hathaway or any of the rest of the usual suspects.

As it turns out, I thought of nine.

So.

In no particular order, here are nine women who may be less celebrated, but are definitely more beautiful than Lindsay Lohan.

Gina Philips. An actress who may be best known as the star of the first Jeepers Creepers movie. As I've written in the past, the creepiest thing about the Jeepers movies is how pedophile-erotic they are. Especially when you know that they were directed and written by a convicted child molester. But you can't blame Philips for that; she does a good job and looks like this.

Sarah Polley. As an actress, she's the queen of what they call "small" movies, with the odd exception like the 2004 Dawn of the Dead. She's also an award-winning screenwriter and director whose first feature, Away From Her, is in limited release now and has been getting terrific reviews.

But. For me, it's always been hard not to think of her as little Sally Salt in Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, also starring Uma Thurman. Even as Polley grew up and turned into Uma's younger sister...

Kim Cattrall. Who really ought to get some kind of special mention on account of she's been scary sexy for over 20 years.

Kelly, aka WarriorTwo. A friendly, thoughtful and bright old girlfriend who is also a damn pretty, kissable (if memory serves) babe and a woman of vision not at all subsceptible to flattery.

On a completely unrelated matter, I sent her my novel a couple of days ago.


And, of course, the Go Gos, especially Jane and Belinda.

Note to self: Never take hallucinogens and look at Kylie

Seriously, either she actually is trying out for Doctor Who, only in 1985, or else this is her way of paying tribute to the gay subjects under her rainbow flag. I'm not saying she doesn't still look amazing, but, um, ow!

First picture credit: Pink Is The New Blog
Second picture credit: This is London

Katharine McPhee: The favorite woman singer of the cowardly, illiterate, tasteless and stupid.

Just give me a minute here folks, just a little ritual I have to perform. Like shrugging off a fly. Normal service to this blog will be resumed as soon as possible.

Katharine McPhee's fan has piped up one more time to defend her honor. Once again, he/she has done so anonymously, posting a comment to one of my blog entries as follows:

I had never heard of your Christy before. I searched her out on youtube. Can't say I was impressed in any way. :shrug: Nothing special there.

The blog entry to which he/she posted this comment...was the one about the spiders in the kid's ear. In other words, one with no connection to Katharine McPhee or my Miss MacColl.

So. From this, we may conclude:

• Katharine McPhee fans are cowards, afraid to face anyone under their own name (or any name)
• Katharine McPhee fans are illiterate. It's Kirsty, not Christy.
• Katherine McPhee fans are tasteless and like tasteless things. You don't have to be a Kirsty groupie like me, who thinks she was a foxy, supremely talented goddess. But to say there was nothing special there means not only don't you know what good music is, you don't even know what special means.
• Katherine McPhee fans are stupid. I repeat, the little punk/ette couldn't even post his/her comment to the right entry.

He/she finishes by bidding me a cool

Goodbye.

Don't let the door hit you on your way out, now.

No Flowers Please

My (below posted) opinion of Ms. McPhee has attracted the attention of an anonymous champion who tries to make me see sense on the matter. He/she also writes, in reference to my bemoaning the fact that crap (as I see it) like this rises while Kirsty is dust,

It is not good to mourn 7 years for someone and meanwhile ignore those who are still with us.

Quite right.

This is Jen Foster, performing "SHE" with 2 Chix and a Drum (shake it, ladies).



This is Venus Hum, featuring vocalist Annette Strean, performing "Montana" (I couldn't find an embedable version).

And this is Violet Indiana w/Siobhan De Marè, performing "Purr la Perla."



By coincidence, Foster and Venus Hum are both either currently based in or from the usually (and justifiably) much-mocked state of Tennessee. Proof yet again that music is the best if not only reason not to simply peel up that state and flick it away like an old scab.

The things you find when you're egotistical enough to do a Google search on your own blog...

...you find good blogs like And I Am Not Resigned, written by the curious Ellen, who linked to me back in January and I only just found out.

This is my favorite thing that I've ever found in YouTube's featured videos.

It's a disco-pop song called "Your Mama," by someone I've never heard of who calls himself Kennedy, and basically it's a love song to M.I.L.F.s and Hot (for) Teachers.

The song's good, but the video's great, highly sexy but also funny.

Enjoy, or see if you don't.

Things that make me miss my girl Kirsty

I just happened to come across the video for Katharine McPhee's song, "Over It." I'm not linking to it, but it's not hard to find if you're curious.

And I'm not denying Ms. McPhee is hot and shapely (why do you think I watched the video?).

The thing is, Kirsty MacColl was both of those things and could actually sing and write.

Based on the video (and songwriting credits), McPhee can't do either.

It's seven years since Kirsty was wrongfully taken from us and Katharine McPhee is an "American Idol."

Things that make me miss my girl Kirsty.

And frankly hate the American music biz, just a little bit more.

Oh my god

Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables.

...parents of the sixth-grade students were outraged.

"The children were in that room in the dark, begging for their lives, because they thought there was someone with a gun after them," said Brandy Cole, whose son went on the trip.

During the last night of the trip, staff members convinced the 69 students that there was a gunman on the loose. They were told to lie on the floor or hide underneath tables and stay quiet. A teacher, disguised in a hooded sweat shirt, even pulled on locked door.

There's more if you can take it. But first of all, you longtime readers...guess in which state this betrayal of children by people they are suppoed to trust took place. Go on, guess. If I were a parent of any of those students I'd want every single person involved fired.

I might even want the school shut down. There is no excuse, none, for making a bunch of elementary school children think they're in some cross between a real-life nightmare and a Friday the 13th movie.

"people who are gay," vs. GAY PEOPLE

I'm Team DeGeneres all the way.

In a long video post on her blog, Rosie O'Donnell claims fellow out lesbian Ellen DeGeneres is not allowed to talk about anything "gay, gay gay!" on her daytime talk show. Mum's the L word?

In her video, Rosie claims Ellen signed a contract that forbids her to mention anything to do with gay issues, adding, "I talk about 'gay' because I like to and she doesn't talk about it because she doesn't want to or she can't."

TMZ contacted a rep for Telepictures, producers of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," who jokingly said "She's gay? Who knew?" The rep then added that this is completely untrue, and that they have no such contracts with any of their hosts, saying,"Ellen is free to talk about whatever she wants and we encourage her to do so."

The Telepictures rep is correct (plus, how much do you love the style of that joke?). I'm not a regular watcher of Ellen's talk show, but without even thinking very hard I could think of three examples of her mentioning her own homosexuality, or gay issues on episodes that I have seen.

It's just that-unlike Rosie-Ellen does and says things that are worth admiring for reasons other than that she's gay, too. I am absolutely confident that her performance in Finding Nemo will live on long after people have forgotten Rosie's vocalizing in Tarzan (if that hasn't already happened)

When she does mentions her homosexuality, she's usually either being funny-she is a comic, after all-or she's just talking about her life (with Ellen, she's usually doing both, actually). I caught a recent episode where she was talking about the back incident that led her to do her show from a hospital-style bed.

In the course of telling the story, she made mention of her girlfriend, the v. hot Portia de Rossi (lucky girl, that Ellen), taking care of her. That the person taking care of her and sharing her life was another woman was part of the story and included as such, as it should have been.

What it was not was rammed down people's throats, let's-scare-the-hell-out-of-the-straights style. It's "people who are gay," vs. GAY PEOPLE, again.

It seems also worth mentioning that DeGeneres is an admired, succesful and award-winning performer, and rightly so, who brings her live-in girlfriend with her to events like the Emmys and People's Choice Awards.

Is it just my blinders as the straight boy that make me wonder what more she is supposed to be doing to help Advance The Homosexual Agenda?

And by the way...obviously I never watched Rosie O'Donnell's talk show when it was on, but via "the trickle down theory of pop culture," ISTR hearing something. Isn't it true that she spent a lot of time talking about her big, hot crush on dreamy Tom Cruise?

Never mind the fact that should have set off at least one or two irony alarms. Doesn't it make her criticizing DeGeneres for the way she chooses to live and talk about her life just a tad hypocritical?

Candy writes Paris

The window Spelling writes a letter to the evil Hilton. Mine was better. BTW, my theory is, Candy is a secret comic book fangirl, is one of those who found this blog via When Fangirls Attack*, and stole my idea.









*Between that and Feministing, my Average visits Per Day, as I post this, is at 1,047!

Ladies Love Cool Ben

By coincidence, I've gotten nods from a couple of journals and websites for women and feminists this week. Ann from Feministing included my review of the model kidnapping-torture flick ad campaign in her Weekly Feminist Reader. Thanks to her.

Also worth checking out in this week's reader:

Abstinence only sex education isn't even playing in Kansas anymore.

This article from Alternet on "The Hidden Costs of America's Hypermasculine Culture:" asks:

What can we say about a country so anxiously hypermasculine that it can give rise to Godmen, a muscular-Christianity movement that seeks to lure Real Men back to church with services that feature guys bending metal wrenches with their bare hands and leaders exulting, "Thank you, Lord, for our testosterone!"

("Thank you, Lord, for our testosterone.")

(Yes, thank you, Lord...)

And this post from Salon about how a man and his wife made a decision to abort.

Random Flickr-blogging 2193

If only you could just go buy it in a bottle.

Credit.