Dear Mr. Henshaw.

Here are a couple of open letters to celebrities to top off the evening.

1.

Dear Lindsay Lohan,

What happened? You used to be so cute. I loved you in "Freaky Friday", and I was jazzed to see "Mean Girls" because it proved that SNL actors actually CAN star in something longer than a five-minute television sketch that is actually, honest-to-goodness, funny and heartfelt.

I liked that you were wholesome, really -- not in a "Parent Trap" kind of way, but not quite so unwaveringly Hollywood. You hadn't succumbed quite yet to all the cliches and ridiculousness of your craft, and I think I naively assumed you might actually hold out. How sad to find that you've gone over almost completely to the Dark Side in just a few short months.

C'mon. Anorexia, blonde hair, and fake-and-baking, Lindsay? You might as well be the long-lost Olsen twin. What happened to the girl with the freckled shoulders and the long, thick red locks and the burgeoning bust? You check into a hospital for "exhaustion", and you check out with an eating disorder and l334 partying skillz to rival Tara Reid's? What happened to, "I don't have an eating disorder. I just ate a cheeseburger"? I guess the sickly waif look was just too tempting to resist, after all. Stardom: 1; Lindsay Lohan: 0. Look, it's the same size as your new jeans.

Oh, Lindsay. I had such high hopes for you. Et tu?

2.

Dear Paris Hilton,

I don't really care all that much for you -- you have a lazy eye, you overaccessorize your poor dog, and you're as tacky as you are wealthy.

But I mean, I guess you know that about yourself, at least. You don't take anything you do seriously, so even if you're incredibly overexposed (in more ways than one!), there's something almost embracing about it.

Note the "almost". I just saw your new Carl's Jr. ad, Ms. Hilton, and I've got to say, I'm ... not surprised, but still sort of galled. It's true, catering to the heterosexual male is a surefire way to sell big, beefy burgers. It's even true that there's even a well-known advertising formula: hot girl + hot car + hot food = hot sales. I mean, it's not exactly rocket science.

There's a formula, Paris, but the entire point is that you're supposed to not make it so obvious. You don't just have a bikini-clad girl soaping a car while eating a burger, for fuck's sake. You're supposed to dress the skeleton of the recipe up to make people think they aren't being so easily ensnared in an unimaginative, overused, and yet, utterly successful advertising ploy.

I mean, you know, unless you're YOU.

P.S.: Ten points to Gryffindor if you know who wrote the book referenced in the subject header. (WITHOUT Googling, people.)

Daisy Duke.

Seeing a preview for the upcoming Jessica Simpson-centric remake of "The Dukes of Hazzard" got me thinking. (No, really.)

It's considered a wretched thing to be anything less than an A-list celebrity. B-list implies mediocrity, and D-list celebs (like self-proclaimed D-lister, Kathy Griffin) pop up every couple of years to host an awards show on VH1 and then disappear again. They seem to have staying power, but not for anything extraordinary -- sort of like their academic counterparts, who may stick around simply because they can't quite make it past that D-level barrier (or in the world of college grade point averages, the 2.0 mark).

It gets me wondering if there's a Double-D-List celebrity out there, somewhere, or if one would skip all the way to F. Unlike the lusted after bra size equivalent, a DD-er wouldn't even have the notoriety of occasional hosting privileges on shows like, "Top Ten Love Songs with the Word 'Tongue' In Them". They simply hang on, like a dangling turd that's not quite ready to succumb to the pull of the swirling toilet bowl below, waiting inevitably for someone to shake them off.

I see Ashlee Simpson as sort of a DD-er: popular-by-association, but with a track record setting her far below the bar of even mediocrity again and again. Whether she's blaming her band and acid reflux for her sucky singing voice, or aerodynamic structures of a baseball stadium for the way her voice projected through the loud speakers at the Orange Bowl, something tells me that getting a new haircut isn't going to keep her from sucking any less.

Kevin "K-Fed" Federline is another example of somebody who would all but drop out of the limelight if not firmly attached to the steadily-growing belly of one, Ms. Britney Spears. I have yet to catch re-runs of their new reality show, "Chaotic" -- why they didn't just call it "Toxic" is beyond me -- but judging from the previews, I'm even more convinced that Britney is the only one in the universe who didn't already realize that her ass-scratching tool of a hubby is a sleazebag. We get it, Brit-Brit: we can't handle your truth. Or, uh, maybe the truth is that you've got about as much substance as the inside of an empty cardboard box, and the depth of a petri dish.

Or did I just completely blow your mind?

This Week in God.

First impressions CAN be deceiving, but in the case of Pope Benedict XVI, declarations of him being overly-rigid and antiquated seem to be pretty much accurate. Catholicism seems ripe with figureheads picking on obvious targets, and when it's not homos coming under fire, it's ... Harry Potter?

You betcha! Seems that "God's Rottweiler" has a grudge against The Boy Who Lived, or more specifically, his creator, J.K. Rowling. (His married, Christian creator who has three kids, I might add.) There are no shortage of retarded accusations flung at Rowling's books by Christian nutjobs practicing their time-honored tradition of leaping before they look, but when Pope John Paul II declared the novels free from a hidden anti-Christian agenda, people could at least roll their eyes and go back to their jobs. With Pope Benedict accusing 'Potter' of "undermining the soul of Christianity", it validates these psychos, and makes me lose even more respect for the religious right than I already had, if that's possible.

I guess Ratzi won't be holding an early screening of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in Vatican City. Bully for him.

In other Christian-related news, Anne Rice has decided to stop pandering to overweight, Wiccan teenagers and tap into the fruitful "The Passion of the Christ" crowd. (Former evidence of this could be seen with her last Lestat-centric book, in which she turns the Prince of Vampires into an undead surfer boy. I mean, totally obvious alienation tactic.) That's right: her next book's leading man will be none other than His Holyness, Jesus H. Christ!

"I'm not a priest," Rice also writes in the letter. "I can't be one. I'll never be able to go to the altar of the Lord and say the words of consecration at Mass, `This is my body. This is my blood.' No, I can't work that magnificent Eucharistic miracle. But in humility, I have attempted something transformative which we writers dare to call a miracle in the imperfect human idiom we possess. It's to bring Him here in the form a story, and that story is Christ The Lord."

God, I can't WAIT to see the Amazon.com fallout over this one!

Fallen Idol.

I'm trying to figure out how Ryan Seacrest, of all people, gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He wasn't half as well known in the days before "American Idol", no matter what all the news articles are saying. And in my opinion, Simon Cowell has a reason to be grumpy:

“Listen, Simon,” Jackson said to Cowell during their ceremonial speech. “What would we say about this day?”

“Ill-deserved,” the famously grumpy Cowell replied, dryly. “I cannot believe that April the 20th is going to be Ryan Seacrest Day. I am officially taking this day off my diary.”

Seriously, what has Ryan done besides highlight his hair every couple of weeks? He really has no discernable personality on the show; HE's not the one telling contestants that their "talents" will only get them as far as cruise-ship entertaining; HE's not the one currently embroiled in a sex scandal with a former contestant. He hasn't even done anything interesting like getting gastric-bypass surgery. He's just ... there. If he and the judges were being ranked, he'd more than likely be the first one voted off.

Ah, well. I guess if Hollywood can continue casting Paris Hilton in things, the Ryan Seacrest blunder is pretty much par for the course.



"Simon ... Simon, w-why are you choking me, Simon? Simon, I can't b-breathe ...!"

Batteries sold separately.

As a young girl, I was rather enamoured with Barbie dolls. There was something intoxicating about pretty, perfect, pink Barbie and her similarly gorgeous, color-coordinated, fashion-savvy, suspiciously diverse group of friends.

As a still-rather-young-but-not-entirely-as-naive twentysomething-year-old, I no longer rush out to collect the latest designer doll, but I do occasionally find one that strikes my fancy. Enter the Ann Coulter action figure; she's super skinny, super conservative, and super batshit crazy! Hailed as "a blond haired beauty with the brains and backbone to send the staunchest Liberal running for the hills", and inexplicably part of the "America's Real Action Heroes" collection (I didn't know running off at the mouth with falsified bits of 'facts' and generally making a nuisance of yourself put you at "action hero" status!), Ann the Doll's best feature is definitely her plastic voice-box, which parrots off fourteen of her most infamous phrases, including:

"Liberals can't just come out and say they want to take more of our money, kill babies, and discriminate on the basis of race."

*

"Why not go to war just for oil? We need oil. What do Hollywood celebrities imagine fuels their private jets? How do they think their cocaine is delivered to them?"

*

"Liberals hate America, they hate flag-wavers, they hate abortion opponents, they hate all religions except Islam, post 9/11. Even Islamic terrorists don't hate America like Liberals do. They don't have the energy. If they had that much energy, they'd have indoor plumbing by now."

Now I know what I want for Christmas!



"I want an Ann Coulter doll nooow, daddy!"

P.S.: Can't get enough of nutty for the evening? Then I entreat you to read I Fucked Ann Coulter in the Ass, Hard. Brilliant satire or dirty, treacherous liberal bias? You decide.

Left is right and right is GAY.

I've decided the thing that cheeses me off the most about the whole Jim West (Mayor of Spokane) alleged "gay sex scandal" isn't the infidelity against his wife. Everyone knows that politicians are hardly pinnacles of morality, and Republican or Democrat, sometimes the urge to insert Tab P into Hot Secretary B (or in West's case, Hot Gay.com Web Cruiser B) is just overwhelming.

The truth of the matter is, West has always been kind of a dubious asshole, with a track record that includes banning homeless people from 'setting up house' in local parks, and, as a recent Gaywatch segment on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" litanizes, has voted to ban gays from schools; opposed anti-gay discrimination measures (i.e.: actually offering up more than a slap on the wrist for crimes/minor hurtful actions towards homosexuals; it lost by one fucking vote); and has opposed partnership rights for gay city employees.

(I will point out that I find the accusations against him regarding fondling Boy Scouts sort of sketchy. With the recent influx of horror stories involving priests and other authority figures misusing their positions of power -- including a resurge of interest in ex-teacher Mary Kay Letourneau since she's marrying her now-21-year-old beau and former student, whom she had an affair just after his balls dropped, to say nothing of Corey Clark's fingering Paula Abdul for her supposedly initiating secret rendezvous at her apartment during season two of "American Idol" -- it seems at least a little like sex scandals are all the rage right now.)

No, what really bugs me is that West is only one in a long line of politicians using conservative bias to stand on one soapbox, while in the meantime, seeking out company in the "seedy underbelly" of society that he spends his days condemning. Gay people are depraved and shouldn't be allowed to adopt children or get married, he scoffs, and then turns around and solicits sex from them from the 'safety' of his office. "Overtime" must take on a whole new meaning for him.

The real kicker is, the idea of homosexuality and there being a "gay lifestyle" gets imposed upon gay people by those like West, who, ironically, only make it more difficult on themselves when they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar, so to speak. But oh, then the hypocrisy REALLY rears its head; "it's not a big deal that he's gay," fellow Repbulicans argue. "What matters is that he does his job; he's still the same guy with the same ideals. Who he's having sexual relationships with shouldn't affect that."

No, it shouldn't - but it does. It did as soon as Mr. West chose to market himself from the 'safety' of one camp and patronize another, and it mattered as soon as politicians decided they had to have a say in what and whom people were doing in their bedrooms. There's an inherent problem with keeping your "private" life on the down-low when you're well-known -- eventually, it WILL be made public, and it WILL seem inevitably all the more outrageous the more the two don't mesh.

There's a debate currently raging in various pockets of the country regarding whether a term like "gay Republican" is an oxymoron. Is it really so outlandish to think that a homosexual person could have uber-conservative viewpoints? I guess, when the act of being gay in and of itself ceases to be so radical, maybe not. But in the meantime, voting/being Republican as a homosexual is like saying you supported the Nazis as a Jew. The two really don't add up.

In this case, Jim West's main problem (aside from having a very confused, hurt wife at home) is that he's spent so much time condemning gay people that the usual angst and self-discovery that comes with "coming out" may well be met with much less empathy than he hopes for. Gays are a pretty embracing bunch; but West is going to have to do some serious penance in order to start being invited to PFLAG meetings.

Gee, Mayor West, you seem to have your head shoved fairly far up your ass. How's the smell in there, anyways?

Whatever happened to class?

No, this is not just a melodramatic attempt to reach out to the musical "Chicago"; it is a serious question that I am posing. Whatever DID happen to class? Is it just that our current fascination with flashing pictures of celebrities picking up dog shit or shopping at Wal-Mart is so much an epidemic that it simply outnumbers the times when famous people show up in magazines looking glamorous and graceful? Or has there simply been a steady decline in social grace, along with stretching the limits of decency -- and spandex -- in an unofficial and ongoing experiment to figure out just how little one can wear to an awards show without having to have their naughty bits blurred out?

The answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind can more than likely be found -- where so many other things are, I'm sure -- in Lil' Kim's vagina:


'C' is for 'camel toe', that's good enough for me.

I guess this is clearly a case of mo' money, mo' problems. I mean, Lil' Kim is richer than the average ho, and yet, she can't afford a pair of pants that fit correctly. Maybe somebody ought to start a charity fund for her -- or at the very least, buy her a mumu.

You say 'sometimes', I say 'tomahto'.

Lately, the media has been filled with a resounding number of articles and "exposes" about what has been termed an "epidemic" the way Latin music "exploded onto the scene" a few years ago. It's OBESITY, ladies and gentlemen, and in an effort to keep the United States' collective (albeit, v. v. divided) mind off of the growing number of senseless casualties in Iraq and just how the government is pissing away YOUR tax dollars, it's the new blue!

And nobody could be bluer than "Sesame Street's" Cookie Monster, who has been recently martyred to the cause of promoting healthy eating for children. In an effort to reach out to the steadfastly growing population of little porkers in America, the 35th season of "Sesame Street" kicked off with an entire premiere episode dedicated to healthy eating. An article on CNN's website showcases the focal point of the episode, the "slight" transformation of Cookie Monster's eating habits into something a bit less monster-ish.

My beloved blue, furry monster -- who sang "C is for cookie, that's good enough for me" -- is now advocating eating healthy. There's even a new song -- "A Cookie Is a Sometimes Food," where Cookie Monster learns there are "anytime" foods and "sometimes" foods.

The brotherlet and I were discussing this (v. v. seriously, of course!) the other day, acknowledging that, while the intentions are good, putting a damper on Cookie Monster's cookie-monstering is akin to taking a scalpel to Brian Kinney's nutsack. It's neutering him, in a way, depriving him of the thing that makes him ... well, HIM. Not that "Sesame Street" is going to retract the damage to Cookie Monster's essence or anything, but still, it's only a very small part of a very large problem. Instead of advertising super-laxative-strength diet pills and Weight Watchers, maybe TV execs should think about how often consumers see back-to-back commercials of a deliciously greasy new burger, alongside an advertisement for Bowflex or Gold's Gym. Nothing like double standards in good ol' corporate America! But hey, what do I know?

And of course, there are numerous ways I expect either SNL or Mad TV to address the change. Cookie Monster could guest-star in his own Subway commercial, or advocate the Atkins diet, or something. Along the way, however, he could have a slight nervous breakdown (the blue monster equivalent of queening-out), where he ransacks his trailer for the hidden stash of chocolate chip yummies in the top cabinet. "Cookie Monster, no!" his dieticians will all cry. "Cookies are a sometimes food! Remember what we have learned?"

"THIS IS A SOMETIMES TIME!" Cookie Monster will roar in response, and then hurl the do-gooders out the door (in a way that will still fit with the TV Y7 rating, of course -- although I'd be eager to hear Cookie Monster putting his anger towards the situation into his music, addressing it with a new song: "F is for 'fuck you', now gimme a goddamned cookie!").

Sketchy though this change is, I have to agree with the CNN representative that it can only end in tears: "That's akin to Oscar the Grouch being nice and clean", they acknowledge angrily, and it's so true. I won't be surprised in the least to hear that Carson Kressley is making a guest appearance on an upcoming episode to turn Oscar's debris-filled pad and grungy mane into a thing of metrosexual beauty.

Et tu, "Sesame Street"? Et tu?

Variety is the spice of badness.

I've been trying to get the brotherlet into "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" for the longest time. It's a fantastic show, full of heart and humour and an entire subset of its online fanbase dedicated purely to meta speculation, which I am a total slut for. I mean, one does not write a 10 page paper on "non-standard English in BtVS" because they don't like to glut themselves on reading between the lines of witty banter. (And since we are prone to watching and enjoying similar TV/movie titles (our musical tastes are a totally different story, which I think I have actually detailed in this very blog at least once before), I am adamant that once he gets past laughing at how "teenybopperish" the title sounds, he'll really enjoy it.)

Anyways, my window of opportunity was propped open when I dusted off a semi-worn copy of the "Once More With Feeling" soundtrack. I'd purchased an additional one for a friend and then found out that she already owned it, and after having it sitting around my room for months unopened, I finally decided to put it to good use. Travis was eyeing the old copy, and I offered it to him, under the stipulation that he'd watch the actual episode so he understood the context (read: not-so-subtly bribed him into a Buffyfest).

Needless to say, he really enjoyed it -- but why wouldn't he, you know? The gratuitous mix of fun and frollick and thinly-veiled sexual jokes ("spread beneath my willow tree"; "I break with every quell"; "you make me com-plete"; "your firm but supple -- tight embrace!", et cetera, et cetera) is pretty difficult not to at least crack a smile during. He's seen a couple of other episodes now, too -- namely, "Faith, Hope & Trick", where Fab Filippo guest-stars as Scott Hope (although Travis still called him Ian, of course), and the infamous "Doublemeat Palace", in which Buffy, desperate for cash, starts working in fast food.

There's something to be said for Buff's stint as a "regular" working girl, too, that speaks to the average, non-Slayer-ish person. In a pique of borderline paranoia and inborn superhero intuitiveness, Buffy's senses are immediately alerted when she realizes that something is amiss in the Doublemeat universe. However, Xander's response to her concerns really sum up the "work sucks!" motif that Joss Whedon was trying to convey, in my opinion:

BUFFY: There's, there's this manager, right, and he's all scary and mysterious, you know? And then there's the secret ingredient. And -- and the people that work here? They're -- they're kind of strange, you know? They just ... just stare into space. Plus, they disappear.
ANYA: Disappear 'poof'?
BUFFY: No, not 'poof'. Well, I don't think so.
XANDER: It's fast food. I have swum these murky waters, my friend. There's the assorted creepiness, there's staring, there's the enthusiastic not showing up at all. I think you're seeing demons where there's just life.

Of course, the irony is that there IS a demonic old lady responsible for keeping turnover so high -- so Buffy was right, in that SOMETHING was amiss, but it wasn't the Doublemeat Palace in and of itself. As Xander points out, her Slayer senses are tuned into the paranormal so much, that she doesn't recognize the inherent weirdness in the "regular" world as something completely, utterly normal. And so she stays, at least for a little while, because even though slaying vampires and other assorted baddies and stopping the occasional Apocalypse is a pretty hefty undertaking, it doesn't make her house payment every month.

But you know, she doesn't have to pay vamping taxes or fill out a W4 or take a drug test to kill things with pointy wooden stakes, either. Where can I get ME some of that Chosen One-ness?

Deja Ew.

I was glancing over an article about -- what else? -- Mrs. Britney Federline's pregnancy, and all of the sudden, I had ... an epiphany.

I'm sure you can figure it out by now: Britney Spears and Kevin Federline, pregnant pop starlet and her deadbeat back-up dancer husband, are the three-dimensional (in a living, breathing kind of way, but not necessarily personality-wise, sadly) versions of Kevin and Brittany from MTV's uber-successful "Beavis & Butthead" spin-off, "Daria".

I just ... I feel so incredibly brilliant for figuring this out, even though it's probably echoing through the vast wilderness of the 1.5 people who are going to read this with a resounding, "d'oh!" Britney/Kevin = Brittany/Kevin! It's like that episode of the "Clueless" television show (not nearly as good as the movie, but the Alicia Silverstone knock-off was passable, and the theme song was shamefully addictive: she is literally the po-la-roid of perfection / she has ev'rything and she'll giiiive it to you in a se-cond ... ) where Cher has a fleeting but passionate affair with a guy named -- wait for it -- Sonny.

Ah, man. I wonder if the cartoon's creators ever made the connection. Either way, given that the hey-day of "Daria" ended at least 2-3 years ago, and the Mrs. Britney Federline thing hasn't even reached its one-year anniversary of eventual single-motherhood and alimony payments, I have to marvel at how prophetic the show was.



"You're sooo hot, babe!"

"Awww, Kevvy, you're so dreamy!"

Bad Omens.

In case G.W. Bush "winning" a second consecutive term in office and "Dead Like Me" being cancelled after only two seasons weren't ALREADY indicators of impending doom and Armageddon, it's been "officially" confirmed that the obviously-eating-for-two-now Britney Spears is, indeed, pregnant:

“The time has finally come to share our wonderful news that we are expecting our first child together,” the singer said. “There are reports that I was in the hospital this weekend, and Kevin and I just want everyone to know that all is well. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.”

It's not that I think she won't make a good enough doting mother and housewife; I mean, it's been increasingly obvious since her and good ol' K-Fed got hitched last September that all the glitz and glamour of the music business were just a sparkly sequined cover-up for the fact that Brit-Brit's just destined for young, barefooted motherhood. But honestly, who didn't call this way back during their courtship? And who actually thinks Kevin Federline, unemployed back-up dancer and part-time magazine metrosexual, who normally has trouble finding his own waistline when he shops for pants, is going to stick around for Spears anymore than he did his last wife?

Oops. I think he did it again, folks. I wonder what they'll name the little sprog; personally, I'm holding out for Lil' K-Fed if it's a boy, and something ridiculously saccharine-filled that sounds like it could double as the name of one of those hideously expensive, miniature dogs (i.e.: Daisy, Daffodil, Candycane) if it's a girl.

But as long as we're going to be inundated with up-to-the-minute news of just HOW FAT Britney gets, we might as well at least have a little fun. Anyone wanna take bets on how much further into the pregnancy she gets before divorce papers are filed? Before a Justin Timberlake-keeps-in-touch-with-his-ex-and-Cameron's-pissed! scandal breaks out? Before Kevin actually succeeds in marketing himself as a B-list version of Eminem? Hurry, hurry, Brit's biological clock is ticking!

Desperate B-List Celebrities.

By now, I think the entire world has seen the latest "Vanity Fair" cover, featuring the five fortysomething-year-old starlets of the SMASH! HIT! DRAMA!, "Desperate Housewives" (at their meticulously photo-edited best, of course). And by now, it is probably no secret that the women behind the, er, housewives are just as catty as their fictional counterparts:

The article acknowledges that the poolside photo-shoot, in which the five women appear in different colored bathing suits, was manned by an ABC representative who was to make sure that certain demands were met -- including that Teri Hatcher didn't select her wardrobe first or appear in the center of any group photo.

*

The struggles continued once the photographer started snapping. Redhead Marcia Cross turned red-hot when she saw Hatcher standing next to her in the center of the shot, according to the article. Cross grabbed her bathrobe and stormed off, spewing expletives at the ABC rep.

Hatcher later walked to the other end of the set, where "she got into a tearful, heated conversation on her cell phone."

The most interesting thing to me is that, purely from an outsider's perspective (read: I don't watch the show, but I see at least two articles about it in the handful of magazines I read per week), Eva Longoria gets way more celebrity exposure than Teri Hatcher and Marcia Cross combined. I think the only time I've heard of Cross was because of the rumour-turned-"Advocate"-feature article about how she's sonotadykelykomg.

And notice, of course, that it's Longoria who's actually featured in the sprawled center shot. Very sneaky, "Vanity Fair" afficianados. Colour me impressed.

Also, your Moment of Zen:

In the fold-out May cover, which hits newsstands April 12, the center position belongs to Nicollette Sheridan, who's flanked by Hatcher and Cross with Longoria and Felicity Huffman posed beneath them on a chaise -- although Cross and Huffman can't be seen when the cover is folded.

Oh, SNAP!