I’m Not a Cat Lady

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, Day 7: Sanjaya the Jungle Boy

 
Well, enough already with the Heidi and Spencer hype. I guess all the palaver over the weekend worked—IACGMOOH's viewer numbers were up an iota or two from last Thursday night. As suspected, there was no torture in the Lost Chamber—the walls were alive with bugs and spiders, that’s all, which made Heidi and Spencer pogo in panic all night long. Their arc is spread out over the first hour, but let’s get it over with right now: They’re allowed to rejoin camp; they speechify about the Lord and redemption and demons and the power of Christ (and somebody please explain to me why, in three years of The Hills, we’ve had no clue about Heidi’s obsessive Christianity yet now she's incapable of uttering a single syllable without the words Christ or God or praise Jesus leaping from her mouth); Heidi sings for the camp and sounds to Janice like “a cat that somebody has put water on”; Heidi gets sick, she’s rushed to hospital, it’s gastric, it’s serious, the charade is over, they’re gone.

Now they’re out of the way, here’s what else happened. The "aunties from the other side of the family"  have both gone back to the other side. Frances pulled her celebrity card and walked. She couldn’t take it without her BFF Angela. She was justifiably revolted by the return of the Terrible Two, and had nobody to crack wise about it with. I’m sorry to see Frangela go, this show needs their comic relief.

Now to the vote: Who did the public choose to compete in the Houdini Trial? Why, Sanjaya and J-Dick! Yay! I guess my vote counted. But the downside: Clearly, the public isn’t rooting for the Lady Team, there’s no way J-Dick will win. She receives the news perched on a log, looking particularly insane with a  new jungle hairdo that’s just begging to be accented by a bone.

They’re playing for lobster. Sanji goes first. He’s very calm and casual, bound by chains inside that narrow tank, as if he’s hanging out at the local pool. The snakes are added. Then cute little baby crocs. And wee frogs! Aww. The water’s rising fast—I’m starting to panic on his behalf, this can’t be easy!—and Sanji seems to have the ability to breathe underwater as he just keeps diving down for his keys. All the wee froggies float and bob around him, unperturbed, their pointy little frog-fingers dangling underwater. Sanji unlocks all five locks in 3 minutes and 12 seconds. He does a victory dance underwater. Dude didn’t break a sweat.

Next up is J-Dick, who acts like she’s pumped and ready to go. Once she’s all locked in, though, the mood swings wildly. The water rises, the critters are dispensed and she promptly wails: “No-no-no-no-no-no!” The froggies are as scared of J-Dick as she is of them: they bunch together in a corner, as far away from her as they can get. J-Dick screams, “Get me outta here!” and she’s done. Not one lock. She’s hysterical. And yet… her lip gloss is miraculously intact.

Sanji and J-Dick return to camp. “Hey, what happened?” Patti asks gratuitously. Take a guess, hon. J-Dick is traumatized and has to have a lie-down. A tarantula crawls on a rock. The boys come up with an idea to devise their own game for the girls to play, and the winner gets one of their meals. J-Dick is pissed and screeches about how she’s sick. She breaks down and whimpers for Sanji, who runs to her side. He’s got huge, angry red welts all over his skinny body. Do you hear him complain? J-Dick is shaking and crying about how freaked out she was by the trial. Sanji holds and kisses her to make it all better. It’s a little bit creepy, a bit too Spanking the Monkey for me. And Daniel “Papa Bear” Baldwin too—he’s done with her lousy menopausal moods.

We get a short Sanji the Jungle Boy montage. He’s gone completely Mowgli now. “I’m totally in my element!” he squeals, black warpaint smeared on his face. He makes jungle jewellery. He designs a broom out of some palm fronds. He whittles a vine to make some furniture. He’s really at home here. “He’s like a wood nymph,” coos Lou Diamond. Wise, wacky Uncle Lou.

By now the men have had it up to here with the Diva Dickinson and her drama. She orders SanjiMow around—“get my shoes, give me a massage!” She lies around all day and scowls. Which is such a waste of all the time and money she’s invested in her various nips and tucks and fillers—when she’s not scowling, she can look quite pretty. Why have all that work done and then pull a face all day like Jabba the Hut? Long Tall bitches behind her back, “She’s she’s mean she’s selfish … she’s a witch.” Papa Bear is more direct, telling her straight up: “I just want to see you do something around this camp besides eat and sleep.” Naturally, this just makes her sneer and scowl some more.

It’s time to pick a new team leader, Wacky Uncle Lou announces in his reading glasses. Hee! They have to split into two teams and do another eating challenge at Jungle Joe’s Café. The first group gets some kind of spiky grub. J-Dick sprints out of there, followed by Torrie and Long Tall. It’s up to Sanji, who breaks them into tiny chips and ingests them at his leisure. On the other team, Papa Bear starts talking trash about how he’s hogging the camera time, so Sanji hands him a plateful and Papa scarfs 'em right down. This gains him no points at all: it’s not his round yet and it isn’t even his dish. Such a showoff.

Papa Bear's team gets leaf cutter ants. Brother Stevie informs us that they taste a “little smoky, little jerky” but can’t get them down and walks, with Patti hot on his heels. LouDi has one little problem: He can’t quite swallow. You and a million ladies out there, Lou. Papa Bear wins. 

It’s Sanji and Papa Bear. The dish is a bull’s testicle. In true team spirit, J-Dick gags loudly. Equally helpful, Myleene shouts, “Oh it smells rank!” I’m sure Mario Batali serves these at Babbo, what's all the fuss? One bite and Sanji’s out. LouDi and Papa Bear face off in the next round: stick insect with cow tongue chaser. Daniel inhales the bug, no problem but he can’t do the tongue. He forfeits to LouDi.

J-Dick is relieved because LouDi “doesn’t have snarly comments like the Baldwins or Salley.” Not for long. LouDi decides, in the effort to be a fair leader, to have a Janice intervention. He assigns her to dish duty. J-Dick responds by hawking something up from her chest.

Suddenly we’re invited for the first time to learn exactly which charities these celebs are suffering for. Daniel is there for the his mother’s institute, Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund. She’s a breast cancer survivor, but he cries just talking about it. Salley’s is the Cedar Sinai Sports Spectacular. Torrie’s for Disabled American Veterans. LouDi’s is the Art Has Heart Foundation. J-Dick is supporting the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation. Sanji’s is the Shriners Hospital for Children. Patti’s is the Children’s Cancer Center. Stevie B’s is Love 146, which helps young girls sold into sex slavery. Okay, good. Now we know. And Myleene and Damien remind us that we can chip in anytime.

It’s dinner time. A basket is lowered into camp from somewhere overhead. But wait—there’s only one lobster in there. J-Dick, who totally threw both competitions today, is all, What? The guys aren’t going to feed me? Unfortunately, the male team is being penalized for exactly that: They were not supposed to share their meals with the losing Lady Team. Now they tell us! Salley’s not having it. “I got children! You don’t punish me!” Not sure why having children exempts anybody from breaking the rules, but whatever. Myleene’s a little tickled by the latest twist; she’s all, Ha ha, suck it!

We’re live and it’s time for the immunity challenge. J-Dick grimaces and invites America to vote her off and then immediately takes it back and then pleads too sick to do the challenge. Papa Bear holds up that black-and-white photo of somebody's baby and, as usual, nobody pays him any mind.  There will be no IACGMOOH tonight thanks to the Stanley Cup, but they’ll be back Wednesday! With a brand new surprise campmate—Heidi’s sister Holly! So the rumors were true after all. And a nation yawns.

Photo courtesy of NBC

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, Day 2: So Long, Pratts!

Janice Dickinson said it best: “I didn’t know I was signing up for I’m a Holy Roller, Get Me Out of Here.” Neither did I. Three quarters of last night’s episode was wasted on the cretinous born-again Christians Heidi and Spencer and their narcissistic “will we stay or will we go” games. It’s way past obvious now that NBC was banking on them to drive up the numbers, but it didn’t work: According to TV by the Numbers, viewership among the 18 to 49s, that Holy Grail of demo groups, was down by 19 percent. That’s too bad, because once these two asshats quit for the third time—seemingly for good, although today rumors persist that they’ll be back, again—the last 10 minutes of the episode finally got down to what this show is supposed to be all about.

Here’s how it played out. Damien and Myleene dimple charmingly as they welcome us back and try to convince us how “incredible” the show's been so far. To the recap: We left off with the players, minus lame sitter-outers Spendi (because they have completely spent my nerves… and by the way, why were they allowed to sit out the live challenge? That is not supposed to be an option!), strapped onto stretchers and suspended headfirst into a pit as different groups of heinous critters are released one by one. Each has the option, of course, to bail at any time. First up is roaches. Frangelica are outta there before it’s even started. Salley springs up like a jack-in-the-box next. Janice bails and seems a little traumatized by it, shrieking “No! No! No! No!” even after she's freed from the pit. I really hope J-Dick doesn’t get voted off. It’s fun watching her freak out.

Tarantulas are released next, then snakes and then worms. Salley the arachnophobe decides to psyche out the remaining women, Mrs. Blago and Torrie, by announcing where all the critters are on their bodies. Torrie has a snake on her face! The girls are out. LouDi's out. Only Sanjaya and Stephen Baldwin remain. Water starts to rise in the pit, threatening to drown them, as the critters crawl and slither all over. Baldwin’s out. Sanjaya wins. Sanjaya! Who knew he was such a badass? Then he interviews in his little-girl lilt, “Winnninggggg was amaaaazinggggg” and flaps his hands at the memory of it all. He’s a fierce little mohawked badass sprite. 

Back to camp: LouDi gets a bed just for being The Leader and Spencer puts on an incredulous “I’ve been robbed” face. Tool. And then, suddenly, a confessional from the Angelica half of Frangelica. Sad reality-show sob-story violins accompany her as she describes a traumatizing potty trip in the middle of the night, and then she shares, just between her and us, that she’s had “a lot of mini-breakdowns.” We cut to one of them. Poor Ange is talking to herself, then telling herself off for talking to herself and slapping herself in the face. What the…? “I’m jungle upset,” she explains. Even though I feel bad for her, well, this is more like the I’m a Celebrity I know and love. Stuff happens to these people when they’re camping out in the jungle like that. It’s a crucial part of the game.

All Twitter, All the Time

  The New York Times' obsession with Twitter is getting a little creepy. Since May 1st, it has racked up seven articles about Twitter, including, confoundingly, a blog entry about how a U.S. commander in Iraq doesn't use it. And that's not even counting the references: In his Bits blog entry What Annoys Me About Twitter on April 22, Saul Hanson provided his own count of 32 references that day—one of them being, serendipitously, Why I'm Obsessed With Twitter. What might have pulled the proverbial finger from the dyke—oops, dike—was Oprah Winfrey's decision to become a late adapter a few days earlier—live! AND ALL IN CAPS!—which caused Twitter traffic (Twaffic?) to jump by 43 percent.

It's okay to get all excited about new-fangled phenomena, but this is a little extreme. Yesterday's Sunday Styles piece, A Night Out With the Twitter Guys, is like the New York Times starring in an episode of MADE called "I Want to Sit at the Cool Table!" It's The Real Housewives of New York's Ramona dressing like her daughter. It's a little pathetic. The average age of the NYT's reader is 45.9, which falls in the age range that makes up 5 percent of Twitter's demo. The average NYT reader doesn't need 24-hour bulletins on Twitter, nor to hang out with the Twitter Guys, who, by the way, seem like fabulous dinner companions—they spent most of the evening staring into their phones, tweeting. (And, um, look at them. This is the cool table?)

The NYT needs to calm down already and to stop trying to be as hip as its kids. Their brains are wired differently, they're moving faster than you are, don't be so desperate to keep up. You might rip a tendon.

photo via New York Times

UPDATE: Browsing through Gawker this morning I came across this item about writer Dan Baum Twittering his experience of getting hired and fired by the New Yorker. Unfortunately, Gawker's also gone all breathless over Twitter in recent months too—no doubt a result of its shift into its more advertising-friendly corporate environment of late—and applauds this gimmicky move as the future of journalism, right here right now. Except: Come on. He's just writing an essay 140-characters-at-a-time, creating serial tweets that can't possibly hold up individually but require a separate forum to string each tweet together. It's an embarrassingly transparent gimmick. It ain't tweeting, it's twatting.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: Dan Baum explains his rationale behind the micro-serialization here. It's an interesting argument. Still, I call bullshit.

Sour Milk

Yesterday, I finally went to see Milk, and it made me remember why I never go to the movies anymore. You've had this conversation, right? How you haven't gone to see a movie for ages and you're not sure why... You think maybe it's because you're so busy these days you can never block out the time, or maybe the movies have become so expensive that you think twice or three times before committing to go, or just that the movie you want to see always seems to playing a bit too early or too late to fit in with your schedule that particular day.

I know, for me, it's a combination of all of the above. And then I finally got it together to get my ass to a movie theater, and the real reason I don't go as often as I should came back to me in a rush. It's the people. The general movie-going public is a nightmare.

Last night, in a chock-full theater, I got stuck next to two ladies somewhere in their upper sixties. I'm guessing, I didn't look at them too closely when they arrived—late—and grabbed the last two remaining seats in the room. And they proceeded to ruin the whole movie for me. They were fine for the first 45 minutes, apart from some too-loud exchanges during the opening sequence—I think these broads were there at the time, so there were barks of recognition during the Castro-Back-in-the-Day montage.

But the hell began when they finished the popcorn. After placing the bag on the floor, the lady next to me began methodically to reach down, rummage around the bag for the leftover dried kernels, and, with her arm raised way high in the air, drop them into her mouth from her fingers. And then she crunched them with her mouth open. It sounded like someone smashing a sack of rocks against a wall. It was disgusting. She did this over and over again, slowly, deliberately and with great relish, crunching and cracking and smacking her lips, for about an hour, taking a short break now and then to lure me into a false sense of relief, only to lurch forward and start all over again.

It was so vile and distracting, I wanted to lean right over her, grab the bag and shake out the kernels all over her head. During particularly violent smacks and crunches I started making little noises like "Oh dear!" or "Oh my God!" and looking straight at her, but no, she was too far gone in her euphoric mastications to notice.

Towards the end of the film, she started reacting to the dramatic foreshadowing of Harvey's ultimate demise with a staccato outbursts of "Ah, ah, ah!" and announcing three times to her friend "Uh oh, this is when it happens!" in the later scenes with Dan White. I was ready to lose it and shushed her right in her face, which she seemed to ignore. Then she and her friend started openly discussing the action during the film's penultimate, climactic scene, and I that was it: I hollered, "Ladies be quiet for God's sake I mean it!"

They cowered. And they shut the hell up. But that was it, too late, the movie was ruined. I have no idea if it's as good as everybody says it is. I know Sean Penn nailed the mannerisms and turned in a sensitive, sympathetic performance, and Emile Hirsch was, what can I say, fabulous. But I was never really able to get into it. Thanks, bitches!

iPhone's Coming: Bring Out the Dags!

The iPhone launches on Friday, June 29, and reports are in that norks and derds from all over the land are already in line outside New York's two Apple stores. The Times (UK) is calling them "Apple Tragics." I think I'll just call them iTwats.

This guy was first in line at the midtown store. He's already been there for 24 hours. So clever.

These two specimens were the first at the Soho store.

It's 90 degrees out there. Tomorrow it's going up to 93. It's super-humid. The skies are going to open. There will be thunder and lightning.

Good luck guys! I'm so sure it will be totally worth it.

photos courtesy of valleywag

I Remember You Well in the Chelsea Hotel

According to the excellent Living With Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog, the Bard Family, who have managed the legendary Chelsea Hotel since the 40s, have been forced out by their board of directors, and the hotel’s manager, Stanley Bard, tossed out the door after 50 years. The new management group are the same folks who backed the conversion of Covenant House into the obnoxious South Beach resort-like Maritime Hotel and Richer Meier’s overrated, soulless glass towers on Perry Street.

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: No good whatsoever will come of this.

No! More! Whiskered! Jeans! EVER!

I love Martha Stewart for this. Now that we've finally broken 70 degrees, summer fashion faux pas are here! This year it's especially appalling, with the micro-mini and short-shorts trends being embraced by many who have no business even thinking about them. For in a town that prides itself on being a world-class style capital, New York is teeming with walking fashion disasters. Rules need to be laid down. And Martha has done it.

What does it say about women in the workplace that such a screed is even necessary? Perhaps that we've gotten a little too comfortable in the office place? Whatever it is, personally, I've seen one too many crusty bra straps and pasty thigh expanses at the conference table and have been subjected to so much obnoxious thik-thok thik-thok thik-thoking as a clueless flip-flop princesses flap up and down corridors, I have actually contemplated murder. So you tell 'em, Martha. Bitches need guidance.

Herewith, the email:

How to Wear: Jeans
Save ripped, stained, bleached, whiskered, or otherwise overly distressed denim for the weekend. Ditto for any styles that sit so low that they reveal flashes of your midsection when you reach up to grab a book, or your bottom when you bend down to grab your bag. Sometimes, wearing a longer top can be the solution. But the basic rule is, no peeks of skin between the top of your jeans and the bottom of your shirt. Pair jeans with a nice shirt and shoes (not a T-shirt and sneakers).

How to Wear: Sundresses
Many summer skirts and dresses are made from gauzy material, so make sure the fabric's not see-through (don't forget the back view). Coworkers should never be aware of what color/cut of undergarments you are wearing. Wear a cardigan over a dress that's strapless or low-cut. Bra straps should never be visible. Putting on leggings does not make a super-short hemline any more appropriate. Keep hems somewhere right above the knee, or lower.

How to Wear: Sandals
Feet should be clean, well-groomed, and generally presentable. If you aren't sure what this means, stick to closed-toe footwear. Flip-flops can be worn in a fashionable way, but the rubber kind--generally associated with the beach, the pool, and the dorm shower--should be saved for the weekend.

How to Wear: Tank Tops
Those tight, ribbed cotton tanks are usually better as layering items than as stand-alone tops. Bra straps should never be visible. Wear a cardigan over a strapless top.

How to Wear: Shorts
Capris and "city shorts" (the type that reach the knee) are fine, especially when paired with nice flats or heels. Short-shorts, cargo shorts, board shorts, and pretty much any other kind of shorts, are not.

Source: Gawker

Crappy-Headed Man-Ho

And speaking of Courtney Love’s butchered stomach… Hello, Don Imus! This ravaged, revolting, freaky little man is all over the news for describing the members of the Rutger women’s college basketball team on his radio show as “nappy-headed hos.” I don’t listen to Don Imus—never have, never will. In fact, I thought he went off the air years ago. But today, everybody’s talking about him because of that comment and the fact that Al Sharpton raised a rallying cry, organizing a protest outside Imus’s MSNBC studio and demanding his resignation. “He has mainstreamed the most vile, sexist, racist words in America,” Sharpton thundered. “I'm going to be on this until something is done.”

What Imus said was vile, no question about it. And what most pundits picked up on was, of course, the remark's flagrant racism. But I couldn’t help but wonder which aspect was worse—the racism or the misogyny? The Rutger team is made up of predominantly black, but not all black, women. He was calling all these women hos, nappy-headed or not. It’s doubly insulting.

But the issue of misogyny was completely eclipsed by the issue of racism as commenters speculated whether Imus should be fired or whether MSNBC and/or parent company NBC should be held accountable. Interesting that Sharpton called him on sexism, too. Nobody else did.

I pondered on this for a while. Misogyny seems simply to have become an acceptable part of the cultural landscape in this golden age of Slut Culture, in which young women clamor to get boob jobs as high-school graduation presents and think that flashing their waxed vadges just like Paris, Britney and Lindsay is all super-cool and empowering. Most young women consider shopping and pole-dancing a legitimate form of exercise. They'll lap-dance a guy at a bar for a drink. Why waste your time, right?

Then, completely by accident, I switched on The Tyra Banks Show this afternoon and, lo, her subject was “Kids Growing Up Too Quickly.” She interviewed a 13-year-old girl whose goal is to dress like a slut “like all the celebrities do”; a young boy who likes playing a video game in which he can slap prostitutes; and an 8-year-old girl whose mother was quite worried because her mature young daughter’s puberty commenced at the age of 5. I thought to myself, Go Tyra!

Except, no. For every question Tyra asked her young guests, she had to bring it all back to—who else? —Tyra. The 8-year-old’s mother mentioned how her daughter already had to wear deodorant. “I had to wear deodorant when I was 9, but I wasn’t going through precocious puberty!” announced Tyra. (Eew! I wish I didn’t know that!) Oh, well, continued the mother, the 8-year-old was already five foot tall. “I was tall when I was 8, but I wasn’t going through precocious puberty!” Tyra persisted. Well, uh, girls stop growing four years after reaching puberty. “I didn’t stop growing until I was about 22!” Tyra goaded. What the fuck was she trying to tell us? That she’s still in puberty? So competitive, that Tyra Banks! If she's the only one speaking out on these issues then, hell, I’ll take Reverend Al any day.  At least he got Don Imus’s ugly ass suspended.

UPDATE: The Rutgers coach Vivian Stringer just held a press conference, redirecting the focus to the damage comments like these do to young women everywhere, regardless of race. Team captain Essence Carson points out that this incient proves that women —regardless of race — have not attained equality yet. Thank you, ladies! The revival of this discussion is long overdue.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Whee! The women are speaking up at last. Two excellent articles, one by Gwen Ifil, a White House correspondent who was the target of a truly revolting slur by Imus nine years ago; and Gwen Knapp, who makes a brilliant point about how women in power — that’s you, Hillary, Condi and Nancy —avoid women’s issues like the plague, lest they jeopardize their standing in the Boys Club. When’s the rally, girls? Count me in!

Spring Equinox in NYC

Okay so the offical Spring Equinox was four days ago, but one of the signs that spring really has arrived in NYC is the rush to eat and drink al fresco. Especially in some really cool spot like the Shake Shack. Because nothing says "Hey, let's grab a nice, juicy burger outdoors!" than a damp, chilly grey day.

Sure, it wasn't as cold as it's been in the last couple of weeks, but it's colder than it was two days ago, when it was in the 60s. Today it was in the mid-40s, tops. Not cold enough for a hat, scarf and gloves, perhaps, but too cold to stand in a line about 100 people long. For a HAMBUGER.

I mean, look at these people!

Wait, there's more.

I had to go to the back of the line for a closer look.

Look at that guy with the yellow suitcase. Did he fly in especially to eat here today?

Seriously, the burgers at the Shake Shack aren't that good. I've had one and, frankly, it gave me a  stomach ache. Gave three out of four of us a stomach ache, in fact; the one who didn't get a  stomach ache didn't order the burger.

But I don't care how good a burger is, it is not worth standing in a line like this in 40-odd chilly degrees for. Yet this kind of inexplicable behavior seems to be happening more and more every day in this city. Who are these people? And what am I doing sharing a city with them?

I guess we know who they are: These are the folk who are filling up all those new luxury condos spreading around New York like mold and robbing the city of its esoteric feel. People with no imagination or taste, happy to follow the crowd while believing they're actually leading the pack. Nobody's lining up here for the burgers, they're lining up for the bragging rights. "Hey, been to the Shake Shack yet? We went last Saturday. Oh, yeah, it's open. Had the burger. It's the best."

Yeah right, dude. Totally worth waiting for an hour in the cold for. Now let's go chase that burger with a cupcake from the Magnolia. They're the best.