Separated at the Kleenex Box: Brooke Burns, Maxim, Feb. 2005… Brooke Burke, Stuff, March 2005
New U.S. Secretary Showing Flexibility on ‘No Child’ Act, by Sam Dillon, The New York Times, Feb. 14, 2005.
Stick It Up: Former KISS billboard-turned-roof (via The New York Times)
That would be The KISS Kasket.
U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales smiles up at U.S. President George W. Bush during his swearing in ceremony at the Department of Justice, February 14, 2005. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)
Kanye West at the Grammy’s and Emma Thompson in Angels in America
Categories
Old Timers
Sunday’s New York Times embraces the Point-Counterpoint, albeit in entirely different sections.
From Week In Review, Balding Rockers, Big Money:
But according to a new list of the 50 top-earning pop stars published in Rolling Stone, over the hill is the new golden pasture. Half the top 10 headliners are older than 50, and two are over 60…This means that, while it is good to be the next big thing, it is better to be a-couple-of-big-things-ago. Though pop music glorifies the young and the new, it actually sells these qualities at a discount…”In five or six years you’re going to see Echo and the Bunnymen and New Order and the Cure getting the high ticket prices,” Mr. Calderone said, referring to a generation of bands that is not yet content to rest on its oldies.
From Arts & Leisure, We Hate the 80’s:
Yet despite the grass-roots enthusiasm and VH1 dogma – not to mention millions of dollars in marketing – the 80’s are not selling…some label executives said they had turned away former stars who came shopping for new record contracts. “I just wasn’t convinced that the songs were compelling enough to compete in today’s marketplace,” said Andrew Slater, president of Capitol Records, who says he passed on both Duran Duran and Billy Idol…But those lucrative concerts play to fans eager for one (or two) glorious nights of nostalgia, not those interested in watching the band try to grow.
There is no getting rid of him. He’s the enigma who came to stay.
– Louis Menand, Mystery Man, The New Yorker, Feb. 14 & 21, 2005.
Enigma my aunt Sally! I am no enigma, I am a man. And since Mr. Menand conveniently forgot to mention a key fact in his little piffle, I must tell you myself: I am still alive.
Of course, I’m not quite as active as I was in the old days: you try donning your top hat and starched collar when you’re nearly 100. These days, my monocle is bifocal and instead of examining butterflies up close, I squint intently at my own dark, brown liver spots.
It wasn’t always so. Back in the old days, I was quite the playboy! In the ’30s, high on all that early New Yorker acclaim (what the limey dame editor of the magazine in its bloated late life would’ve termed “buzz”), I was everywhere, celebrating the glorious literary life with Joey Mitchell, Bunny Wilson, Dotty Parker, and James “Jiminy Cricket” Thurber.
Oh, the gay times we had! And by ‘gay,’ I mean it in the old sense of the word: we drank gin distilled in our bathtubs, danced with negro chorus girls, and on occasion, performed oral sex on each other. (We called it ‘rhinebecking,’ after the quaint little town where Bunny rented a cottage during the summer of ’36.)
Opening today is Pooh’s Heffalump Movie, the newest attempt from Disney to expand its Winnie the Pooh franchise. The Heffalump, for those of you not up on A.A. Milne’s creative output, never actually makes an appearance in the original books. As imagined by the Heffalump screenwriters, this mythical beast appears to be nothing more than 68 minutes of treacly good cheer (does 68 minute running time count as a feature?).
It would further appear that Heffalump is no more than the well-medicated counterpart to Eeyore, Pooh’s perpetually depressed donkey friend. Although Disney now disputes even Eeyore’s seemingly certain clinical diagnosis. Their character bible claims,
Eeyore doesn’t see himself as gloomy; he just has low expectations… Eeyore’s tiny bright pink bow on his tail, the one hint of color against his gray, is a perfect symbol of the kernel of joy that occasionally surfaces in Eeyore.
So bring on the ultra-pink plastered smiles – the good folks at Pfizer et al. would be proud.
(Big ups, Patrick)
Leave it to the humanitarians at US Weekly to lend a hand to tsunami relief. (If you can’t remember, the tsunami was that thing before Brad and Jen broke up and after Christmas.) As if bravely publishing the brave photographs of brave Petra Nemcova weren’t enough, US Weekly and its stable of concerned celebs have bravely assembled an eBay auction to benefit tsunami victims.
Unfortunately the auction isn’t quite living up to expectations – the lion’s share of brave donations have yet to earn a single bid. But with items such as Debbie Rowe’s signed original Fox and the Hound pencil drawing, how could they possibly go wrong? From the sketch’s description:
The drawing has been framed and signed on the back by Debbie Rowe and includes the message, “Best wishes, enjoy from my collection…Debbie Rowe.” She has also included a doodle of a face below her signature. Debbie Rowe is known for being Michael Jackson’s second wife and the mother of his first two children, Prince Michael I and Paris Jackson.
The item has yet to register a single bid.
Or how about the bikini that Ivana from The Apprentice revealed to allure the financial district’s finest? Though eBay doesn’t specify if the item has since been washed, who could resist Ivana’s sharpied signature on the ass? The H&M bikini bottom and top (a mere 32A) can be yours for anything above a $72.50 bid. Meanwhile, the Nicole Miller dress and Nike shoes worn by Apprentice skank Heidi has not garnered any interest.
Most surprising, perhaps, is that Eva Longoria’s cheerleading uniform from her days shaking it at Texas A&M is similarly un-bid upon. Frankly America, you should be ashamed – don’t the children deserve better? Think of the children.
But US Weekly isn’t the only venal rag to auction off empty celebrity signifiers in support of tsunami relief – Teen People and Ashlee Simpson have also thrown their hat in the tax-deductible ring. Their auction, however, is doing significantly better.
A phone call from One Tree Hill hunk Chad Michael Murray is going for over $600, and an Ashlee Simpson concert experience (start your jokes) is already fetching over $3000.
Incidentally, a personalized phone call from low culture’s resident hottie Jean-Paul Tremblay is also available, with all proceeds going to the “low culture Jamster Ringtones Fund.”