Okay- I never ever knew that it was EDDIE MURPHY singing this song, which makes it a bazillion times better then I thought it was (and I already thought it was awesome). I have nothing to say about Rick James’ hair. I wish I was born ten years earlier…
Another week, another affair
The stories published in tabloid magazines are basically always the same, usually involving the same extended cast of characters. When an unexpected celebrity or “celebrity” is thrown into the mix it is usually because they are unexpectedly in the limelight- i.e. Tiger Woods’ 2am Thanksgiving car crash make people realize that he is not just some sort of golf robot. Also, it seems that every year or few months there is an overriding theme, one that gets more press than just the usual diet tips and who wore what better For example, I believe it was in 2005 that the prominent theme was EATING DISORDERS. Mary Kate Olsen had one, then Nicole Richie, then Lindsay Lohan, then everyone else.
Recently it’s been infidelity- specifically on the husband’s part. Maybe John Edwards started it. There’s been freakin’ Jon Gosselin, Tiger Woods, Josh Duhamel, oversees its soccer player Ashley Cole, and now it’s Jesse James- another one of those unexpected characters. And why? Because his wife, America’s current sweetheart and Oscar winner Sandra Bullock is his wife. If this is true, it really sucks because Sandra has been thanking him and adorning him with praise and compliments all award season and he’s been supporting her, looking out of place in his penguin suit, but just sooo proud of her. He just looked like a big tattooed teddy bear.
So who is the fame-whoring mistress this time around? Tattoo model Michelle “Bombshell” McGee, who essentially looks like a Suicide Girls reject. She’s just sold her story to In Touch and drops the bomb that she had an eleven-month affair with James while Sandra was filming The Blind Side- yes, the movie she just won a ton of awards for. And in an attempt to not make herself seem like a giant slut, “Bombshell” claims that she thought James and Bullock were actually separated during this time. Umm, hello? I’ve totally googled people I’ve gone out with who were, like, unemployed and living at their parents’ house. And if she really thought they were not together, wouldn’t she be bragging to a lot more people a lot sooner about bangin’ the guy from that monster truck show or whatever? I’d imagine West Coast Choppers is very popular among her crowd.
Anyway, so meet your new mistress Michelle McGee, who will be all over the place dishing about her tryst with the “Vanilla Gorilla” until some sort of believable statement is made by James or Bullock, or until another one of James’ ladies comes out of the woodwork. Why would In Touch even publish this? Just let her rant and rave on her MySpace and just sound like the crazy person that she probably is without some sort of pseudo-authority or verification (In Touch). More importantly, Jesse James, if this is true, why did you cheat on your spouse without a rubber? Famous men, why cheat on your spouse and leave any sort of electronic, eye-witness trail (you will be discovered)? Or simply, men- please stop cheating on your wives; at the bottom of it all, it’s common decency.
When the January issue of Elle came out, followed by her collaboration with Beyonce on “Videophone” I briefly lost faith in Lady Gaga. She had begun to look like Christina Aguilera circa “Nobody Wants to be Lonely” and it seemed as if she was about to do away with all her freaky shit to show how “beautiful” she really is underneath all that makeup and bizarre costuming. (She also said “Hubba Hubba” in Videophone which at the time gave me a kind of gag reflex). But over the last few months she seems to be back to her old crazy self and this recent photo sealed the deal. I don’t care if it’s now slightly uncool to like Lady Gaga, but I still do.
Another folk legend turned celebrity
Oh this is a little bit sad.
In the summer of 2006 I had this great idea to go to LA for no reason at all. It may sound like no big deal, but at the time I was still living in Prague and had only experienced New York and Florida in the US. I had spent the last year living (=wasting time) studying abroad in the UK in order to be closer to my boyfriend so when we broke up in the spring I put together this trip as a kind of big, stupid ‘fuck you’ statement to him. I was originally planning to go by myself for two weeks to just ‘experience’ it and thankfully my best friend, Danielle, had the decency to accompany me, possibly for the sole reason of keeping me alive. This was very kind of her for many reasons, the greatest probably being that she knew how to drive and I did not. Anyway, apart from spending two thirds of our trip searching for frozen yogurt (no idea what Pinkberry was at the time, or if it even existed), passing Ron Jeremy at The Rainbow (when I told my dad this he said, “Oh great, I love Jeremy Irons”), and walking to Vons twelve times, we saw this guy:
For whatever reason a big incentive for my trip was also visiting the Hollywood Hustler store for some reason that I cannot recall right now. Oh wait, I just did… Anyway, as we were leaving we saw this large man, in a nursing bra, panties, and a weave sitting outside. We were lucky enough to get the above photo since we doubted anyone would believe that we had seen something like this that so perfectly encapsulated our entire LA experience. We referred to him simply as, “LA Local.”
Several years and several more visits to LA passed without any sight of the LA Local. Then in December 2008 when I was visiting my boyfriend out there we decided to check out some of my old haunts in West Hollywood (you think that my unfruitful search for fro yo years before would deter me from ever visiting again, but I actually moved out there for a while. Stupid, I know, but I did eat Pinkberry every day). Anyway, we into Millions of Milkshakes and there was the LA Local, totally decked out for the holiday season!
I freaked out! I started pulling Conall’s sleeve and saying, “I know him! I know this man!” and incoherently mumbled something about a nursing bra and the Hustler store. Ever my personal photographer, he volunteered to try to sneak a photo (this was before it was an established fact that LA Local thrives in the limelight. We didn’t know if he was just some carnie that would spit at us if we made eye contact). I texted Danielle immediately; I thought seeing the Local again was one of those fantastic once in a lifetime too weird to be true experiences. This week, I was proven wrong- as was Perez Hilton who, as LA resident, is unbelievable. The other day on his site Perez posted this photo and expressed genuine shock about this, as he dubbed him, (Wo)Man’s existence.
I guess many other readers recognized him and promptly began sending their own photos of the LA Local/(Wo)Man/whatever other personal nicknames he’s accumulated. Since then Perez has posted at least fifteen more pictures (and keeps asking for more) as well as several videos and even an interview. It’s kind of sad, though, because now this West Hollywood folk legend is almost certainly going to become some sort of Internet sensation and people will come from all over California to try to get a shot with this guy and his ever-visible private parts. I’m not saying that he’s my and Danielle’s LA Local and that only we should know about him and relive our excitement of seeing him over and over again as some inside joke. No, I am ecstatic that other people have had similar experiences. I am, however, sad that he get turned into another Naked Cowboy and run for office or something, abandon his natural stomping ground, get attention-greedy, simply put: change. This is clearly an example of how easy, thanks to technology today, celebrities can be made.
At least I still appear to be the only one who has a photo of him in his Santa suit *sigh*
The only positive thing to come from James Cameron’s Avatar- and it’s still relatively terrifying.
To be honest the Na’vi (or whatever they’re called) and the avatars were so disturbing to me at first that I could not concentrate on the film at all (not that it really mattered since I’ve seen Pocahontas and Ferngully: The Last Rainforest). If this over-hyped blue nonsense beats Hurt Locker at the Oscars I firmly believe that some members of the guild may be in need of a lobotomy.
No sport variation is closer to my heart than men’s ice hockey at the Olympics- and no match up gets me as riled up as when we play the Russians. At this point it’s not just a sport, it’s fucking politics. We went to watch it at an authentic spot this afternoon, surrounding by men that were essentially variations of my father at different stages of his life. I felt like I was at home-surrounded by twenty of my dads-and this little guy. This is how Conall describes the photo:
The Bohemia Hall witnessed the defeat of their brethren, but we went down with class. A toddler waving the flag atop a drunk man who screamed “Die” at every Russian player’s close up. Later I saw the kid lean on the bar, scold the 200lb bartender and order a drink.”
Very succinct. It felt so good to see that the venue was respecting the morals and values of the old country, where my uncle could give me 100kc and send me over to the local pub to bring back a bunch of beer at the age of, oh, umm, maybe seven. When my mom sent me to the lobby of a hotel we were staying at in Miami once to buy her a lighter maybe a few years later that was “not allowed.” I could not sit at the poolside ‘bar’ (fucking tahiti hut) with my parents either and drink my virgin pina colada because, I don’t know, I would see adults drinking and would undoubtedly think they are uber cool and embark on a preteen cocktail drinking rage that would land me in rehab by the time I turn fifteen.
