Bitch Salad

On The Topic Of: RuPaul's Drag Race, Season 2

2010-02-05T08:49:00.001-08:00

Hi.

So this is interesting: I'm blogging again.

Yeah, I kind of dropped if for a while... almost a year now, I guess. A lot has happened since then... I plan to back-peddle in the next little while and go into some of those things at length, but today I thought I would just dive back in balls deep with this little note... on the topic of the finest competitive reality program of the competitive reality era: RuPaul's Drag Race.

Are you watching this show? Because you should be. You should be going to great lengths to watch this show... For real - you should be ENDANGERING yourself if necessary because it is fucking quuuality...

I've got a very long established boner for RuPaul... Back when I was but a misbegotten gay growing up in Brockville, my family lived on the outskirts of town (I know... who the fuck lives on the "outskirts" of town... Moonshine-makers and Ferret breeders - THAT'S WHO! ... And me, apparently) - so we couldn't get cable. So instead, we got a satellite dish... but it wasn't one of those DirecTV things that just pin to your eaves trough, it was one of those enormous hemispherical structures that would need to reposition itself if you changed the channel. They were pretty bonkers.

Anyballs... this meant that my childhood television viewing experience was decidedly un-Canadian. Never watched Much... never watched YTV... never watched The Comedy Network... I got to watch HBO, Comedy Central, MTV, a scrambled version of the Spice network (which, PS, wasn't pixilated or even blurry... the extent of the scrambling was that THE SOUND WAS CUT OUT... because that's what you watch porn for... the sound... ) and of course, my raison d'etre in the mid-late 90's... Vh1.

I seem to recall Vh1's shift from being MTV's adult-contemporary sister station/hub-of-all-things-Michael-Bolton into this wacky tickle-trunk of alternative and campy programming beginning somewhere in 1996 with the advent of The RuPaul Show... if you didn't know this, yes... RuPaul had a talk show. And it was the fucking BEST.

It was like nothing else on television... I think the only other gay guys on TV at that time were Ricky from "My So-Called Life", what-the-fuck's-his-face from "Melrose Place" and Ma-Ti from "Captain Planet" (well, at least I assume... he was voiced by Alanna Ubach, afterall)... so you can imagine how mind-blowing it was having this magical Glamazonian drag queen hosting a talk show whose guest list was this endless parade of camp icons...

This was before I even knew what 'camp' was - this was slightly before the Internet permeated culture, remember. Before you could wikipedia or IMDB or youtube some ostentatious broad from the past... RuPaul's show was like a crash course in camp and pop-culture that just blew the fuck out of my small-town gay brain... on any given show - and I'm entirely serious about this - the lineup could and would include: Bernadette Peters, Kathy Najimy and a performance by Pat Benatar. FOR REALS. I do believe that was the lineup of one of the episodes!!!

Another hypothetical lineup? How's about a surprise reunion betwixt Maude co-stars the late, great Bea Arthur and the slightly later and equally great Esther Rolle followed by an underwear fashion show? Sounds to good to be true? It's not... check THIS shit out: http://wow.wowtv.tv/episodes/bea-arthur-on-the-rupaul-show

I. Know.

Amazing! So that's what I spent many an afternoon watching whilst I gorged on Snackwell's. Jealous? Of course you are.

Any way, I've just been this gagging disciple of RuPaul's since, and was so excited that s/he would be stepping into the role of Tyra Banks on hi/r very own competitive reality format... but as it turns out, RuPaul's role would be much, much more than that. S/he, in fact plays Tyra Banks-meets-Tim Gunn-meets-Simon Cowell-meets-well, RuPaul in a show that is essentially the best elements of Top Model-meets-Project Runway-meets-Idol. I know! Sounds amazing, and it is!

Last season - although done a shoestring budget - was absolutely sensational and introduced us to a slew of characters each more unforgettable than the last... From eventual winner BeBe to the "Loca" fashions of Nina Flowers to audience favorite Ongina - a star was born and born and born.

Well, it's back for Season 2 and everything looks bigger and better! Although we're only 1 episode into the season, here are my first impressions on this season's crop of girls...

First off - in an interview with some sort of news outlet that I can't possibly remember in order to source, Ru said that a lot of the girls this season did indeed audition for last season but weren't cast because "they didn't want an overlap of types"...

This is both A.) incredibly disappointing because YAWN - we're basically getting a second-rate version of someone from last season and B.) incredibly OBVIOUS who's whom...

From the top - Raven is soooo this year's Shanel. Another showgirl who's been in this business for 65 years and repeats that fact with boisterous confidence every opportunity she gets. It's pretty obvs that those two could never have been in the same room.

Ongina and JuJuBee would have never been cast in the same season, and not just because their both diminutive and Asian... same with Jessica Wild and Nina Flowers, and not just because they're both Peurto Rican and charmingly indecipherable...

I'm getting a lot of archetypal similarity between BeBe and Tyra Sanchez as well... A similar old-world drag feel - like they both came straight out Dorian Corey's walk-in closet/tomb - and a potential It-girl quality... They clearly have different backstories... one is an immigrant from Cameroon and one is raising a son and a pair of devastatingly unfortunate eyebrows... but they are very approximate TYPES. And that's too bad... it's something that a lot of reality shows try and do in their second season... try to be too explicit with a formula... and really, the only queen that I really wanted a sequel from was Tammie Brown...

Beyond the girls who remind me of girls from last season, there are also girls who remind me of other people...

Nicole Paige Brooks - a reject from last season - a southern belle from Hotlanta, GA is a dead-ringer for Jan Hooks (who, PS, surfaced for the first time since what has got to have been 1992 for a guest role on 30 Rock as Jenna's mom and 'yikes' would be an understatement...)

Specifically, seeing as Nicole is from Atlanta, Jan Hooks AS Carlene Dobber - her role from Designing Women. For reals... she might as well change her name from Nicole Paige Brooks to Nicole Paige HOOKS...

I'm catching some real Debi Mazar-realness from Morgan McMichaels, the show's resident shit-disturber...

And Pandora Boxx is straight up Kathy Griffin without the Restalyne... a fact that was amply illustrated by the fact that Kathy Griffin was actually in attendance as a guest judge and Pandora expressedly wore her "Kathy Griffin Wig"...

Sonique looks like Julianne Hough-meets-Olivia Newton-John-meets-The Lead singer from Roxette... Sahara in boy form looks exactly like a guy I've made out with before... Tatianna is probably serving the most 'fish', as they say... she looks like a blatino starlet that you might see on the arm of a Jamie Foxx or a Chris Tucker...

And then of course we have Mystique Summers Madison... who, as a boy, looks like Kenan Thompson, and as a girl is a straight-up drag version Mo'Nique from Precious... and judging from the behind-the-scenes footage of her sparring with Morgan, she means fucking business and WILL fucking cut you...

Naturally, she's my fave.

What about yours?

--- Aj

On The Topic Of: Liza Fucking Minnelli

2009-04-08T11:45:00.000-07:00

Hey boy, girls and combinations thereof...

So, if there was one thing to rocket me back to blogginghood, it would be to remark about what I experienced last night...

Last night, in a move terribly uncharacteristic of me, I paid actual dollars - that's right, no trade nor barter - to take in a live concert. This never happens. Anyone or anything that I see live is either free or discounted well below the price of a pack of cigarettes. But not last night.

Because, y'see, it's not every night that one Miss Liza Minnelli comes rollin' in to town.

I can't say that I was a die hard fan. I've always found her entertaining - particularly in her appearances on Larry King Live (I STRONGLY urge you to watch and savor every second of the clip below... particularly when she receives a call from a musical theater major at approximately 1:03...):

... but all that basically cracked down to was a borderline ironic fascination with her. Certainly not enough for me to plop down top dollar to see her live, right? So you can imagine my surprise when I found myself at the Roy Thomson box office Monday afternoon asking for Liza Minnelli tickets... which is something in itself... buying Liza tickets is pretty much the most declaratively gay thing you can do besides assfucking in public... but anyballs... for some reason, my intuition told me that I wouldn't want to miss this... well...

In a word: EPIC.

I just simply don't know how else to describe it. I was dead-set on describing it as "jazz, spazz and razzmatazz!", but I feel that belittles it. It was just surreal.

To set the scene for you:

We got there at 7:30. I was immediately taken by the interesting cross-section of people that were making up this audience: silver-haired couples who were likely Roy Thomson subscribers and gays, gays, gays. If I was to stretch the description - I'd say literate gays. Gays who had done their cultural homework, as it were. This isn't CeCe Peniston performing to a canned backing track of "Finally" at 2 AM at Fly, afterall - it's motherfucking Liza Minnelli. You gotsta know your shit and spend some coin to see her, baby...

8 PM. Her orchestra - old dudes in tuxes, YES! - trickle on to stage and assume their positions. This shit is actually starting on time - good on ya, Liza. The opening chords of "New York, New York"... 'ba da da-da-da, ba da da-da-da"... and out flounces Liza, dripping in her trademark black sequines. Or rather, out jazz-walks Liza - toes pointed, mime-tipping her fake top-hat - in the same manner I imagine she transports herself anywhere. Everyone lost their shit. LOST it. The first of about 15 standing O's of the evening greets her. She sings some song called "Teach Me" or something... it really doesn't matter. People are still losing their shit. She finishes the song and people lose it some more. She's apparently overwhelmed, and responds - AND I QUOTE - "Holy Toledo! What a reception!"... That's right - we're not 5 minutes into this, and we've already gotten a "Holy Toledo!". AMAZING!

The rest of it is a glittery haze... I can distinctly remember her performing a song called "If" that I saw her perform on her episode of Inside The Actors Studio. It's a very patter-y, wordy song about a woman who kills her cheatin' boyfriend... like about 100 words per second... you couldn't understand a fucking word she was saying with her recently acquired speech impediment - BUT IT DIDN'T FUCKING MATTER!!! It's Liza!!!

She's got stage patter down to a science... Britney Spears could really take a page from her book... Whereas at a Britney concert, the most audience interaction you could hope for is her exclaiming "My pussy is hangin' out!", Liza fucking takes you there... she is just consummately engaging - I was actually hoping for her to talk more than sing, actually - and hilariously self-deprecating... she made light of all her failed marriages, her various addictions past and present, and I think at one point she made reference to vaginal dryness... but maybe I was just hearing what I wanted to hear. It's possible.

She would do shit that NOBODY else could get away with... NOBODY... you would NOT take someone else seriously if they did the shit that she did. She recounted the famous story about how she subbed in for an ailing Gwen Verdon in the original production of Chicago - long story short: Gwen Verdon, original "Roxie Hart" and Bob Fosse's muse, accidentally swallowed a feather off one of her boas, it got wrapped around her vocal chord, needed surgery, would be out of the show, since Chicago wasn't a runaway hit they needed to have their stars in it to keep it open and this was back in the bad ol' days when musicals didn't play for years and have different cast members coming in and out through a revolving door, Liza did it completely unpublicized, and this was back before the internet when shit like that could actually be kept to mythical word-of-mouth and it was a big shit deal. There ya go - and she went from telling that story, to explaining the plot of Chicago, DIRECTLY into the character of Roxie Hart and sang the fuck out of "I Am My Own Best Friend"... FUCKING NUTS!!!

Her songs from Cabaret were personal favorites of mine... I'd actually wager to say that "Maybe This Time" was the highlight of the night for me, at least musically, anyway... Because number A.) It's a gorgeous fucking song and letter B.) there is a SEARING truth to that song when she sings it... this bitch is maybe the unluckiest bitch in the history of unlucky bitches when it comes to love... a chronic, genetically-predisposed fag-hag who loves fast and hard, when she unleashed her weathered, wobbly vocal chords on the closing refrain of that song with a mile-wide smile filled with the promise of someone just starting life, you fucking BELIEVED that even though she's 62-years-old and part-robot, HE - IS - STILL - OUT - THERE... and y'know what? Maybe this time, she'll win... maybe... it was magnificent.

Her performance - and first-act closer - of "Cabaret" was pretty fucking awesome, too. I counted three kick-ball-change's... and one of her numerous heavy-lidded winks to her personal life during the lyric "The day she died the neighbor's came to snicker / Well that's what comes from too much pills and liquor..." [long pause and knowing glance to all five balconies as if to say "shit, girrrl, I used to get fucked up whaaaaat!"...

After an all-too brief intermission - in which many an instance of awkward eye-contact with older professional gays were made - we were eagerly planted back in our seats to witness the re-entry of Mz. Minnelli... and oh, wouldn't you know it, there was a wardrobe change. This time bitch is swathed in CHOCOLATE sequins... her top? A PONCHO/CAPE. Yes. A sequined poncho. An evening poncho, as it were. Priceless.

More priceless? Her first fucking song of the second act is "Liza With A 'Z'"! CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE? If you are sitting there being like "So, you're telling me that this was just showstopper after showstopper? Hit after hit after hit? Never a dull moment?" - yes. Yes. Yes, that is what I'm telling you. It was out of fucking control. She even took requests, apparently. She sang a song, upon request, called "Mammy". It was about a mammy and one's fondness for said mammy. Mammy's really need to come back, methinks... But fuck me, I had no idea she was taking requests, or else surely I would have pressed for a reprise of this number:

... BAD. So yeah. More song, dance, and analogical magic and all of a sudden it's 10 PM. Holy fuck - you could have fooled me. It had ONLY been 2 hours at this point? It felt like it was about 1 AM... in the best possible "my, how time flies!" sense... and at this point, if you are reading this and have even a SLIGHT inclination of rue and remorse that you did not go to see this concert, this bit of information is going to jerk the last nerve left restraining your finger from pulling the trigger attached to the pistol pointed at your head...

Her closing number: ... single spotlight, backlighting her silhouette... her back is to us, one hand on hip, her other arm outstretched... snapping - SNAPPING. "New York, New York" ensues.

I can honestly say that watching Liza motherfucking Minnelli perform "New York, New York" live will go down in history as one of the most memorable moments of my life. As will anyone else who was there. Wow.

And it's not even over yet. She came back for an encore, feigning reluctance. That was actually pretty funny... watching her go through the motions of "oh my! What ever would I sing?!" - She and her pianist/right-hand man, the incomparable Billy Stritch (questionaly related to the prized Elaine), parked it at the piano for "Ev'rytime We Say Goodbye". We cried a little.

It didn't stop there. Everyone was STILL going ape shit, so Liza came BACK OUT. This time, she stripped off her sequined poncho and a significant portion of her hair-piece - I swear to fuck she was wearing an XL "Ghostbusters" T-Shirt that one might wear as their jammy's, but I'm told it was an Ed Hardy T, the same one she wore on an episode of Arrested Development - and sang a song of longing, a cappella.

And that is what you missed.

Allow me to restate that I was never a die-hard fan of Liza. I went to this concert merely on a lark - my intuition told me "get it while it's still here because you'll regret it if you don't". And holy fuck - best decision I ever made.

I actually think it'd be an understatement to say that Liza is a dying breed... I think she's the last of her kind. The shit that I witnessed last night isn't cyclical; try as they might, even the most promising performers of my generation are NEVER going to be able to do what that bitch can do and NEVER have what that bitch has... this was a master class in pure, unadulterated charisma. It was starkly clear that performing was this woman's lifeblood. And that was inspiring.

In short: Best. Show. EVER!

Until... of course...

Yes.

Sorry. I'm back to whoring. Click on it for all its hi-res glory...

But this show is going to be absolutely BONKERS - look at that lineup!!!

Anyballs... that's what I have to say about that...

I'm going to attempt an America's Next Top Model: Cycle 30 dopplegang-bang tomorrow...

--- Aj

Catchin' Up: American Idol...

2009-03-11T11:14:00.000-07:00

And a good Wednesday to you.

Ah Wednesday's. Named after the mythical Welsh god Woden. From what I can deduce, he was into humping. Which is why they named this day after him. Who the balls knows.

So... as you can imagine, on the eve of the first elimination of the American Idol's 8th season, I felt compelled to m'blog. I've been offering musings on Idol for nigh on 4 seasons now via my blog, so it just didn't seem right to abandon that tradition the way 60% of this season's female contestants have abandoned their children (for, at most, a span of 12 weeks... any way...)

Which brings me to my first point... what is with the gaggle of young mothers this season? And not just in the finals - the ratio in the finals is actually quite on point with the number the dozen or so that were in the semi-finals, and furthermore, the hundreds in the preliminaries... okay... maybe that's an exaggeration... but still!

Anyballs... this is what I make out of last night/this season so far...

In order of appearance.

Lil Rounds... Don't think I need to tell you that I love her on sheer principle. I'm kind of predisposed to love sassy, quirkily-named, animated black chicks who are both generously voiced and generously buttock'd. That would be one Lil Rounds to a tee. She'll fill this season's requiste-black- diva-who-sails-to-the-second-runner-up-position quite nicely... although she's not as vocally blessed as others who've filled that role before her (think: Kimberley Locke, Vonzell Solomon, Melinda Doolittle), she's got delivery, poise and moxie to more than make up for it. Expect her to stick around for a while... well, until precisely the Top 3, as I just said.

Scott McIntyre... is blind and don't you forget it, asshole. This season has well established itself as THE season of the backstory and Scott is its poster boy - his intro clip package literally ran for a milisecond before he said "I've been blind since birth...". His vocals are middling at best... reminiscent of a young Christopher Cross (some dead fucking sexy stuff here, people...) BUT HE'S BLIND, SO YOU HAVE TO VOTE FOR HIM!!! Methinks this going to be one bumpy ride we're in for with him... think Sanjaya, but with an actual physical disability.

If Danny Gokey wasn't a.) a dead wife pity-monger b.) a Jesus freak and c.) actually named "Danny Gokey", I think I'd like him. He's got a great voice - a perfectly palatable growl reminiscent of a young Michael Bolton (which I actually mean as a compliment... I do enjoy the Bolton from time to time...) and an unassuming charisma about him. Unfortunately items a.), b.) and c.) still stand. So no fucking dice. Meh. Pending a Chris Sligh-esque flameout in the next couple of weeks, expect him to go far.

Michael Sarver... would last a lot longer if he succumbed to stereotype and went country. Instead he's just another Color-Me-Badd-esque R&B-warbling wigger about 15 years too late. He probably delivered the best performance he could have hoped for last night, and should stave off elimination for one week and one week only... but m'afraid he's back to the oil rigs after that. Which is apparently the most dangerous job ever, or something.

Jasmine Murray... has the face that Li'l Kim had initially envisioned at the onset of her plastic surgery. I'm convinced of it. And her mother is the hottest tranny I've ever laid eyes upon. She's got about all the potential in the world - a potentially great voice, a potentially great look, a potentially great performance style - but it's all undercooked at this point. And considering the fact that she wasn't actually voted IN to the competition in the first place, things are looking pretty grim for her tonight...

Kris Allen... is fine, if you like that sort of thing. I think he's terribly nondescript and doesn't even give me half a boner. He rode the heartthrob wave into the finals (snatching that position away from much better-singing, boner-inducing candidates... Ricky Braddy, natch) on an exceptionally impressive vocal showing, and I guess he's now trying to carve out his niche as some sort of Jason Mraz tribute act... something, I fear, might just work to his advantage. Blah!

Allison Iraheta... (or "Allison Mojito", as I've called her for the past couple of weeks completely unaware of what her actual last name was, just knowing it was something Latin) is the hottest bitch alive. FOR REAL - she's only 16? NUTS. Her voice is RIDICULOUS (think present-day, lived-in Pink), she works the stage masterfully and is wonderfully unguarded (in response to Simon telling her she needs to lighten up: "It's not like I cut myself or anything!")... AMAZING. I both hope and expect she goes far...

Anoop Desai... is set to benefit off America's Slumdog-mania about a million times more than any of those child actors who were actually IN the movie will... I can tell you THAT for free... Seriously. Does American Idol seriously need an everyman every season? Could we not do without the nerdy kid who can kind of carry a tune and "oh, good for him! GO AMERICAN DREAM!" for ONE season? No. I guess we can't. Expect this to go south... and FAST!
Jorge Nunez... will be in for at LEAST three more weeks based solely on the votes he gets from the members of his extended family who were gathered around his television for his intro-clip package. He's got a good voice... reminiscent of a young Marc Anthony (and I'm not just "meh... who's a Spanish singer?"-generalizing when I say that!)... but is increasingly uneasy to watch and look at... I'd bet on him making a Bottom 3 visit tonight...

Megan Corkrey... has the most solid reason for becoming a teenage mother I've ever heard: she couldn't get into her high school musical. Or something like that, BASICALLY. But yeah - perhaps showing her dissolve into tears explaining her separation anxiety during her intro package wasn't the greatest case to be made about why you should vote for her, but I guess we'll see... She's quirky. Bjork-meets-Hilary Duff. She looks like Rachel McAdams in Mean Girls. She's definitely going to be the pretty girl who's in the Bottom Three for 4 consecutive weeks before she's ultimately sent packing...

Adam Lambert... is a good old fashioned over-bronzed power bottom and I say more power to him! I do kind of feel like he's a bit of a Chris Kattan-character, and I'm far from feelin' the fuck out of his voice, but ever since those photos of him tonguing another dude came out, I'm all aboard his train. And the judges seem to be championing him, too. So that's a good thing. I'm super hoping that he actually does something brashly faggy and provacative and makes a statement...

Matt Giraud... is really nothing spectacular. Don't be fooled. He's worked very hard at affecting himself with all the trappings of a Robin Thicke-esque neo-soul man, but as the all-over-the-place-ness of his performance demonstrated, he lacks the musicality. Expect the cracks to start showing as the weeks trapse on...

Alexis Grace... is maybe better than I thought she was. That was downright Pat Benetar-ian last night! Good on her! The judges apparently spend all their boner juice, because they were nonplussed - which was bullshit. She did quite a nice little job on it. Another front runner!

I'm going to call the bottom three as being Jasmine, Jorge and Megan, although I'm sure I'm wrong about it. There are 13 of them. It's kind of a crapshoot at this point. I'd like to think that with all the overlap of ghastly R&B-singing white dudes, at least one of them bottoms out...

Beyond that, apparently there's some sort of twist happening - I'm 99% certain that the judges will throw down some sort of sing-off and decide who stays and who goes. Which will be SCANDALOUS.

Meh.

Later,

--- Aj

On The Topic Of: The Oscars

2009-02-23T11:09:00.000-08:00

Salutations.

How's your winter been? Notice that broad stroke? How I can ask you how an entire season of your life has been? And why? Because I've been so shamefully M.I.A. (missing in action, that is... not birthing a little Sri Lankan heir to my rap throne a mere 3 days after appearing at the Grammy's, mind you...)

I'm very sorry about that. I've made several attempts to post in the past couple of weeks, and they always start out the same way... me explaining where I've been - in truth, just working... - and it's never remotely funny and then POOF - time to leave before I've even started to wax engagingly regarding Jessica Simpson's overblown weight gain. But fuck it. I'm just going to go balls deep without any lube or preparatory taint massage, so bite ya pillows, y'all...

So yeah... Last night... OSCARS.

A snail paced marathon that I'll simply never tire of. Last night's seemed exceptionally snail paced, but was not without its charms.

I've got to say: I felt the fuck out of that thing that they did with the five past winners welcoming this year's recipient into the club. My first impression was that the multiple introductions and the wedding-esque speeches would get a little long and a little nauseatingly precious, but nope. Felt the fuck out of it, did I. I'm someone who loves that sort of stuff, though - over-appreciation sort of stuff. Almost like delivering an obituary early... remarking overly fondly about living people... I do it a lot to my friends when I'm drunk, so yeah. That was very up my alley. That was one wheel whose reinvention went off without a hitch...

Some things that I most absolutely did NOT feel the fuck out of:

I thought the In Memoriam was handled disgracefully.

I'll admit it: I love the In Memoriam. I look forward to it. First off, I loves me a montage. Secondly, I love trivia. Thirdly, I love a popularity contest. Alternately, I'm not entirely impartial to moody, swelling strings. The In Memoriam montage has all these things... AND MORE! I was quite comfortable with the classic paradigm of having a full screen, hastily spliced-together montage flashing clips and pictures of those we lost this year to intermittent applause breaks and the requisite dimming of the lights to close. Whomever's idea it was to have Queen Latifah serenade us with a frumpy jazz standard while skirting the camera back and forth, short and wide so the names and faces were respectively unrecognizable and [Heath] illeg[er]ible needs a swift kick in the box. It was an arrogant attempt to put a personal stamp on something that hardly needed fixing in the first place... and totally undermined the people it was supposed to be pay tribute to in the first place. Not to mention the GROTESQUE oversight of Estelle Getty and Anita Page.

After substantial rumination, I've concluded that the musical is most definitely not back. Even if it was enjoying a modest upswing at the moment, it was a dealt a massive setback last night in the form of that deplorable salute to the movie musical care of host Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Vanessa "Pizza Beav" Hudgens, glorified chorus members Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper of Mamma Mia, and of course, Beyonce. Because no one can embarrass themselves in a musical number at the Oscars quite like Beyonce... or have you forgotten about this:

Now I don't speak French, but have heard from those who do, that it's almost insulting. Also, did anyone else notice that part when she busted into "At Last"? What did that have to do with movie musicals? Was that a deleted number from "Meet Me In St. Louis" or some shit? Nope? Nope. Methinks it was a boldfaced jab at Etta James - yet another manoeuvre in my second favourite May-December cat fight of late (my favourite, of course, being the Faye Dunaway v. Hilary Duff bout currently in progress... LOVESIT!!!) ...

Aaanyballs - other highlights came c/o that mischievous French tightropist (that's right... take THAT Beyonce and your smoke 'n mirrors... you was upstaged by a fucking street mime who could balance an Oscar on his chin and make a coin disappear up his sleeve... awesome...), Tina Fey's mere presence (and holy BALLS how gorgeous did she look?), and, of course, the completely unnecessary panning to Angelina Jolie during a visibly flustered Jennifer Aniston's award presentation for animated features. That was actually amazing. I live for that shit. At one point, Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie were quite actually steps apart from each other. AMAZING.

The statues followed a pretty predictable course... Penny Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Viola Davis WILL rise again!)... Heathcliff Ledger for The Dark Knight (Why was there 0.0 mention of Michelle Williams? She's KIND of the mother of his child/most underrated member of Destiny's Child)... Kate Winslet for The Reader (which they kinda HAD to give her at this point)... the only surprise was Sean Penn for Milk - not that he didn't deserve it, because holy fuckfuckfuck he sooo did... I wept at that movie. WEPT - but because the old boys club that is the Academy is notoriously stingy about lionizing gays.

Well I guess a lot of those old dudes died between Brokeback and Milk, because Milk totally won a bunch of important shit! ... And generated the two most heartbreakingly memorable moments of the telecast... Sean Penn's hilarious and poignant acceptance speech - in which he addressed the Academy as "commie, homo-loving songs of guns" [half-facetiously, maybe], made light of his not-always-so-agreeable nature, and sternly urged for equal rights for all. And with that, a very unlikely gay icon was made. Like for real - busted, serious, "Jude Law Is One Of Our Finest Actors"-saying Sean Penn. Pretty crazy stuff.

The highlight of the night for me, and, I assume, every other gay dude on the planet (excluding that bunch that were on last week's episode of The Tyra Banks Show, topic: I Hate Being Gay... ohhhhhh brother...) when Milk scribe Dustin Lance Black won best original screenplay.

I was really hoping for a soap-box moment, and boy-oh-boy did I get one. His speech, below:

Class frickin' act, I tells ya. Not to mention, the boy has a standing invitation to sit, full weight, on my face at any space and/or place in time. Yes, that invitation honours the possibility of time travel.

Anyballs... that was that with that.

What's is what with what, however?

That's right. Another one. All new girls!!! I'd strongly urge you to click the above image and see it in all it's high-ish resolution glory.

Back tomorrow. Let's talk about this Rihanna/Chris Brown 'Domestic Disturbiance' stuff.

Deal!

--- Aj

Viral Video Vixens of '08

2009-01-05T17:04:00.000-08:00

Haaaappy New Year!

It's Aught 9 and I have to guess that you're feelin' fine. Primarily, because that shit rhymes.

How was your new year rung in? Fun-ly? I assume so. Mine was good? I say that as a questionstatement, because I don't really remember too much. I drank m'self 2 - AS IN TWO - bottles of champagne. It wasn't nearly as elegant as it sounds. Anyballs, shinanigoats ensued and I stumbled home at around 4 AM to gorge on Havarti and watch Hello Again - the quintessential Shelley Long film. For realz - bitch says her patented "Yoo-Hoo!" upwards to and including (but not limited to) 12 times. Amazing.

All in all, I think it was the most fun I've had on New Years since being in Toronto. Bearing in mind that there's not a terribly high bar - my first Toronto-based new years was spent with my then-University beau who did coke at 2 AM, got mad at me for letting him do coke, then couldn't get erect. (Sidebar: isn't an alert, sturdy boner one of the few up-sides to cocaine use? That's always what I was lead to believe... b'ooohhh well)... another new years saw me go to this house party wherein I knew 3 people, only to discover my lone romantic prospect for the evening passed out on the toilet... and of course last year, when I served as the most unnecessary host in the history of hosts for New Years at the Drake Hotel, and realized 5 seconds before counting down to midnight that I didn't have the most remote idea of how the lyrics to "Auld Lang Syne" went - a song I was supposed to lead the crowd in. As you can imagine, I desecrated the shit. Terrible.

Anyballs - that's all in the past. A fresh year awaits! But before we dust off our knees, shout "EXCELSIOR!" and do one of those on-the-spot Barney Rubble runs into what is promised to be the most fabulous year that anyone's e'er had E'ER, one more FINAL look back on 2008 before we bid adieu to it once and for all...

2008 - much like any other year in the recent single-digits of the millennium - won't be remembered for its hot-button political figures... nor for it's pop-star comeback queens... or even for its salsa-dancing grandma's... but for its youtube personalities.

That's right - one again, I give you My Top 10 Viral Video Vixens... of 2008!!!

There they are. Let's see how the cards fall...

2008 was an interesting year in viral video stars. As the public and private spheres collide, it seems harder and harder to find truly authentic, earnest, candid video subjects that have no idea how entertaining they are and better yet, how sensational their impact will be. Still, 2008's VVV's aren't lookin' too shabby...

10.) GWEN VERDON

Ah Gwen Verdon. Little did the Broadway legend and original Fosse muse know that she'd be sky-rocketed back into fame courtesy of some glorious jackass synching her kitschy performance of "Mexican Breakfast" on The Ed Sullivan Show with rapper Unk's "Walk It Out". The originatress of such roles as 'Lola' in Damn Yankees, 'Charity' in Sweet Charity and 'Roxie Hart' in Chicago - Gwen Verdon was passing stripper moves off as legitimate dancing before Britney Spears was even a murky twinkle in Lynne and Jamie's eyes. Gwen is worth mentioning for two reasons: she's example of something that was made, at its time, to be completely devoid of irony, only to become wholly ironic years later when circulated via youtube (just like 2007's top Viral Video Vixen, Brenda Dickson) and also because this video is directly responsible for the most user generated viral content this past year. But more on that later...

9.) RICKY'S MOM

Why did/does everything that was made in the 70's seem like it's a bizarre horror-porno? Like in how - tonally or cinematically - there's no difference between Deep Throat and Carrie? This was originally to be a sex education film to be shown to high-schoolers back in the 70's - dealing specifically with masturbation. Even more specifically - a shaggy little dude named Ricky having an organ recital only to be walked in on by his FUCKING SUPER CREEPY mother. Who, make no mistake about it, "knew what [he was] doing... and [is] sorry for interrupting [his] privacy..." If you've ever needed to laugh nervously, scream in horror, then laugh hysterically, then apprehensively ponder what it was you just saw... THIS is the clip for YOU!

8.) CAPUCINE

ADORABLENESS ALERT!!! Sound the alarms!!! ... that sound like newborn's cooing... because this is the most adorable shit I've seen all year. She's this little cherub from France... depending on how you look at it, she's either a precursor to Amelie or a postcursor to Madeleine (yes... I know... I've made two references to Madeleine in two consecutive blogs... and you know what, motherfucker? I'mma make another one tomorrow... SUCK IT!) - either way, hog-tying Hamas operatives and making them watch this clip might just be the key to peace in the Middle East. Here, she tells a story freestyle - or, rather, en francais, liberer le style - about... oh... who the fuck cares what it's about - SHE'S ADORABLE!!!

7.) THE ARCHULETA SUPER FANS

If that last clip was enough to extinguish my great disdain for children, this next one is enough to reignite it in one powerful blast... Backstory: this past season on American Idol, the crown came down to two David's... David Cook, a scruffy, apathetic rocker who had cornered and ultimately triumphed with the elusive cougar vote... and David Achuleta, a squeaky-clean, baby-faced 16-year-old who made David Cassidy look like Charles Manson... understandably, David Archuleta had somewhat of a fervent teenage female fan base. Just how fervent, well, I don't think any of us had the slightest clue... until...

6.) JUDI SHEPPARD-MISSET

Ahem. Miss Sheppard-Misset started from humble beginnings: a lowly jazz-dance teacher in the late 60's, she saw dwindling numbers in her classes (despite the stellar example set by Gwen Verdon, apparently)... so, on a lark, she decided to do away with the mirrors and the moves and focus on just havin' some fun. So was born JAZZERCISE! Below is her somewhat enthusiastic routine to "Move Your Boogie Body" from one of I can only hope is many Jazzercize home videos... there is absolutely nothing NOT to love about this fucking video...

Pallette Cleanser: PROP 8, THE MUSICAL

Certainly constructed to be viewed... and viewed... AND VIEWED!!!... Prop 8: The Musical doesn't really fit into this list of what I consider truly grass-roots sensations, but it was just too fucking good and significant to be left out. That, AND it features the out-and-out love of my life, Maya P.K. Rudolph.

5.) JULIE KLAUSNER & JACKIE CLARKE

Thanks to the power and glory of youtube, this past year saw the comedic genius' of Klausner & Clarke brought to my attention. Funnily enough it was their spot-on, note-for-note perfect parody of last year's VVV of the year, the ultra-glamorous Brenda Dickson (worth linking to again), in one of their many, many, MANY (<<<--- especially that one. Mommy Time. AMAZING!) brilliant viral offerings, "Welcome To Our House" that first caught my eye, and that I'm choosing to highlight here - although, really, you should thoroughly watch and re-watch each and every last drop of their shit if you know what's good for you. How these two have eluded Saturday Night Live in lieu of the lowly Casey Wilson's of the world astounds, confounds and disturbs me...

4.) SHANE MERCADO

Once upon a time, #10 VVV of 2008 Gwen Verdon's "Mexican Breakfast/Walk It Out" video hit the internet. Then, one Beyonce Giselle Knowles - as she's prone to do - took wind of it, skank-ified it ever so slightly and used it as inspiration for the video of her current number 1 smash single, "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)". Talk about a butterfly effect - the next thing you know, some tranny with entirely too much time on his hands records himself performing a beat-for-beat choreographic reenactment of the dance from the video in his dorm room and voila: global cyber-sensation. What the taut, nimble Mr. Mercado set off has been unprecedented... everyone and their fucking mother recorded their own "response video" with results ranging from hilarious to bizarre to grotesque... not to mention an appearance on The Bonnie Hunt show - who could ask for anything more?

3.) THE CHEETAH LADY

Hmm. Umm. Yeah. I don't know quite what to say about this one. I'm not sure anyone does. I have no idea what the origins of this video is nor of this lady are. I've heard people refer to this as the "2 Girls, 1 Cup" of 2008 - only y'know, not involving two girls shitting and puking on each other - but equally disturbing and perplexing. Don't worry - it's completely SFW (safe for work). It just might not be SFYS (safe for your sanity)...

2.) SCARLETT, AND THE MIGHTY TUMBLE SHE TOOK

ALL HAIL SCARLETT... America's next top R&B singer-songwriter/spinal-transplant-recipient. When the zaftig Scarlett took to her webcam earlier this year, recording herself singing an original R&B composition all of her own, A capella, whilst pacing around her rumpus room, only to find herself atop a coffee table that ultimately proved no match for her... things took a nasty (AND HILARIOUS) left turn - and history was made. Yes. History. As much for her death-defying 'tumble' as for her ability to popularize the abbreviation "tha'urt" out of "that hurt"... Scarlett, we can't wait to see what ELSE you have up your sleeve/pant leg...

But

There

Can

Only

1.) MEAGAN "ROJO CALIENTE" TAYLOR

Bling, bling, expensive things? That's Rojo Caliente. Movie stars, magazines? Rojo Caliente. Drivin' in your car, that's also very expensive? Again, Rojo Caliente. Yes. Some of you may know her as Meagan Taylor... I, however, know her as the things that dreams are made of. The pudgy, teenage Jewess (and current Queen's student... *starts the oil thigh [a Queen's thing. I went to Queen's, if you didn't know]*) who, legend has it, received a million dollars from her father for her Bat Mitzvah and spent it on recording a reggae-hip-hop single and corresponding video entitled "Rojo Caliente" - loosely translated: Red Hot. While this video is every kind of WRONG under the sun, Meagan Taylor is every kind of right - reminder to all of us to never, EVER, stop reachin' for those stars.

And that's the note I'd prefer to leave you on with that.

In other news:

John Travolta [basically] murdered his disabled son.

Big Whoop! Who Gives a Bibble? Gabba Gabba Hey.

2008-12-08T10:28:00.001-08:00

It's been a while since I've gabba gabba hey'd, hasn't it?

So, hi...

How was your weekend? Mine sucked toad ballsacks. I was in Hamilton slinging 'funny' all weekend to a crowd of - if I could borrow a page from Liz Lemon - "whittling, jug blowing IHOP monkeys" who couldn't have cared less. I didn't know this about Hamilton - but it's a mountain town. As in it's on a mountain. A snow-capped one, to boot. Well, no. But there were substantial thermal differences, that's for sure. Anyballs - this is boring... moving on:

A few things...

1.) The most hilarious thing I've read in a while...

Some amazingly kooky lady named Eileen Bernstein who teaches social studies at a public school in the outer boroughs of New York was teaching her class of 12-year-olds about slavery. She decides to, well, get creative in this history lesson by taking two black girls in the class, BINDING THEM TOGETHER, then making them crawl under a desk to replicate how conditions were on a slave boat... Holy fuck... that is out of control... and SO something that would have happened in my hometown of Brockville.

I remember learning about slavery - we didn't have any black kids for the teacher to force into any such creative anachronism (we didn't even have anyone who looked remotely swarthy, for that matter...), but make no mistake about it - if we did, the teacher totally would have done something like that and thought that it would have been a really instrumental learning experience. Instead, we just read the Barbara Smucker novel "Underground To Canada" - a touching story of a young slave named June Lilly (versioned to Ju'Lilly, for short), "followin' the drinkin' gourd" (the big dipper in slavetalk) on the underground railroad to Canada and, ultimately, freedom.

Because in Canada, as my teacher put it at the time, if you owned slaves, "it would have been like wearing a New Kids On The Block T-Shirt"... this was around 1993, so yes, that reference had a lot of weight behind it.

2.) The most hilarious thing I've heard in a while...

C/o urban dictionary.com - The Kimmy Gibbler: When you refuse to leave after you have a one night stand, even when they ask you nicely.

The sentence they provide as an example: "Last night I met some whore at the bar....we came back to my place and she gave me the Kimmy Gibbler....she fucked the hell out of me and then refused to go home when I asked her nicely."

Ugh - I have been Kimmy Gibbler-d so many times I can't handle it. I can't tell you how nice it is to finally have a name for when that happens.

3.) The most hilarious thing I've seen in a while...

The purported cover work for Whitney Houston's long-awaited comeback album...

Yeah. No.

Devastatingly, this is not it. It's some sort of fan-generated photoshopping.

You don't know desperate every fibre of my being was that this was actually it, because this would have been fucking amazing.

I'll bet the actual album cover will be her sitting there looking Dionne Warwick-esque in a cream turtle neck surrounded by Laura Ashley-isms, as opposed to this little nugget that makes the last Pussycat Dolls album cover look like it was shot by Anne Geddes...

In other Whitney Houston news - reports that her and Bobby B were on the verge of reconciliation were met by a resounding "Hell To The No!" by Whitney's press rep. Or at least they should have been.

The most hilarious thing ever ever ever EVER ever...

TOMORROW NIGHT!!!

AHHHH! Can you even fucking handle it?!?!? I certainly can't.

And...

One more thing...

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the passing of a Toronto comedian and friend of mine, Troy Dixon.

He died in a car crash Saturday night - from what I've pieced together, he was travelling in the dead of snow squall country somewhere around Guelph driving back from a gig when he hit a patch of black ice and crashed. Game over. Very sad.

He was just about the nicest guy ever, a TERRIFIC comedian and, as you can tell from the photo, a searingly hot piece (Troy was well-aware that he had a standing invitation to, at any time, sit, full-weight, on my face).

His death is sad for so many reasons... Of course, it's heart-breaking to his family and close friends and anyone connected with him in any way, as we've lost a human life - but it's particularly sad and terrifying because of the way it happened... a fluke patch of black ice while driving home from a gig - something that could have happened to ANY of us... I was on the road all weekend - this easily could have happened to me.

To me, the saddest thing about this is that Troy was just on his way up... he was just getting good and all of a sudden, this happens. It really makes you question this whole concept of "destiny" what the point of all this is. Well no - the point of all this is that we are all so temporary and fragile and it can be over any second, so for fuck sake's, if ever you needed reason to tell anyone that you loved you love them, let this be it.

Anyballs... Rest in peace, Troy.

That's about it...

--- Aj

Catchin' Up...

2008-12-02T08:08:00.000-08:00

Wowza.

It's been some time. I think since Obama won or some garbage.

It's so awkward to come back to the blogosphere after being AWOL for so, so long. It's like running into a a good friend who you just haven't talked to out of sheer laziness/asshole-ish aloofness and all you can do is exchange pleasantries and talk about how brutal this winter is going to presumably be.

I'm sorry for that. Been a little bit busy. Doing what, exactly?

Oh this and that. That and this. Giggin'... Hallowe'en-in'... goin'-through-a-break-up-in'... and lastly, protestin'... yes, protestin'...

I'll elaborate:

Giggin': Well, it finally happened. I'm actually getting road work as a comic now. It's exactly as different-yet-as-similar as I'd always expected it to be. Some of it good: I've had surprisingly delightful experiences in semi-urban Ontarian centres like Kitchener and London... Some of them very bad: I played a gig last Thursday at George Brown college right here in Toronto for an audience that was 90% East Indian (Jamaica and Trinidad, at least, were audibly "in da house") which was so beyond horrific that news of that Wal-Mart employee that was trampled to death by a discounted-XBox-hungry mob seemed downright humane by comparison. OOH-WEE... if every I needed a reminder that comedy is indeed hard, that was it. I actually muttered "I'm still getting paid for this either way" for the first time. Anyballs... it was pretty awesome.

Hallowe'enin': I think it's been customary since Aught'5 that I post a comprehensive recap of my Hallowe'en... despite the fact that it was well-over a month ago, I feel the need to commit it to the annals of my blog (yes... annals...)

I was bouncing around a lot of costume options...

The forerunners were Rio from Jem & The Holograms (pending someone else went as gem... or else I'd just look like a tranny in a purple wig)... or Elaine Stritch... specifically, Elaine Stritch from her one woman show, "Elaine Stritch: Live At Liberty... it would have been sooo super easy... Flowing blouse, meemaw wig, cheap pearls, black tights, heels, a stool, and some long winded stories about my days treadin' the boards at the Schubert theatre...

After substantial rumination, I ultimately decided that going as Elaine Stritch was a.) thoroughly random and b.) devastatingly unsexy... and if Hallowe'en is about one thing, it's about being sexy... so I racked my brain, yet nothing... then, in a brainstorming session with Yerxa - who, incidentally was torn between Meryl Streep from "Mamma Mia" and Liza Minnelli... again, sexiness won out and Liza it was... - jogged my imagination when he asked me "well... have there been any newsmakers recently?"... which is funny in itself because a few years ago we were thinking about theming our costumes out of NEWSMAKERS - and going as Elizabeth Smart and Jennifer Willbanks (the runway bride with crazy eyes), but that ultimately proved futile... I'm not making sense/being boring - I'll get to the point...

So in a last minute stroke of creativity I decided to version a costume out of the gay cannibal - Anthony Morley, the disgraced former "Mr. Gay UK" in its inaugural year (1993) who was recently convicted of killing and eating his former lover - that a surprisingly and encouragingly large amount of people got. Particularly these two dudes dressed as Latter Day Saint's church elders who I almost had a threeway with, but that's a story for another time...

The costume was exorbitantly expensive to make. On the plus side, I am fucking superstar at iron-ing on letters onto delicate fabrics. If anyone wants some Laverne &/or Shirley-esque monogramed sweaters, I'm your man.

Moving on...

Goin'-through-a-break-up-in': I won't say too much about this, because I - much like the late Princess Diana - am famously guarded about my private life. But yes, I went through a bit of a break-up this autumn. I'll surmise it's when's, what's and how's like this: Remember that episode arc in season 5 of "Sex & The City" when Carrie meets Jack Berger? And things are going ridiculously well? And then she's dumped via a post-it? And then she sees his friends out at a club, one of them makes a sweeping statement implying that they had insight into Carrie & Berger's relationship that Carrie didn't have, then Carrie freaks out on the friends?

Yeah. Same thing happened to me. Only no post-it. Yeah. Anyballs - that's the extent of what I'll say about that.

Protestin': First thing's first: What is Prop 8? Proposition 8 - or, rather, Propisition H8 as it's been predictably coined in this age of Internet shorthand/functional illiteracy - is and was a proposition on California's latest ballot that, if passed would amend the California state constitution to prohibit gays, lesbians and everything in between from marrying. It would staunchly define marriage as between a man and a woman - no if's, and's and/or but's. Leading up to the vote, millions upon millions of dollars was raised to drum up pro-Prop 8 propaganda (say that three times fast, jeez louise...) Typical Evangelical double-speak saying that this was about "protecting marriage" and terrifying people into voting for it. Regretably, Propisition 8 passed by a slim margin.

This has spurred the biggest civil rights 'debate' of our time (and I'm talking about my generation in particular... so chill the fuck out people who lived through segregation) - if I had to try my hand at succinctly summing up this debate, this is what I understand it to be:

On the far right side, you have deeply religious, illogical people who are absolutely "no-way, no-how" and absolutely refuse to see homosexuality as anything less than a demonic disease that they're terrified would thoroughly permeate their beings if allowed some sort of constitutional recognition or protection.

On the centre-right you have median religious people who, in their lighter moments, tolerate homosexuality and won't lose sleep if they happen to catch 5 minutes of the odd rerun of Will & Grace, but still very much believe it to be somewhat of a perverse 'lifestyle choice' and thereby not worthy of constitutional recognition or protection. These people think that a vote for Prop 8 doesn't make them a bigot, it just makes them traditional.

On the centre-left, you have people who are all "love is love" and, although it's not my cup their cup of tea, don't believe it's their business to tell someone who they can and cannot love and thoroughly believe that the Bruce Cockburn song "Lovers In A Dangerous Time" rings especially true today. These people are adorable.

Then, on the far-left you have people who are absolutely disgusted, saddened and furious that we're still going through this systematic oppression of people questioning our existence and culture as being a choice in the name of "The Bible" and are simply going to do something about it.

Queue the protests - held globally - including one right here in Toronto in front of the US Consulate that I braved perfectly awful weather for (for realz: it was the thermal equivalent of a dead elderly woman's vagina)...

That's me with my fellow civil rights warriors, Heid and Anth.

I know that it's kind of redundant to be protesting this on Canadian soil - as we have gay marriage and strict hate crime/speech laws in place here - but the reality is that as Canadians, we take more cultural queues from the US than we generate on our own, so I was there to join the impact in changing the attitude that being gay is a choice - it is an irrefutable biological predisposition.

And also... because I made some really hilarious signs...

The first:

It garned much more agreement than disagreement, let me tell ya.

The Mormon church mobilized its membership and, in a bona fide recession, raised over 20 million dollars to pass a proposition that defines marriage as being between 1 man and 1 woman - which is a very different tune than they were whistling a short while ago. *cough-POLYGAMY-cough*.

Since then, they've undergone understandable scrutiny - and they just can't possibly imagine why. It's an amazing case of the aggressor playing the victim. Absolutely amazing. They argue that they were expressing their religious freedoms... no, you formed a crazed mob with a political agenda in the name of religion. Which is pretty fucked up. You know - I really don't have a problem with many religious freaks... like the Amish. I fucking love the Amish, and you know why? Because they may be fucking freaks, but they mind their own fucking business. They are not out trying to force anyone to go the way of their buggy (however, given the recent financial and ecological crises and the fact that bonnet's are due for a couture comeback any day now, they just might be onto something)... The Mormon's are crying 'victim' - reporting that white powder has been anonymously sent to several of their churches as a scare tactic. Again - given your recent scheming, what possible reason do we have to not believe that y'all aren't doing it to y'all's selves to add to y'all's already heaping pile of propaganda?

Anyballs - for this reason, some of my signage could have been considered a little anti-Mormon...

Yeah. I don't have a specific hate on for Donny and/or Marie - in fact, I was quite concerned when she took a tumble on Dancing With The Stars last season - but they're kinda the poster children for the Mormon church. So que sera sera.

I'll half-admit that this one might have been a little heavy-handed...

Meh. Whatcha gonna do.

Of course this one pertains to the threat that Stephen "The Least Talented One" Baldwin's threat that if Obama won, he'd move to Canada...

... A claim he quickly rebuffed a few days after I was seen brandishing this sign at the protest. Coincidence. Most indefinitely NOT. You're welcome Canada.

Sidebar: Back when I was working my first pseudo-intern-bullshit-entertainment-industry job for some kooky lady that did publicity on film sets, we were working on a balls awful direct-to-DVD sci-fi movie called Earth Storm - and it starred none other than Stephen Baldwin. And I was in charge of shooting the interviews for the DVD extras. So I have sat face to face with the man for upwards to and including 45 minutes. "Douchebag" does not being to describe him. Actually - I take that back. I think he could have been a lot worse. Anyballs - I had to do extensive research on him beforehand and found out that A.) He was recently "born again" and B.) Not at all happy to discuss some of his 'spicier' film work i.e. "Threesome" and "Bio-Dome"... so BITCH YOU KNOW I BROUGHT IT UP... and no, he was not happy. But he KNEW it was a deliberate move to piss him off... and looked at me like "You just had to go there"... it was pretty amazing.

And a short week later I called the Toronto Film Festival head office and used his name to finagle myself tickets to the closing night gala. BOOM! YA BURT, STEPHEN BALDWIN, YA BURNT!

Anyballs...

This last poster is kind of random, but Anthony - who's thoroughly obsessed with the show 227 - insisted on me making some 227-themed protest fare, so here's what we came up with:

So yeah. Protesting can be fun!

But on a serious note - I've been following this 'debate' very closely and intensely... I patronizingly air-quote 'debate' because I think it's ridiculous that this is even a fucking discussion... the fact that the validity of someone's existence as a citizen of this world is a "DEBATE" is fucking BONKERS...

Anyway, in trying to make some sense out of it - I've come across to fantastic articles that really drum home some fantastic points about how the other side works...

The first one is an interview with gay Catholic author Richard Rodriguez entitled "Why churches fear gay marriage". It's a fucking magnificent read and brought up so many points that I would have never considered.

In it, he really explores the dichotomy of being A.) gay and Catholic and B.) gay and of a traditionally religious ethnic minority - and reconciling all of that. He talks about how it's important to not use blasphemy as a weapon - which I reluctantly understand... but it's so fun to!!! Whatevs.

But the most provocative point he makes is this:

"Q: You said recently the real issue behind the anti-gay marriage movement is the crisis in the family. What do you mean?

A: American families are under a great deal of stress. The divorce rate isn't declining, it's increasing. And the majority of American women are now living alone. We are raising children in America without fathers. I think of Michael Phelps at the Olympics with his mother in the stands. His father was completely absent. He was negligible; no one refers to him, no one noticed his absence.

The possibility that a whole new generation of American males is being raised by women without men is very challenging for the churches. I think they want to reassert some sort of male authority over the order of things. I think the pro-Proposition 8 movement was really galvanized by an insecurity that churches are feeling now with the rise of women.

Monotheistic religions feel threatened by the rise of feminism and the insistence, in many communities, that women take a bigger role in the church. At the same time that women are claiming more responsibility for their religious life, they are also moving out of traditional roles as wife and mother. This is why abortion is so threatening to many religious people -- it represents some rejection of the traditional role of mother.

In such a world, we need to identify the relationship between feminism and homosexuality. These movements began, in some sense, to achieve visibility alongside one another. I know a lot of black churches take offense when gay activists say that the gay movement is somehow analogous to the black civil rights movement. And while there is some relationship between the persecution of gays and the anti-miscegenation laws in the United States, I think the true analogy is to the women's movement. What we represent as gays in America is an alternative to the traditional male-structured society. The possibility that we can form ourselves sexually -- even form our sense of what a sex is -- sets us apart from the traditional roles we were given by our fathers."

Yeah. I think that's fucking brilliant. I think that heterosexual male insecurity over the fact that they just might not be able to institutionalize subordination of anyone who's not them makes so much sense it almost actually blows my mind. But really - that entire interview is so chock-full of nuggets, I'd highly recommend you read it in its entirety.

Article number 2: Op-Ed piece by one Charles M. Blow (I'll bet he is), about the exorbitant amount of black people who voted for Prop 8, the reasoning behind that, and proposed resolutions to it.

In the article, he says a lot of the accountability lies with black women (I'd be damned if it was any of the sistas that I know... but apparently, it's a big deal).

The money quote by estimation:

"First, comparing the struggles of legalizing interracial marriage with those to legalize gay marriage is a bad idea. Many black women do not seem to be big fans of interracial marriage either. They’re the least likely of all groups to intermarry, and many don’t look kindly on the black men who intermarry at nearly three times the rate that they do, according to a 2005 study of black intermarriage rates in the Wisconsin Law Review. Wrong reference. Don’t even go there.

Second, don’t debate the Bible. You can’t win. Religious faith is not defined by logic, it defies it. Instead, decouple the legal right from the religious rite, and emphasize the idea of acceptance without endorsement."

So true. So wise.

I guess I found these articles so interesting because I'm so staunchly secular, and can't even reason how this mythology fits into the equation, so it was helpful to read those and get some perspective.

But ultimately, the solution to all of this is going to be quite simple: 87% of people in my generation voted against Prop 8. It's a matter of the older people who were for Prop 8 dying. Plain and simple. And they are, so that's comforting.

Anyballs - so that kinda catches us up to snuff, I suppose.

Guess what's upon us?!

Thaaat's right - ONE WEEK TODAY!!!

Our 10th Annivesary Spectacular!!!

And in honour of that...

Here's the mix... that I play before the show... for your cardio-doing/pre-drinking pleasure...

Track listing:

Soul Avengerz feat. Zena Chavez - Move (Original)
Shontelle - T-Shirt (Josh Harris Mix)
Mariah Carey - I'm That Chick (Craig C. Mix)
Kanye West - Love Lockdown (Chew Fu Small Room Mix)
Flo Rida - In The Ayer (Jason Nevins Mix)
David Archuleta - Crush (Mike Rizzo Global Mix)
Christina Aguilera - Keeps Gettin' Better (Jody Den Broeder Mix)
The Saturdays - Up (Wideboys Mix)
The Veronicas - Untouched (Eddie Amador Mix)
Madonna - Miles Away (Morgan Page Mix)
Solange - Sandcastle Disco (Freemasons Mix)
Pussycat Dolls - I Hate This Part (Moto Blanco Mix)
Beyonce - Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) (RedTop Mix)
Lady GaGa - Poker Face (Glam As You Mix)
Britney Spears - Womanizer (Digital Dog Mix)

Download/Listen to it HERE!

So that's that. So good to be back.

Obligatorily yours,

--- Aj

That "Yes We Can" Blog

2008-11-05T11:54:00.001-08:00

Wow wow wow wow wow...

So yeah, apparently, there was some sort of political to-do in the United States earlier this week.
Barack Obama won the presidency of the United States of America Tuesday evening, and it was a huge fucking deal.

I did not anticipate it being as big of a deal as it was at all. I can remember watching the 2004 election results, and it was the bust to bust all busts. Quite literally. I was up until 2 AM and the tone was both grim AND uneventful. It was weird. And then, by morning, we knew nothing. Of course it turned out that Bush would still be all up in our business for four more quite inglorious years - with exit polls explaining that the top issue was 'protection of values' (i.e. "Gays marrying? Not on my watch!") trumping four more years of Bushs' misguidance.

Anyballs. I was expecting it to be another toss-up this year - and that no one would know anything until morning. This is why I opted out of any sort of social gatherings... I thought it would just be a bust and I'd be under slept and disappointed in the morning. How very, very wrong I was.

I was watching CNN - not NBC - so I was in the company of yer Wolf Blizter's, yer Candy Crowley's, yer Soledad O'Brien's and of course, yer Andy Cooper's. I had read earlier that day that the first polls closing would be McCain states, so it's going to look like McCain is leading off the bat, but he's not. All I can remember all night was Obama in a menacing lead at every point.

I can then remember when Ohio was called - apparently that was the kicker. This was confirmed by Dana Bash, who - beside being the terrifying hybrid of Janice from The Muppets and Felicity "Bree" Huffman in Transamerica...

FOR REALS! WHAT - IS - WRONG -WITH - HER - FACE?!?!

Anyballs - Dana Bash said at that moment, heart's sank at the McCain party, where she and her busted tranny muppet face were. Apparently - they didn't even announce it to the crowd... that's how heart-sinking it was.

Still, I wasn't sold. This is going to take HOURS I thought to myself. I kept the TV on. There were a bunch of fat asshole talking head politic-ista's yammering around in circles about what this would mean for the country... yadda yadda yadda...

At approximately 11:05 (mere minutes after the Western polls closed), Andy Cooper and Soledad O'Brien were making some inane CNN smalltalk about Iowa when SHAZAM - without an ounce of ceremony, the banner changes to read "Barack Obama Elected President" and we cut to crowds cheering for nigh on 10 minutes.

And I absolutely lost my shit.

And had no idea why.

But I did - lost it. My shit. Completely.

The more I think about it, I think it was a cry of relief. Certainly a release of adrenaline, because this was so built up in everyone's subconscious, but relief. The nightmare is over. For once - and I quite literally mean once, in recent history - the American people used common sense and did not subscribe to unsubstantiated phobias... well, at least enough of them didn't...

That's the thing, though. I went into this appropriately cynical. With the expectation that the Obama situation was too good to be true, and in the end, the US would blow it and opt for more of the same. I cried out of relief and astonishment that "Holy fuck... this IS a reality now". The good guy finally fucking won.

Even if this is a complete crap shoot and he fucks things up immeasurably/can't repair enough of Bushs' damage - I'll always have the memory of that relief and that hope. I think it was a moment the world NEEDED to have. At this moment in time, and for so many reasons beyond the immediate ones.

I also cried out of relativity to the plight of the African American population and what this meant to them - of course I now feel a little less sympathetic considering their involvement in passing California's ghoulish Proposition 8, but I'll get to that in a bit.

Anyballs - you know what it was like?! Quite literally - it reminded me of American Idol, Season 3 when Fantasia Barrino beat Diana DeGarmo. I'M ENTIRELY SERIOUS... don't remember it? Here...

Fantasia - the exponentially more talented yet controversial choice - beating remarkably similar pageant queen Diana. It was like a modern-day fairy-tale, much like Tuesday night...

I know, I know - any excuse to talk about Fantasia. Deal. With. It.

So yeah... soon after came McCain's concession speech. Flanked by the ever-vacant Cindy and the y'know, just, Sarah & Todd Palin, he came off certainly classier than he had during his campaign. It was a very dignified moment, save for the drunk yokels in the crowd who booed every time McCain's brought up Obama. Sidebar: When the cut to Palin, she actually looked disappointed and surprised to have lost. Like in the way a spoiled 9-year-old looks disappointed and surprised when they don't get a pet Unicorn for their birthday. Either scenario is equally implausible.

Cut to Obama's victory speech in Chicago - I was especially moved by the image of America's new First Family. It also hit me that as excited as I am about Obama being the next president, I think I'm more excited about Michelle Obama being the next first lady. WORK!

Then came Obama's speech. I lost my shit again - NUTS! I can tell you the exact moment it occurred... when he said: "It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled..." - that just hit me like a ton of joy-bricks. For the first time, the President of the United States of America recognizing the minority group and biological predisposition of which I belong as part of his constituency. Not disregarding it as some unspeakable, perverse 'lifestyle choice' like past presidents - but recognizing it, saying it. That honestly meant the world. And that's kind of sad, really. How low that bar of expectation is. But yeah... baby steps...

Anyballs - this trumps 9/11 as the definitive moment of my generation. Why? Because for the first time, my generation - the millenials - has its first significant moment that we can take responsibility for, the first item of history that we produced. And that, along with freshly tracked crow's feet I've discovered (Editor's note: ACK!), makes me feel really fucking old.

And that's the sense that I've made out of this.

Congrats to you, America!

Smell ya later,

--- Aj

The Bee's Knees

2008-10-22T10:48:00.000-07:00

And a good Wednesday to you.

Last night I braved the snow - YES, SNOW. WHAT THE FUCK?!?! - to venture out to the cinema to take in "The Secret Life of Bees".

I'd tell you more about it, but it's a secret.

No. It wasn't so great. I enjoyed it, because I enjoy things that feature black ladies, but me-don't-thinks anybody's gonna be winning any Oscars from it.

It featured quite serviceable performances by Jennifer Hudson (who, yes, as it turns out, can act after all... suck it, Sex & The City: The Movie and the doubts that arose thereafter) and apparent cellist Alicia Keys - who, by the by, played the bitchy sister. Make no mistake about that.

Queen Latifah looked the portrait of a 1960's bee-keeping bull dyke (I know - is there any other kind?). Latifah is fast cornering the market on wise, elder authoritative black ladies... kinda like a female Morgan Freeman.

Dakota Fanning was her usual intense, precocious self. I don't care how normal an adolescence she's seeming to have, that bitch is always going to be the ringleader from Village of the Damned to me.

The real revelation of the evening (if there was one) was Sophie Okonedo as borderline retarded sister, Mae. I actually put her right up there with Sean Penn in "I Am Sam", Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man" and Rosie O'Donnell in "Riding The Bus With My Sister" in terms of commendable cinematic portrayals of specially abled folk. Look at me being so PC. Ooh La La!

It must have kind of sucked for Sophie Okonedo, though. She's this fucking RADA-trained tragedian and she's playing opposite people whose acting credits include "Charlotte's Web", American Idol, "The Nanny Diaries" and of course, "Living Single".

I will say this about Jennifer Hudson, though: Just like the saying goes that "nobody gets beaten to death like Hilary Swank", no one can go from desperate to sassy like Jennifer Hudson. I'm very happy to know that she's finding her niche.

In other news:

Have you seen this yet? Y'should.

Wow.

I can only hope that she pulls out that condescending, passive-aggressive, "talking-to-8-year-olds" tone out of her pocket when she tries to finagle the nukes away from Kim Jong Ill.

ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!?! The extent to which this bitch knows not what she says is getting out of control at this point!

I often joke that "I don't mean to play logistic police right now, but..." - I can't tell you how much I believe there truly SHOULD be some sort of private 'logic' brigade or something that can intervene when things just don't fucking make a stitch of sense - LIKE THE POSSIBILITY THAT THIS DUMB BITCH MIGHT BE RUNNING THE FREE WORLD IN A MATTER OF MONTHS!!!

Blerg.

Anyballs...

Until tomorrow!

--- Aj

Comings, Goings, Doings

2008-10-20T07:55:00.000-07:00

Hey friends... Friends of friends...

How've you been keeping? I trust well.

I've been busy. Good-busy.

Last Tuesday, of course, marked a particularly Sapphic edition of Bitch Salad - a Gi-normous thank you to all who came out for that ('GI-normous' both as in superlatively huge AND vaGInally...)

It wasn't as lesbo-centric in terms of an audience turnout as I thought - which was just as well, as my lesbo-centric material was scant at best. But yeah - suu-h-uuper-fun. I totally put more germs in my head insofar as doing theme shows WITHIN the already themed show that Bitch Salad is. I.E. an all musical edition... or an all-'urban' edition... or... uhh... an all-puppeteer edition... yeah... probably not... whatevs...

So the excitement continued when last Wednesday saw me attend the opening of Mivish Productions' restaging of the beloved classic "The Sound of Music" - something I was waiting for with baited breath, considering my overly enthusiastic interest in the CBC reality show, "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?" this past summer.

In three words: Feel Good Time.

I don't know if you're a fan of the movie at all, or fuck, even SAW the movie - as a shockingly high number of people I've spoken to haven't (read: One person. I can't believe anyone has NOT seen the movie?!?! I thought some sort of accrued knowledge of the Family Von Trapp was more requisite in someone's childhood than the assfucking Bible... meh)... - but this thing definitely lived up to it.

The solution to "How [Exactly] [You Do] Solve a Problem Like Maria?", underdog Elicia MacKenzie, definitely worked it out. She still isn't nor shall she ever be runner up/predicted winner Janna Polzin (who, incidentally, alternates in the part Wednesday evenings and Sunday matinees), but she's definitely believable in the part of flibbertigibbet songbird nanny/mistress, Maria Rainer-Von Trapp.

Other highlights include Noella Huet's "Mother Abbess"... although her acting ranges from barely passable to passable, she can sing like a motherfucker. Like a motherfucker, let me tell ya. Upon hearing her fuck the shit out of the last phrase in the first-act closer "Climb Ev'ry Mountain", you'll be hard pressed to find yourself sitting on a dry seat. It's devastating.

And, of course, the bitch who plays Gretl is mayhaps the fiercest bitch who's e'er lived. She literally needs to blink and the audience full blown ovates. It's nuts. I was ACTUALLY star struck by her at the after party. I kept almost approaching her, only to come to my senses and be like "Dude... she still poops her pants... we can't hang out."

Some differences from the movie:

In the live version, the staple "My Favourite Things" is NOT sung to the children in bed to distract them from the thunder storm, but instead by the Mother Abbess to Maria in an uncharacteristically secular move. Good heavens!

What Maria does, in fact, sing to the children to lift their spirits during the thunderstorm, is instead "The Lonely Goatherd" - a song famously done in a marionette orgy in the film. This was incredibly disappointing, as I was hoping with all my might that there'd be a chorus of people pretending to be marionettes. BUT NO. Instead, it's just Maria yodelling to the kids as they scream their heads off. I thought, "Fuck... could there not be a little bit of reimagining here? Like maybe a mash-up of "The Lonely Goatherd" and Gwen Stefani's "Wind It Up"? Like have Gretl come out like "This is the key that makes us wind up..." But no. Anyballs...

Another thing that is noticeably different in the stage production is the part of the Baroness - she's not the skanky, jealous tranny that people have come to know and love from the film... but instead a quite noble and feminine character who simply can't have a meeting of the minds with the Captain... BORING! I WANTED TRANNY BARONESS!!! Instead of being played by a Kathleen Turner-type, as she should have been, she was played by a Gwenyth Paltrow-type, if that gives you any idea.

Anyballs - the party afterwards was fine. Cramped as fuck, as it was held in the actual theatre, because - as I'm told - every banquet hall in the city has been booked due to some mystery conference of sorts. There was a considerable food shortage, and it was all Austrain-themed.

During the show, at one point Elicia/Maria rewards herself for a job well done making clothes out of curtains or something, by sneaking a pastry, but is then busted by the Baroness. I then remarked to my co-horts that if Elicia/Maria needs to do that 8 shows a week, she's going to end up like Jenna Maroney in the episode of "30 Rock" when she comes back from summer hiatus performing in "Mystic Pizza: The Musical" on Broadway, only to have gained 50 pounds from having to eat 3 pieces of pizza on stage per show... I couldn't find a clip of it, but because the more 30 Rock you can mention, the better, DO enjoy Jenna performing her Number 1 smash hit (on the Israeli pop charts), "Muffin Top":

Anyballs - this whole Mystic Pizza: The Musical thing was worth mentioning, because afterwards, upon discovering that the scant food selection was all of Austrian persuasion (Cabbage Rolls, Schnizel, Pickeled motherfucking Herring...), my compatriot Heidi remarked that "now [she] really does wish this was Mystic Pizza: The Musical". Ha. Because then various pizza-things would have been served. Meh - it was funny at the time.

So yes...

Go see "The Sound of Music". And by all means join me in having "The Lonely Goatherd" in my head for the rest of days.

I'm going to see "The Secret Life of Bees" tonight. Jennifer Hudson is in it. I expect sass by the barrell full.

Smell ya later,

--- Aj

Reaching a Klymaxx

2008-10-06T11:42:00.000-07:00

Straight up: I'm hungover right now.

I kind of have been all week. It's been one of those weeks. But I won't get into that right now. I've had a little bit of a situation to deal with that I'm mere steps away from being Katharine-McPhee-quotingly "Over It"... but yeah...

WHAT A WEEK!

Through my boozey haze, it's not gone unnoticed how crazy things have been... firstly, there's been some sort of kerfuffle in the financial world that my boss and other crazy rich people like him are in a downright tizzy about.

CRAZY, TRUE STORY: He actually needed to go to a funeral this week of some financial dude he knows who committed suicide because of it!!! It's like the old tymey days of the depression when stock brokers jumped out of windows and people have to ration bread crumbs!!! Hot diggity, somebody put on some music for me to Charleston to!

Anyballs... I'm in the arts living directly ON the poverty line, so not too much is going to change for me.

We have an election coming up here, as well... this coming Tuesday, October 14th... which just so happens to coincide with:

THAT'S RIGHT!!! THIS COMING TUESDAY!!! Go and vote, then celebrate the democracy you've just demonstrated by taking a Journey to the Isle of Lesbos!!! FUN!

OH - and, because if we at Bitch Salad are anything we're topical, we'll be welcoming SUPER SPECIAL GUEST... ... ... ... SARAH PALIN!!! Yep!

She'll be stopping by to promote lesbianism as a form of abstinence. Because really, that's what it is. I mean, what exactly happens there?! Not sex, that's all I know. = )

Anyballs...

As I was saying, we do have an election coming up, and as such, I was invited to come and do some talking head thing for MTV.

It was perhaps 5 minutes before I shot this that it occurred to me that I don't even remotely follow Canadian politics and have absolutely no fucking clue what I'm going to say.

I think I just kept saying "I love that bitch from the Green Party! She's CRAZY!" over and over again. I also think I said I liked her because she was like Vicki Gabereau-meets-Courtney Love. I found out some time after this that her name is Elizabeth May, of course. I had no clue at the time. So yeah. That didn't go so swimmingly...

I'll be voting Liberal, natch. Always have, always will. But I live in Jack Layton's riding, so it won't make much difference.

One piece of homegrown Election news that I found interesting appeared to me on my daily scanning of Queer Click (the link is extremely, purposefully NSFW... so don't go there lest ye be bombarded by images of cock...) - which is basically a blog that rounds up gay porn site updates (with a pretty blatant penchant for foreskin, but that might just be me) that occasionally includes a round up of news stories relevant to the gay community, and this little item jumped out at me...

In short... the lone gay conservative candidate, like, ever, resigned because of controversial comments he made on a [now-defunct] blog.

Comments to the tune of: "Allow law-abiding citizens who are qualified and trained to carry concealed handguns for personal protection. It's the only proven way to reduce violent crime and murder. If women and gays really wanted to stop being victims of hate crimes, they'd be in support of this, but judging from discussions, they'd rather be helpless and rely on government."

Y'know, good old fashioned crazy-talk like that.

CRAZY TRUE STORY: I went to University with him. I believe he's actually on my facebook. I seem to recall getting an invite from him to an event entitled "I'm voting conservative in the next election!" and was like "SHWHAT?! Helllllllllll to the no." and then thought to myself, "Isn't he a fag? And he's conservative? Now I've seen everything". So yeah. Nuts!

Wasn't all of that completely pointless and incoherent? It's what happens when I attempt to talk politics. I should just stick to what I know...

And what I DO know, it's hot, crazy bitches...

I.E. - my new obsession...

KLYMAXX!!!

I don't know why Klymaxx aren't a bigger deal. Klymaxx was 6-piece, all-girl band made up of a gaggle of dark 'n lovely sistahs each darker and lovelier than the last. Of note: they all played instruments. More of note: their signature touch included a boastful, sassy monologue at the beginning of their songs - not a rap, mind you, but a monologue. Check this shit out:

Yep... let's review that...

"Uh, I had to leave my condo to come to this /
Well, I’m back, but this time I’m with my man /
And these women are puttin’ their hands all over his Yamamoto Kanzai sweater that I bought /
And I’m much, much unhappy about that /
I’d hate to come down to their level and become a BW - A Basic Woman /
But if they don’t stop it’s gonna get scandalous"

Yeah. For real. AMAZING!!!

And this:

Again, review...

"I know I was lookin' good /
I had my Kenneth Cole shoes on /
My Gianni Versace blue leather suit /
My nails were done and my hair was fierce /
And I was riding in a Cooper's limousine /
Don't you want to ride..."

I'm really starting to get the impression that these ladies are quite tasteful. What with the mentions of driving in Cooper's limousines and the wearing of a blue leather suit. Oh-la-la.

Anyballs... I'm about to peace out for the weekend. Back to Brockville, cuz y'all, it be Thanksgiving.

But before I go, here's something for your weekend... it's the Bitch Salad: Journey To The Isle of Lesbos mix!

Originally, I had intended to make the mix, like the show, entirely Sapphic, and strictly feature remixes of artists who eat pussy.

As you can imagine, that was a little limited.

So I just said "EFF IT!" and went top 40... the tracklisting...

John Legend feat. Andre 3000 - Green Light (Johnny Douglas Mix)
Coldplay - Viva La Vida (Telemitry Mix)
Katy Perry - Hot 'N Cold (Jason Nevins Mix)
Hilary Duff - Reach Out (Touch Me) (Chico & Bermudez Mix)
Tami Chynn feat. Akon - Frozen (Ralphi Rosario Mix)
Vanessa Hudgens - Sneakernight (Alberto Castillo Mix)
Kreesha Turner - Don't Call Me Baby (Digital Dog Mix)
Chris Brown - Forever (Bobby Bass & J Remy Mix)
Jordin Sparks - One Step At A Time (Jason Nevins Mix)
Pink - So What (Bimbo Jones Mix)
Natasha Bedingfield - Angel (Moto Blanco Mix)
Neyo - Closer (Norty Cotto Mix)
Jilly Scott - Golden (Grant Nelson Mix)
Lindsay Lohan - Bossy (Soulshaker Mix)

Download/Listen to it HERE!

Have a great weekend.

Try not to come down to the level of a BW - a Basic Woman.

--- Aj

WWEBD???

2008-10-02T10:22:00.001-07:00

Whoa.

Hold up.

First off - what the balls does that mean, you ask?

Well, it's short form for my current catchphrase and affirmative mantra, "What Would Elayne Boosler Do?"

WHO, you may ask, is Elayne Boosler? And that's a shame.

That you'd have to ask at all. *Sigh-on-behalf-of-the-great-Boosler*.

Elayne Boosler is THE quintessential lady-comic from the 80's, right down to her charmeuse vest and mullette'd Jewess fro.

Check out some of her zingers:

- “We have women in the military, but they don't put us in the front lines. They don't know if we can fight, if we can kill. I think we can. All the general has to do is walk over to the women and say, 'You see the enemy over there? They say you look fat in those uniforms.'”

- “My ancestors wandered lost in the wilderness for forty years because even in biblical times, men would not stop to ask for directions”

- “When women are depressed, they eat or go shopping. Men invade another country."

And of course... the ULTIMATE Booslerism...

- "I just discovered a new brand - super-extra-sensitive condoms. Wow, do they stick around and talk to you after the guy leaves?"

And just to give you the faintest taste of her on stage persona, I compel you to watch this clip of her at Comic Relief, 198something...

Yeah. She's like the hyper-liberated, tart-tongued best friend of Cathy from the Cathy comics. Like "Elayne! You can't say that!"... at which point BamBoosler would reply to Cathy, "Oh yeah? WATCH ME."

Anyballs - I've been obsessed with Elayne Boosler. Particularly because I've recently been touring exponentially more than I usually do, and finding myself in front of a brick wall background (because yes, a lot of comedy clubs steadfastly retain that stereotypical aestethic), surrounded by unbelievably zany headshots of comics from yore. Why, just this past weekend in London, Ontario, I found myself sharing personal space with none other than a signed 8x10 circa 1988 of none other than Judy Tenuta. Holy fuck. (Apparently, back in the 80's, the BamBoosler was too big for London...)

So yeah... "What Would Elayne Boosler Do?" has gotten me through many a sticky comedy situations over the past couple of weeks. Not answering the question, just saying it. Mainly abbreviated - WWEBD? It's just fun to say. Because in truth, odds are what Elayne Boosler would actually end up doing is making some underhanded jab at men then asking, "ladies, am I right?" Class frickin' act, that Boosler.

I really don't know why I felt compelled to tell you all of that. I'm kind of medicated right now - I've got that cold that everyone's got... and I'm going to catch the premiere open dress rehearsal of "The Sound of Music" tonight. So we'll see how enchanting that is to sit through with a head cold. I'm guessing not very.

Something that will enchant the pants clear off your bums, and, in some cases, frums?

WE'RE BACK!

A very, VERY special edition that, for realsies, I've been trying to do since DECEMBER of last year... yep, this has basically been a year in the making. Your options are kind of limited, though, when there are like, 6 lesbians comics in this country to choose from and you need 5, so yeah. But, at long last, Bitch Salad: Journey To The Isle of Lesbos is happening!!!

Anyballs... I'm off to get The Lonely Goatherd stuck in my head for all eternity.

--- Aj

FrenEmmy's

2008-09-22T11:39:00.000-07:00

Eh? Eh???

That's how I feel about the Emmy's. On one hand, I love them because it's a plentiful kudos-fest honouring the brightest stars of prime time TV. On the other hand, I hate them because most of the time they suck giant squid balls (or whatever sort of genitalia those elusive crustaceans boast)...

After a positively exhausting (in a good way) weekend in Kitchener, slinging jokes at Yuk Yuks like a regular Elayne Boosler, I come home to find a gruesomely awful offering of recorded fare from this weekend past: the, hands-down, WORST episode of SNL in recent memory - hosted by James Franco, who methinks takes himself a titch too seriously - and last night's Emmy telecast.

As it turns out, this year was the first year that an award was presented in the category of "Best Reality Show Host", and someone finagled the cockamamie idea that "hey! what if we had all of them host the show?!?!?"... file that one under 'it seemed like a good idea the time'... it was bad... horrendously so.

After a polite "Happy 60th Birthday, Emmys" address by a noticeably heavier-than-I-remember-her Oprah Winfrey, the 5 reality show hosts - Survivor's Jeff Probst, American Idol's Ryan Seacrest, Dancing With The Stars' Tom Bergeron, Deal Or No Deal's Howie "Don't touch my hands" Mandel, and Project Runway's Heidi Klum (who, really, might as well have been a fucking blowup doll, she was so useless... her 'schtick' seemed to revolve around her being attractive and a girl all night... which is historically never funny... but no... she would literally blow kisses in lieu of delivering what would have traditionally been zingers to conclude her segues...) - and it all just dissolved right into shit from the word 'go'.

You'd think they'd have learned their lesson last year when Seacrest hosted it solo, but no... apprently the grand notion was that 5 Seacrests would be better than 1, but how wrong they were.

This is precisely why, right here, RIGHT now, I am kicking off the campaign to bring Kathy Griffin in next year... she's the only one who could save this pile of puke, and, for realsies, what do they have to lose? It'd be raucous and unpredictable, colorful and anticipated... she's the only big-name comedian who's buzz-worthily relevant without being too MTV-ish. KATHY G IN 2009!!!

Speaking of Kathy G, out-and-out highlight was the pairing of her with the chairman, Don Rickles - who's commendably still 'with it' at his staggering 82

years of age.

In a refreshing display of "fuck it up the ass... what the balls do I have to lose?", Rickles slammed the powers-that-be, mocking the uninventive patter and stole the show in the process. He actually won an Emmy later, too. So there ya go. Cake and eating said cake, too.

Other [scant] highlights included, but are not limited to:

- I don't know how the balls they finagled it, but some of the [memorable] cast members of Laugh In dragged their 70-something-year-old asses up there to present the best variety series award. Members included Gary Owens, Alan Sues (one of the first gays on network TV!),Lily Tomlin (who, you'd'a thunk, would have better things to do, but meh), RUTH BUZZI (who's AMAZING... she's like the original Rachel Dratch... she's sorely underrated... let me tell ya), and of course, the finest manifestation of the universe, Miss JoAnne Worley.

It's, of course, no secret that I have a bit of a thing for JoAnne Worley - whose voice you may well recognize as Hoppopotamus from The Wuzzles... - and gazing at her visage to left, to the left, I can't imagine you'd wonder why.

Anyballs... Pressing on...

- The dude who won for writing that heavily lauded John Adams biopic getting cut off about 5 seconds into his speech... and then, precisely when he's trying to make a very poignant point about back then the United States was all about articulating arguments and democracy democracy democracy blah blah blah - they cut to a bumper promoting the best reality series award... ouch... ouch ouch ouch!!! So he goes from something like "this is especially important at a time when our country is at such a crossro-"-CUT TO-"Will it be Top Chef, American Idol, Bad Girls Club..." It was SO graceless. AMAZING!

- I was wondering what business Lauren Conrad had being there, and, from the looks of it, so did David Boreanaz. That made me very happy.

- WHAT THE BALLS WAS THAT JOSH GROBAN BULLSHIT ALL ABOUT?!?!?! If you haven't seen it... please... share the pain...

Yeah. I really don't know how to explain that. However, I don't think it was so much him being like "I'm Josh Groban. I don't take myself too seriously, and now's my chance to prove it!" as much as it was him thinking "I'm Josh Groban. I can truly do anything. If anyone has any doubts about why I'm David Foster's buttboy, this will surely silence them!". Yeah. That was fucked.

- Tommy Smothers getting a special Emmy. I'll tell you precisely why Tommy Smothers getting an Emmy - well, fuck, getting mentioned at all - is significant for me, and the answer may shock and amaze you... the year was 1966... Tommy Smothers, vacationing in Alberta's rocky mountains, met a

young nurse at a popular five-star resort... a winsome, raven-haired young lady named Cheryl Cassidy. The two hit off right then and there and began a torrid, however brief, affair.

Why is this important? Because that winsome, raven-haired young lady Cheryl Cassidy grew up to become MY MOM!!! AHHHH!!! TOMMY SMOTHERS WAS ALMOST MY DAD!!! I WAS ALMOST ANDREW SMOTHERS!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

So yeah...

And, of course, highlight of highlights...

- Elizabeth Samatina Fey takes home three effin' Emmys. One for writing, one for best comedy series (2nd year in a row) and one for best actress in a comedy series. That made me so happy, it's wrong. Just wrong. This woman is the genius of her generation and anyone who argues this needs to be shot.

Alec Baldwin - who also very deservingly won best actor in a comedy series (apparently his first win) - said some garbage about how she's the Elaine May of her generation. Ummm, no. Try the Mark Twain of her generation.

NO - actually, fuck that - try the Aristotle of her generation.

NOOO - scrap all of that above shit - try the Jesus Q. Shakespeare of her generation.

NOOOOOOOO - forget EVERYTHING I said above - try the Shelley Long of her generation.

Yes... to me, comparing someone to Shelley Long IS the highest compliment you can give someone. Because, y'see, I'm fucked up.

Anyballs... thought I'd mention that if, in the off-chance in my most desperate fantasy that Tina Fey actually reads my blog, I at least said it.

So yeah.

C'est tout.

Till tomorry,

--- Aj

At long last: ANTM Doppelgangbang...

2008-09-18T11:54:00.000-07:00

Hello sugars...

Can this week die already? Jeez LouISE.

I'm presently alone in my office listening to "Life Is A Highway" by the ever-enigmatic Tom Cochrane - which is all too fitting considering the amount of time I'll be spending on the highway this weekend and next... this Friday Imma comin' to Kitchener/Waterloo and next to majestic London, Ontario - so if you're in either of those places, come to Yuk Yuks and see me. And we'll make out. Probably.

Anyballs - onto much, much, MUCH important fare... namely:

MY SEMI-ANNUAL ASSESSMENT OF THE GIRLS FROM THE CURRENT CYCLE OF AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL AND WHO THE BALLS THEY LOOK LIKE!!!

Yep...

Well, makeovers happened last night, so it would have just been pointless of me to do this before then - before their looks have settled. But now it's open season...

Something I've noticed this season, as per compared to other cycles, is that all these bitches look like crosses of something and something. Like, no one looks like any one person definitively... they're all ____ meets ____... for instance...

Icy blonde stunner Lauren Brie...

Is a cross between Rachel McAdams circa Mean Girls and Charlize Theron (although personality-wise she reminds me of Cerie from 30 Rock... nevertheless...)

Potential slave to a Saudi Arabian Analeigh (or rather Anal Lee as I know her...)

Comprised of grimey psychopath Denise Richards and self-photographer Miley Cyrus...

All-American girl next door Samantha...

Equal parts she-hulk Brooke Hogan and electro-pop hipster princess Robyn... (pretty much because of the hair... you know you thought the same thing, and for no other reason than the fucking hair...)

Tranny-hating tophy wife-in-training Clark...

One part shrill sensationalist demagogue Ann Coulter, one part 80's era Cher...

Painfully awkward Marseille-ite Marjorie...

Pre-anorexic Claire Danes, meet Hilary Swank as Brandon Teena from Boys Don't Cry...

Unusually lip'd, unfortunately named boxer McKey...

... the sunned love child of Canadian supermodel Linda Evangelista, and Tim Curry as Frank 'N Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show...

Tickety-tock tranny Isis...

... the result of dulcet songstress Sade, and Angel from Rent.

Latest evictee from the Top Model house Brittany...

Equals the broad appeal of Halle Berry plus the just-so placed facial hair of Frida Khalo...

High-pitched good time girl Joslyn...

... the result of former SNL funnywoman Ellen Cleghorne and an unidentified sperm donor...

Newly highlighted Asian girl from 'da hood Sheena...

An exciting cross between the "Rachel" from the Japanese version of Friends - Koharu Kusumi - and popular science fiction starlet (not to mention the daughter for action hero Steven Segal...), Ayako Fujitani... yeah... I got nothin'... sorry... Sheena just looked like any other gentrified Asian chick you'd see on the corner of Dundas and Spadina...

Smoulderingly racist Alaskan Hannah...

The incredibly distasteful duo of emaciated songbird Karen Carpenter and latest kidnapped 'It'-girl Madeline McCann...

And lastly... drastically made-over bixsexual stunner Elina...

Patron Saint of all things sensuous Angelina Jolie, and early-90's shit disturber Curly Sue...

That was an effin' good movie. I think I'm going to buy it today.

Yeah.

Anyballs...

Until tomorrow,

--- Aj

Sweatdrops Sweatdrops Sweatdrops!!!

2008-09-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

And a pleasant Wednesday to you and yours.

So what has it been? Since last Wednesday? Woo-howdy, I need to get on top of this shit. So much hath transpired since then...

First off: I'm well aware that I have yet to say but two words about the current crop of gals on the 11th glorious season of America's Next Top Model... but rest assured, my requisite blog appointing all the girls' doppelgangers is well under way... I typically wait for the makeovers before I cast any judgement...

Secondly: Thursday I got a call out of the blue that I was to come in and showcase at Yuks for a corporate client. Showcases are to comics what go-see's are to Top Models, y'see... Anyballs, guess who the client was? A lesbian softball association. Yep. With orders to keep it as inoffensive as possible and lesbo-sensitive. Yeah. Suffice to say, I didn't get the gig. I knew I should have busted out of my A League of Their Own material (which, by the way, I have an unsurprising abundance of...)

B'aaanyway, I spent the weekend drunk out of my skull, just like old times, which was nice.

Saturday night saw the birthday of Alex "Faith" Brown (named "Faith" after the now infamous armless canine who's captured the hearts of millions... :

... weird.) for which we were supposed to depart to at 11 PM. Then someone threw out the suggestion that we "just watch the first sketch" of SNL's season premiere. Yeah. That never happens. We ended up watching the whole fucking thing.

So yeah... on the whole, not great. They are going to be BEYOND screwed when Amy Poehler leaves in a few short weeks. BEYOND screwed. Casey Wilson, as lovely as she seems, isn't working. It's not going to happen. Put her out to pasture in a supporting role on a spin-off of The Office or something, but get her out of there.

That new fat guy could go either way. I'm going to reserve judgement of him until precisely the third episode, as I didn't necessarily "get" Fred Armisen right away either... little did I know he'd grow into Nicholas Fehn and of course, Nuni of "Nuni & Nuni" fame. If you don't know what I'm talking about right now, you probably think I'm a.) boring and b.) crazy. Which is quite a commendable combination of things to be, not gonna lie.

Anyballs... Andy Samberg ruled my fucking life with his impression of Cathy of Cathy Guisewite's Cathy comic strip fame... And to think... Cathy was the Carrie Brandshaw of her day back in the late 70's... WAKE ME UP WHEN I'M A SIZE 5!!! Ladies... am I right?

However, that Jar Glove thing made me lose it.

Kristen Wiig - thank God for you.

And of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the thing that everyone's been talking about... Tina Fey's triumphant return as Sarah Palin...

Yep... probably the most must-see [live] thing to come out of that show since the infamous Debbie Downer giggle-fest of aught-Four... it's been EVERYWHERE recently.

Poehler and Fey, together again - already a dream scenario - channelling Sarah Palin and Hilary Clinton - another dream scenario - talkin' sexism.

If you were Hilary Clinton, I think one of your absolute saving graces must be when Amy Poehler does you. Because not only does Amy Poehler cause things to be awesome simply by association, but because each and every time she spoofs Hilary, very prevalent issues are brought to light and things are said that Hilary could neither bring to light nor say herself without being completely vilified by the press. Like, if you were to be watching it with Hilary, it must just be 5 straight minutes of her yelling at the TV, "THANK YOU! See?! SEE?! Oh, TOTALLY! YES! Oh my God, ME TOO! I know!"

It's so astoundingly true that the issue of sexism isn't factoring into anyone's treatment of Palin, and it's largely because Hilary made 15,000,000 cracks in that ceiling. Kind of unfair that all Palin had to do was peck at it with the duress of a baby duck cracking through its egg shell to shatter that ceiling and all of a sudden, be taken seriously.

Of course, another reason that sexism isn't playing a huge role in persecuting Sarah Palin, could be that the bitch has done more than enough ass-crazy shit to easily overshadow that.

DID YOU KNOW: Sarah Palin forced rape victims to pay for their own exams.

Yes. Under Sarah Palin, rape victims - or, rather, rape-ee's, if you will - had to buy their own "rape kits" - or, rather, rapeables, if you will - to collect the necessary evidence to convict their offenders.

Of course, this begs the obvious: I guess somebody's never been raped. Because from what I've heard, it's not a terribly pleasant experience, and usually, people who have been raped don't like to be reminded of this fact. I can't imagine running price comparisons and checking customer referrals on different brands of "rape kits" is at the top of anyone's list of things they love to do.

On the other hand, maybe Sarah Palin's totes been raped, and just thinks "ahhh, what's good for the goose is good for the gander".

But probably not.

Naturally, given the fact that Palin is also against abortion in cases of rape and/or incest, this basically means: SARAH PALIN DOES NOT BELIEVE IN RAPE. Or dinosaurs.

So that's all very grim and depressing, isn't it?

But... in lighter Palin-related news, this thing is mayhaps the greatest thing I've ever seen.
It's The Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator!

Taking a cue from the zany names of Sarah Palin's children (Track, Trig, Bristol, Willow, and Piper), this highly scientific device generates what your name would be if you were blessed enough to be born of Sarah Palin...

What's yours?! Mine is: Lock Pepper Palin.

Good times.

Well not really.

It's terribly depressing to think that this woman might soon be leader of the free world (because make no mistake about it... John McCain will die. Like, 2 days after whomever's elected gets elected. He will. He'll fall down in the shower or something, but he will.)

Anyway, no matter how terrible things get, always remember - at least your arms aren't as fat as Jordin Sparks'.

--- Aj

PS - Slight photoshopographic exaggeration. Only slight, though.

Ahhh Wednesday...

2008-09-10T10:23:00.000-07:00

A day when we pay ode to its namesake, the 7th century Anglo Saxon god Woden.

I know that's how I spend each and every Wednes-or, rather, Wodensday... I assume you follow suit...

Yeah. No. Can you believe that shit, though? I always wondered what Wednesday's deal was... and that's it. It's named after a gnome-like god from middle earth. So there you have it.

Glurg. So the TIFF rages on... According to Rex Reed, it's been so bad it's downright assailable... apparently it used to be something quite snazzy... where "fans and critics and movie moguls all stayed in the Sutton Place Hotel and turned the Bistro 990 across the street into their local commissary, trading anecdotes with John Cassevetes and hanging out with Clint Eastwood"... now it's plagued by "gridlock & greed"... it's quite a scathing read, actually...

I typically like to finagle myself into at least one party per year, and passed up perhaps my only chance of going to this Italian cinema affair last night in lieu of cleaning. Well, it wasn't just because I had to clean my apartment... it was also because this party was held on a boat. I don't do boats. You can't leave boats.

So it looks like I'm just going to have to fraudulently assume the identity of a random celebrities' handler and request tickets to the closing night gala on their behalf like I did nigh on 3 years ago... for realz: at the time I was working for a publicist who was working on a movie starring - and I use the term "starring" so loosely a blue whale could swim through it - Stephen Baldwin, and apparently he'd be in town for it and wanted to go. So my boss told me to call the festival office and request four tickets to the closing night gala and the party. She said that it would be a hassle and she'd likely have to handle it herself, but I should try.

So I did. I called them up and said, "Hi, I'm calling from [the virtually unknown company I formerly worked for] and we're representing [The random piece of shit movie he was in] starring Stephen Baldwin. Mr. Baldwin will be in town this coming Saturday and wishes to come to the gala and the closing night ceremony."

...

TIFF chick on other line: "K. How many tickets do you need?"

Just. That. Easy. I got him 4 and arranged to have them picked up under my name. I went, snatched them and that was that. Now, initially they really were, in fact, for Stephen Baldwin, then he backed out and I got them instead. But yeah. I'll plan on doing that this year as well. So huzzah.

In other news:

Elizabeth Hasselbeck continues to be a collossal mongoloid:

Oh no she di'in't!

Sooooooooooooo many things are wrong about this. First off: I'm the only thing Michelle Obama didn't want to discuss was the dead horse that is Barack Obama's ties to Reverend Jeremiah Wright that Elizabeth has beaten to dust, and the only reason Michelle didn't want to discuss it is because it would have saved her from bitch slapping Elizabeth had she brought it up! Michelle Obama means business! Secondly: Cindy McCain has nothing to hide because she has nothing to show... bitch is dumb as a box of hair... she's like a dumber, sexagenarian version of Holly Madison. Thirdly: I don't know if you watch The View, and even if you do, I don't know if you saw Elizabeth's recap from the RNC, but it showed her interviewing other Republican celebrities in attendance... among the big names: Jon Voight and Stephen Baldwin. See... it all comes back to Stephen Baldwin.

I haven't seen The View yet today, but I wonder if they addressed this little jab.

In other, other news:

In her teenage years Angelina Jolie:

a.) was still sexy...

b.) had an affinity for polka dots...

c.) hadn't yet mastered 'finding the light'....

If THESE photos are an indication...

In other, other, other news:

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! BABIES WEARING HIGH-HEELS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Until tomorrow,

--- Aj

The Not-So-Secret Life of Bee's Knees...

2008-09-09T11:50:00.000-07:00

And it's official. I've lost whatever panache I was once had for making up titles. Holy balls, that was dreadful.

So hey. Sorry for my absence yesterday, but I was so bowled over from this weekend that I needed a day to just stare at the wall and readjust. Or whatever.

This past weekend was absolute hilarity-ness. Friday, 6PM - saw me and two compatriots who'll go nameless as per their request venture down to Roy Thomson Hall right here in Toronto to do something we'd surely never done before and even surer still will never do again - stalk the red carpet.

And why? Because encroaching our fair city this weekend? One Miss Jennifer K. Hudson is who.

In town to premiere her latest acting endeavour, The Secret Life of Bees - a movie based a book that tells the tale of racial dynamics betwixt blacks and whites (and bees) set against the backdrop of tumultuous 60's North Carolina (primarily beehives therein)... or something...

Anyballs - we got there at like 5:15 and about 8-10 minutes later it set in... "I can't believe we're doing this" - and wanted to leave. Then I convinced them that "y'all... this is the only time that we're going to get to see J Hud in this capacity. After this, the Oscar buzz will have worn off and she'll be relegated to films starring Martin Lawrence... so the least we can do is witness this". So we stayed.

At around 5:45 the first car pulled up and it was none other than the progressively maturing Dakota Fanning. She bolted over to the unwashed masses, smile a'glowing, and signed many an autograph and took many a photo op. When she passed by us in ear shot, I asked her who her celebrity crush was, and then followed up as to whether or not it was Charlie Rose - an obvious reference to The Dakota Fanning Show, which I assume is chastely true to life.

Next to arrive was songstress and co-star Alicia Keys, who also made sufficient rounds with the peanut gallery. Let me tell ya - from my estimation, the Proactiv is working. You go, girl.

Next up HAD to be Hudson... COME ON! But no... t'was Queen Latifah... who looks considerably smaller than I thought she'd be... but I have to reason that's just because she's usually the requisite 'large & in charge sistah'... Anyballs, she also punched the plebeian clock, and again, drifted dangerously close to my brood of destructively ironic homos who were heard to have yelled at her: "We loved you on Fresh Prince!" Yeah. This was met by a roll of her royal eyes.

So it's nearly show time and no Hudson to be seen anywhere, which made got me su-huuuper pissed because the only reason I dared intermingle myself with these bonafide gawkers was to ask her what her favourite movie was, what her favourite part of that movie was, and what she thought of that part - all of which she detailed in her B-Roll interview from movie night in Season 3 of American Idol:

Yeah. It's a thing in my act. I just wanted it on camera. Anyballs - she finally shows, scooting out of a car parked way the balls up from where we were, works the crowd very momentarily before being whisked through the press lineup. My cries of "JENNIFER!!! WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE MOVIE?!?! IS IT SISTER ACT 2?!?! WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE PART OF THAT MOVIE?!?! IS IT 'DA PART WHEN WHOOPI GETS GLUED TO 'DA CHAIR?!?! WAS IT HIL-A-RIOUS?!?!?" went largely unanswered.

Anyballs - I got the whole thing on tape, so I'll edit that shit together and post it here and it'll be hilarious.

So that was item worth discussing # 1...

#2.) VMA tyme.

Since the late 80's, I have ne'er missed an installment of the MTV Video Music Awards. I think they're the most zeitgeist-y thing out there. I love taking - and studying - a snapshot of pop culture at any given time and this Awards show often provides the Polaroid. [Sidebar: Did you know that the very first MTV VMA's were hosted by Dan Ayckroyd and Better Midler??? Yes. The show where Madonna historically writhed around on the floor singing "Like A Virgin" was presided over by Dan Ayckroyd and Bette Midler.]

Well, whatever suspicions anyone had that Ayckroyd and Midler would return as respective host and hostess of this year's 25th anniversary (read: no one had those suspicious. NO ONE) were quashed when British funnyman Russell Brand took the stage after a hopelessly anti-climactic opening 'skit' featuring Britney Spears.

K... Russell Brand... one word: LIMEY. If that's the pinnacle of brilliance insofar as the UK's standup scene, then I don't know what. I thought it was limp. I thought he might be trying to do things that he thought would appeal to an American audience, but it just looked like he didn't understand the language he was speaking - kinda like the odd time an older road-comic goes on Video On Trial and tries to speak in youth lingo and make pop-cultural comments... - so very, very sad.

Anyballs... other things of note:

- Britney Spears finally won... three awards at that, including the top prize, Video of the Year for the thoroughly unexceptional "Piece of Me". They might as well have named it the "Most Famous Person Actually In Attendance Gets This" award... anyballs - it's so, SO crazy to see her back in her robotic, guarded mode... "I'm speechless. I'd like to thank God and my two beautiful little boys, and of course, m'fans. Thanks, y'all!" Yeah, uh Britney... we've seen you attack a car with an umbrella whilst raving in a faux-British accent, not to mention your squalid pussy too many times to count. The jig is up. Please stop acting like you're this untouchable pop star anymore. Thanks. Love - Aj.

- Two things about Rihanna that are disproportionate to her natural composition: i.) her thighs and ii.) her fame.

- Although I'm as big a fan of Christina "X-Tina" Aguilera, I think it was perhaps a tad too early for a career highlights montage recapping all her previous looks from her video catalogue before she performed. Like, Madonna could do that. Janet could do that. Mariah could do that (although it wouldn't look that different). But with all of three albums to her name, I thought X-Tina might have been a little off her rocker...

- Speaking of rockers, how refreshing to see someone actually fucking sing - so thank you, Pink. You're very underrated.

- These fellows named the Jonas Brothers seem to be pretty big with the kids nowadays. They also wear promise rings - a concept that is fucking creepy. The premise of these rings is that kids are given these things by their parents when they're pre-teens, and it's supposed to represent a 'promise to themselves' (read: promise to their parents, Jesus and the Republican party) that they'll maintain their virginity, only to come off once a wedding ring goes on. It all sounds like glorious bullshit to me. After much prodding about this fact by host Russell Brand (his running gag of the evening... falling flat more often than not), linebacker Jordin Sparks - sporting arms boasting the circumference of red woods (THEMZ SOME FAT ARMS, DANG!!!) - decided to take a stand against this:

Yeah. Because if you don't wear a promise ring, you're a slut. That's all there is to it - no grey area whatsoever. Thank Christ Jordin Sparks had the courage to finally say it.

- Miley Cyrus' gets more annoying by the second. And savour these days, bitch - because you'll soon go the way of Ashlee Simpson, who might as well have won a contest in order to appear at the awards as far as the audience was concerned, judging by her cold reception (or, rather, non-reception). Seriously - even when Pete Wentz signed off saying "I'm Pete Wentz, that's my wife Ashlee, and that's my baby" he had to prod the audience for a fucking response. I don't know if you remember, but four years ago, Ashlee Simpson was the shit in terms of teen pop stardom. And she couldn't be more irrelevant now. The shelf-life of a teen pop queen is fleeting, is what I'm saying...

- Proving that 2008 truly is shaping up to be the year of the tranny, the Best New Artist category witnessed a shocking upset when German alt-rockers Tokio Hotel snagged the trophy over modern-day Punky Brewsterite Miley Cyrus, glorified jailbait Taylor Swift, virgin shotputter Jordin Sparks and kooky flavour of the moment Katy Perry. It's especially surprising given the fact that the award was voted on by the fans... and, y'know, Jordin Sparks is famous solely because people voted for her... hmmm... anyballs - GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO trannys!!!

So yeah. That was that.

Kinda sucked balls. But I'll totally watch it again next year.

Anyballs - I'm off.

Smell ya later,

--- Aj

Give me a 9... Give me an 0... Give me a 2...

2008-09-03T10:27:00.000-07:00

Hey HEY Hey.

I hope you understood how the inflection of that was supposed to go, because t'was supposed to be sassy.

So whoop-dee-whoop it's September, traditionally, when new shows premiere and all that junk.

Every year, I give two new shows a chance. This year, my bets are/were hedged on:

A.) Hole In The Wall - Yep. It's exactly what it says. Contestants stand on a big foam platform, a wall comes at them with a predetermined shape cut out that the contestant needs to try and assimilate their body to, or else they're dunked in lava.

Or something like that. To the surprise of no one, it's inspired by a Japanese Game Show of roughly the same name, although I'd have to bet the words "Super" and "Happy" and
"Fun" are also somewhere in the Japanese title.

Anyballs... I'm mainly watching it to see this one contestant who was featured on the promos - a hefty, hefty black lady, who, as soon as she saw the hole she'd have to fit through (one far smaller and more contorted than she could ever hope to fit through), exclaimed, "Dayumn Dayumn Dayumn!!!" AMAZING!

So that's one...

2.) The NEW 90210

Yep. Saw it last night. Meh.

The main reason that I watched it was because I was a super fan of it back in the early 90's, and hastily discontinued my watching it as soon as Shannen Doherty departed, thinking it was donesville. Well I was wrong about that. It lasted for quite some time after that, boasting future double Oscar-winner Hilary Swank, to boot. But it was never the same without ShanDoh...

Anyballs, last night, lured like a moth to a flame by the return of Shannen Doherty to Beverly Hills High like so, so many others, I tuned in.

The premise: Rob Estes (who's inching towards busted, sorry to say) and Lori Laughlin (who I don't think has ever NOT played a MILF in her entire career) are moving their daughter Annie (played by Torontonian Shenae Grimes... who we can only assume is directly related to prominent travel correspondent Judy Grimes... ) and their adopted black son Dixon (who played some dude named Tristan somethingorother who was on The Wire and will also be starring alongside Dakota Fanning and Jennifer Hudson in The Secret Life of Bees, premiering RIGHT HERE at the Toronto Film Festival!) migrate from Kansas City to Beverly Hills to live with their grandmother, played by Jessica "Lucille Bluth" Walters - a boozing, cougar-esque former film star.

So yes, once again, it's bumbling country mice venturing into the glamorous and treacherous big city. Drama and life lessons ensue.

The show seems very focused on Annie... who I guess would be the "Brenda" of this go around. And thus far her trek seems very akin to Lindsay "Cady Herron" Lohan from Mean Girls. She arrives at the school, and one of the first people she meets is arty weirdo Silver (a-la Janis in Mean Girls) who she eventually ditches for queen bee Naomi (a-la Regina in Mean Girls) and wouldn't you know it... arty weirdo Silver and queen bee Naomi used to be best friends in a past life but had a huge falling out and both have axes to grind... blah blah blah SO MEAN GIRLS!!!

Anyballs... some thoroughly ridiculous shit happens... Naomi has a 'not-so-sweet 16 party'... which is preposterous, as the actress who plays Naomi - AnnaLynne McCord - isn't in any remote realm light years away from being able to play 15... for real, the bitch looks older than Jessica Walter... and Jessica Walter is playing a Nana, y'all...

Also, at one point, Annie goes on a date with some outrageously dreamy guy who's in the school musical with her named - predictably - Ty... on a private plane... to San Francisco. Yes.

Then when Lori "Aunt Becky" Loughlin busts her on it, she's like "Mom! That's what kids here do! They go to San Fracisco on private planes!" Awful. Awful awful awful.

And anutha thang - since when did kids get computers attached to their desks?!?! Maybe that's just a Bev Hills thing BUT STILL.

Anyballs... Time has been kind to Jennifer "Kelly Taylor" Garth - she looks great. She's now a guidance councillor at Bev Hills High, after the fashion industry proved too superficial for her - a situation that many have found themselves in, no doubt. She's totally going to bounce on top one of the teachers, if he doesn't bounce on top of the actress bitch who's addicted to pills first.

Speaking of actress bitches who are/were addicted to pills, I'm not going to pretend that I didn't involuntarily squeal with delight when Brenda appeared. I felt things come full circle, and now I have my peace with 90210. Because I'm sure as balls not watching that swill again.

Anyballs... tonight - THERE'S A TRANNY ON 90210!!!!!!!

TEAM ISIS!!!

Until tomorrow,

--- Aj

Remember when I used to blog?

2008-09-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

So hey.

Long time.

I know.

Y'see, proving that birds of a feather really do flock together, much like Rosie O'Donnell - I decided to take the month of August off from the blog. Unlike Rosie, I failed to mention that I was... so to anyone who thought that I was dead, I'm very sorry. Because I'm SO not dead. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact... but anyballs...

Hope your August was cool. Mine was alright. Just spent time relishing the dog days of summer, mostly - of course, relishing the dog days of summer Andrew Johnston-stylez, means spending little-if-no time lapping up rays of the smiling August sun NOR does it include using the polarizing condiment relish... so I guess it's not really relishing at all... but still... it was nice.

Anyballs, just as the kids have gone back to school today, as have I to this blog. So I'm back. Full force - FULL FORCE!

WHAT a month it's been in the news, huh? Like big, Big, BIG shit hit the fan over the month of August '08. So, as a semi-triumphant return to blogging of sorts, I thought I'd tidily round up the biggest and baddest news stories that made the headlines in August...

1.) SLUMBERING DUDE BEHEADED ON GREYHOUND BUS!!!

Wooo-howdy this one was a doozy. How explosively did everyone crap their pants when they read this one?

The long and short of it: At approximately 8:30 PM Central time just West of Winnipeg, an unassuming 22-year-old carnival worker by the name of Tim McLean was unexpectedly and gruesomely attacked by a previously though-to-be unassuming 40-year-old newspaper delivery person by the name of Vince Weiguang Li.

According to reports, all was silent on the western front until - out of nowhere - this stocky Asian man (Weiguang Li) very purposefully got up and started hacking the dormant McLean with a butcher knife, completely oblivious to the panicking passengers around him - all of which managed to evacuate the bus. Sometimethereafter, Weiguang Li tried to exit the bus, McLean's severed head in hand, but the passengers - who had somehow managed to grow a pair by this point - barricaded him in the bus, threatening him with hammers and wrenches on loan from a passing tow truck they'd flagged down.

By the time that authorities arrived, Weiguang Li was madly pacing up and down the aisle of the bus, saying that he "would have to stay on the bus forever". Obviously that didn't happen, and the crazy bitch was arrested with very little protest.

Appearing in court the day after (pictured), he kept his head bowed, saying nothing, and only nodding ever-so-slightly when the judge asked him if he this was because he was retaining his right to silence. The only time he does go on record saying something is his next court appearance, when he utters "please kill me".

Here's what we know:

- Tim McLean was a hockey trophy-case short of being the quintessential all-Canadian boy next door, which made his passing that much more tragic and that much more newsworthy on the international landscape. For realsies, I think half the reports I read about this dealt with the incident and the other half dealt with the fact that something that happened in Canada was making international news. Ha-cha-cha.

- Vince Weiguang Li had no previous record of violence or mental illness prior to this... but he sure as balls does now. Apparently he was just a very quiet-if-unfriendly solitary immigrant dude who delivered papers and stocked shelves at Walmart or some junk. There's been some talk about him going missing for a few days before this happened, even spending some time in a mental health facility. Anyballs - he's now officially been classified as a paranoid schizophrenic... which means that he'd constantly hear voices in his head that would dictate things for him to do or threaten him... a lot of the time, this manifests itself violently, and more often than not, in suicide, because the affected can't handle the constant inner-torment... and, from what I've been hearing in the mental health community (because I totally hang out in those circles, motherfuckers... read: my mom's a psychiatric nurse and she told me this), that's what's likely to happen to him. Anyballs - his next court date is scheduled for September 8th.

- All sorts of security measures have been proposed to ensure this doesn't happen again - everything from Greyhound barring carry-on luggage to knife registry. YES, KNIFE REGISTRY. Okay... not to belittle this gruesome, gruesome incident and by no means to be insensitive to the deceased... but I think more people are killed by falling asteroids than beheaded on buses. I think this is a bit of an exceptional circumstance. That said, I'm sure as balls not travelling by bus anytime soon, so I guess I'm just a big fat hypocrite. Que Sera Sera.

2.) CHINA SHUNS ITS SNAGGLE-TOOTHED DAUGHTERS!!!

... As if feet binding wasn't enough? Gah.

So, the Olympics came, and the Olympics went. Butterface'd swimmers won medals and journalists protesting China's treatment of Tibet went mysteriously missing.

But the MOST buzz-worthy event to come from Beijing '08, at least in my eyes? That Milli Vanilli fiasco from the opening ceremonies.

The long & short of it: There was a nation-wide search in China (talk about looking for a needle in a hay-stack! Zing.) to look for a girl with a perfect voice to sing a freshly-penned song entitled "Hymn to the Motherland" (which kinda sounds like the title of a Nazi anthem in its blinding grandeur, but whatever) when they finally scrounged up the golden pipes of Yang Peiyi (pictured, right). Rehearsals were going swimmingly until the political powers that be got their panties in a bunch over her rather unpretty snaggle teeth, and at the last minute, replaced with her with a considerably more telegenic counterpart named Lin Miaoke (the bitch who looks plucked straight out of the Chinese chorus of the "It's A Small World" ride at Disney World, pictured to the left).

Here's what we know: Chalk this up to the consorted effort by the Chinese government to gentrify the country in time for the Olympics... On top of rigid anti-spitting laws, mandatory single-file lineup laws and compulsory English lessons for anyone remotely mercantile, it turns out that snaggle teeth aren't beneficial for China's "national interest". Isn't this EXACTLY what happened back in 1990 in the C&C Music Factory's smash-hit "Everybody Dance Now"? How Martha "It's Raining Men" Wash sang the vocals, but in the video, they substituted her for the considerably more-attractive lip synch stylings of Zelma Davis??? And then Martha Wash sued - and won - and then appeared in C&C Music Factory's subsequent hits??? Yeah. It's exactly like that. Except unlike Yang and Lin, I don't think Martha needed to go back to her job assembling Bratz dolls in a sweatshop. Again, Que Sera Sera.

3.) BARACK OBAMA SELECTS A VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE...!!!

... and it's not Hilary...

... or Oprah...

... or even Jackee Harry...

Balderdash.

4.) MCCAIN SELECTS A VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE...!!!

And it's a chick!!! Holy fuck!!! Suck it, Obama!!!

And moreover, it's Tina Fey. Holy balls.

No.

As the world at large knows by this point, her name is Sarah Palin - she's the Governor (or rather, Governess) of Alaska, she's pro-life, pro-gun, pro-anti-gay-marriage, soon to be pro-raping the arctic in search of glorious, glorious oil and about a decade shy of being half McCain's age. For realsies... don't they look like the oddest little May/December romance? Yuck.

Anyballs... isn't this just like the Dr. Suess tome Wacky Wednesday sprung to life? The Democrats choose a surly white dude for Veep and the Republican's choose a ballbustin' broad. What's next?! People wearing shoes on their head and hats on their feet?!?!?! AHHHH!!!

In other news... the McCain campaign musn't be wise to the facebook machine yet. Palin's daughter Bristol (classy name) is pregnant and has ample photographic evidence online that suggests she's an underage drinker. Also, apparently she supported a party in Alaska that's been aiming to separate it from the US. Yeah. FUN!

Finally...

The most important and savoury news item that passed during my hiatus...

5.) "HAIRSPRAY" STAR AND "AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL" ALUM BRAWL AT AIRPORT!!!

HOLY BALLS! I leaped out of my skin when this item broke.

The long and short of it: Although details remain scant, early on in August, a real-life edition of Celebrity Family Feud erupted in an airport on the Isle of Turks & Caicos... only instead of beating each other with the most commonly said answer to a general interest survey, they actually used their fists. Apparently the Blonsky family were taking up an exorbitant amount of seats (which, considering their ample physical girth, doesn't seem surprising... but instead, they had their luggage up on it), and refused to move it when a member of that skank bitch from ANTM Cycle 9 Bianca's presumably skanky Klan came up and asked them to. The Blonsky's finally conceited, when someone from The Golden (that's Bianca's last name... because she be classy, y'all) family remarked "I don't want to sit next to no white bitch" and sparring ensued.

Here's what we know: When the dust settled, several people had to be hospitalized - to the surprise of no one, really, as I could see both sides carrying shanks, or at least knowing how to fashion a shank easily - and charges were filed: Both Bianca and Nikki were charged with "bodily harm" while Nikki's father Carl was charged with "grievous bodily harm". Both Bianca and Nikki were released on bail, but Nikki's father Carl remains in custody until a court date sometime this fall.

You couldn't even make this shit up if you tried. I've been waiting with baited breath to hear that this was instead some sort of reality show prank or something, but no - the shit is real! I don't actually think I could ask for a better combination of D Listers to engage in something like this EVER... well... maybe Brigitte Nielson and Clay Aiken or something... that'd be pretty awesome, too...

Whatevs.

Anyway.

More tomorrow.

Good to see you again!!!

--- Aj

Billy Fuccillo, where have you been all my life?

2008-07-28T12:02:00.000-07:00

Hey cookies...

Happy Monday to you and yours.

How was your weekend? Mine was spent with me and mine, as opposed to you and yours, of course. That's right - I went back to Brockville for a familyola reunionthing that was both amusing and informative... I say informative in that it was disclosed that one of my aunts (who shall remain nameless... ... ...) BREASTFED HER KIDS UNTIL THEY WERE UPWARDS TO AND INCLUDING (BUT NOT LIMITED TO) 5 YEARS OLD!!!!

Yeah.

There's a rule of thumb that if you can ask for it, you're too old for it. So, in theory, that could mean two... But fucko - by FIVE, not only can you speak, but you likely have political opinions... fuck, you probably have a list of favourite non-fiction novels by that age!!! NUTS!!!

Further amusement came after my Saturday morning treadmilling, standing in the kitchen where my mother happened to have the local oldies station on... When, y'see, following Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" an extended radio commercial by none other than one Mr. Billy Fuccillo floated o'er the airwaves...

Billy Fuccillo is a bit of a legend in the Eastern Ontario/Upstate New York region... his commercials for the Fuccillo 'Automall' - featuring his signature pronunciation and delivery of the word "HUUUGE!" - are the stuff that dreams are made of. Observe:

Yep. In many ways, I feel as if I was raised by Billy Fuccillo... he certainly feels like part of my family, anyway.

I can remember back in University, during on the sketch shows that I did, there was potentially the most entertaining sketch ever created entitled "Kill Billy Fuccillo" - a takeoff of the "Kill Bill" movies that were ever-so-popular at the time. Yeah. Basically, the sketch revolved around Uma "The Bride" Thurman going after Billy Fuccillo and his criminally insane deals and steals on Hyundai's. I think that was pretty much all there was to it. I can't imagine what MORE there would have been to it than that...

Anyballs... fun times. Also fun times? TOMORROW NIGHT:

Yep. TOMORROW TOMORROW TOMORROW!!! It's, also, going to be HUUUGE!!!

I'm not leaving you with that, though...

Today, the people in my office challenged each other to think of the funniest name we'd ever heard. Robert "Bob" Lawblaw (Bob Lawblaw... say it! SAY IT!) won out, but my offering was a close fourth*... (*fourth was last place. fuck.)

Mine: SHEILA CHOAD.

YES. AHHHH!!! I think it's the funniest name EVER! I said that it was the name of the regional manager of the DMV in Brockville - but I was TOTALLY bullshitting... it was the name of a character that Maya Rudolph played in a sketch called "Sheila Choad's Los Angeles Face" - a mock-talk show discussing the joys of botox (click the link to view... it won't let me embed... and you will WANT to see this):

That was for all of you stay-at-home non-moms out there...

Anyballs... UNTIL TOMORROW -

--- Aj

Since I've Been Go-ooo-one...

2008-07-23T10:52:00.000-07:00

... YOU can breathe for the first time...

Not really.

Anyway - HI!!! Sorry I've been so MIA of late. Various reasons. Mostly good. But that's a story for another time...

So what can I possibly tell you? It's raining like cats and dogs here in the T Dot. I'm currently sitting at my desk, presiding over whatever business it is that I preside over, listening to Melissa Etheridge's Greatest Hits like a sorghum-raising, Simone de Beauvoir-quoting lesbo (of note about Melissa Etheridge: her songs kinda sound the same) and watching oodles of obnoxiously precocious child actors and their equally obnoxious stage parents sashay their way past my office door - y'see, as I mention on here from time to time, I work at the Mirvish building, for a company that handles the Mirvish real estate, um... 'ventures', we'll call them... and down the hall from my office is the rehearsal hall, where auditions are often held... this week, they're seeing candidates for the Von Trapp children (in the upcoming Mirvish production of "The Sound of Music" - CAN YOU NOT FUCKING WAIT?!?! YES!!!) - and from what I can gather, they must be seeing the younger ones of the set - so, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta and of course, Gretl - because these bitches look youuung.

Anyballs - a lot of these kids are in for some searing disappointment. Anytime I see one with red hair, it's like "you've got red hair, you won't be a Von Trapp kid."... conversely, anytime I see one that looks remotely 'exotic', they're ruled out as well - basically, unless you look like you could be humming a Nazi anthem whilst you make schnitzel, FOR. GET. IT.

In semi-related news: I saw Mamma Mia! this past Thursday night. Two thumbs DOWN! Gah - I was not amused. But really, I don't know what I was expecting - I mean, it was a farkin' jukebox musical featuring the songs of ABBA adapted from a cheesy-as-hell yet thoroughly entertaining stage show.

Well, strike that, I do know what I was expecting: Hairspray. Which I had pendulous trepidations about... in terms of how effective it would be transferring to the big screen... and then -SHAZAM- it turned out to be fucking amazing. I guess I thought that of Mamma Mia, too. Nope. The whole thing seemed kind of kids-film-esque to me - hokey and edge-less. The text was stale (read: your mom will LOVE this shit... she'll think it's the funniest, most outrageous romp she's been on since "Monster In Law"), there were far too many 'stand and deliver' scenes (in which people sing songs to each other in dead earnestness as if they were exchanging dialogue, resulting in them looking like crazy people) and generally outside of the rules of the contemporary, successful movie musical. Not to mention that there was this insane chorus of Greek islanders that drove me NUTS, pictured in the background dancing b'hind Meryl & co...

Had Meryl Streep not rocked out with her sizable cock out, it would have been absolutely unwatchable. Like, had it been Melanie Griffith or Goldie Hawn or another similar actress of a certain age, it would have been one gigantic pile of barf, but Streep weaved her signature brand of magic. She seemed like she was REALLY having fun and really relishing the experience, which was nice. And she can definitely sing - unlike SOME people I know (*cough*Pierce Brosnan*end cough*)... yeah... regarding: Pierce Brosnan... they might as well have cast Leonard Cohen in the role - BITCH CANNOT DO ANYTHING THAT REMOTELY RESEMBLES THE WORD 'SING'...

And anutha thang!!!: I hate to play logistics police (not really... I actually fuckin' love it!), but the film was rife with age and timing inaccuracies. It's made clear that Amanda "Sophie" Seyfried is 20 years old... Meryl "Donna" Streep is pushin' 60... this would mean she had Sophie in the late-late-LATE 30's... which is a little late in life to be musing whimsically about summer loves in one's diary-ladies, am I right? Anyballs... that's about it...

In other news: I'd be remiss if I didn't make mention of the passing of Estelle "Sophia Petrillo" Getty... I think we're all torn up about it... she was a woman who lived her life committed to two things: tellin' it like it is and being an active senior. Let us have one for Estelle, one mo' time...

Sad. Sad sad sad sad sad.

Don't worry - I'm not about to leave you on that note: here's a clip of Alaina "Rose" Hall, Jackee "Sandra" Harry and Marla "Mary" Gibbs who, thankfully are all still very much with us, from 227 serenading Sherman "George Jefferson" Helmsley with a cover of the Pointer Sisters' "Jump"...

OH - one more thing...

LESS THAN A WEEK AWAY!!! AHHHHH!!!

--- Aj

I'M ALIVE!!!

2008-07-16T12:02:00.000-07:00

Yep.

I most certainly am. Although you wouldn't know it from the frequency, or rather infrequency, that I've been a'bloggin'...

So where have I been? What have I been doing? Why I haven't I been blogging? When have I been doing all of these non-blogging things? All good questions - each and every last one of them.

Perhaps we'll never know...

One question, however, that I DO rather gleefully have the answer to, however, is what would happen if you combined these two things:

What is the sum?

THIS is the sum...

Yep.

Horrifying. Actually kind of disgusting. Oh well.

I'm going to see an advance screening of Mamma Mia tonight, and am all too excited about it. I'd say expect a full-tilt spoiler of it tomorrow, but the entire thing is kind of spoiled if you've remotely seen the stage show, which approximately 15 million people worldwide have (which, by the way, is more plentiful than the world's Jewish population, which, at last count, clocked in at a measley 13.3 million... only 300,000 of which are in Canada... yep... the amount of people that have witnessed live stage antics set to the music of ABBA outweigh the amount of people in the world who subscribe to the philosophy that Christ didn't come again, having sex through a hole in a sheet and brisket. BRISKET!!!) then you'll easily know that everyone fucking gets married in the end and they sing us out to "Dancing Queen". Whattheballsever... I loves me some Meryl Streep more than I loves me some life...

So that's exciting...

What else is exciting...

OHHHHH yes. Just under two weeks. Hold onto your hats.

'Til T'morrow...

--- Aj

A very "Wanted" review... UNABASHED SPOILERS WITHIN!!!

2008-07-08T11:26:00.001-07:00

Really? That's the best I could come up with? Yep. Yeppy yep yep yep.

You know how sometimes you just get a craving for something specific? Like something, if you close your eyes and expend an iota of concentration on, you can practically taste it? For me, those cravings are often chocolate, olives, brie cheese, tzatziki sauce and cinematic instances of Angelina Jolie kicking ass like it's never been kicked before.

So... last night, experiencing a jones-ing for the latter, I took in the latest action-packed Angelina Jolie vehicle, "Wanted". And what a roller coaster ride it was...

Warning: if you don't want to soak in blatant, unabashed spoilers, avert your gaze/gays NOW...

The first thing that struck me is how specific the previews are for movies. In that, the previews for the last movie I saw - Sex & The City: The Movie - were for absolute estro-swill like He's Just Not That Into You and Sisterhood of Travelling Pants 2: The Womanhood of the Venturing Schpants/Jorts... the previews for Wanted were for all for skid-mark sporting dudes - shit starring Shia LaBeouf like Power Guns 2: The Wreckoning or GUNCARS! or something that I would have 0.0 interest in seeing...

Anyballs... we start off at an office party celebrating the bosses' birthday - she's a rotund lady named Janice, very reminiscent of 'Mimi' from Drew Carey. We're treated to an expository voice over by the character of Wesley, played by star-on-the-rise James McAvoy. He talks about how similar his day-to-day existence is and how miserable that makes him.

Apparently he suffers from anxiety attacks - where his heart starts to race, his face gets all red-like, and he processes climactic moments in slow motion.

Cut to: a drugstore, Wesley's getting his prescription meds filled alongside his best friend (who just so happens to be fucking his girlfriend, a fact that he's all too aware of, but meh, what's down-on-his-luck Wesley gonna do about it?) Enter Angelina "Fox" Jolie - who, throughout the entire film, looks exactly like the photo to the left. I'm not kidding - THIS JOLIE WOMAN DOES NOT HAVE AN OFF SWITCH.

She barely speaks in this movie, and when she does, that's the only time she's not perched statuesquely, pouting ominously-yet-seductively. It was amazing to see how many scenes she'd just be looming in the background, observing the scene yet not contributing anything whatsoever other than a static, ominous pout. SHE IS ALWAYS ON. It's amazing.

Even when she fought, she'd still retain her pout. It would turn into 'ass-kicking-pout-face', as per evidenced below:

Yeah. Anyballs. Angelina pops up beside him at the pharmacy counter and tells him that his father, one of the world's greatest assassins, was killed today and the man who killed him - Mr. X - is coming after him. Said Mr. X happens to be right around the corner down the feminine hygiene aisle, and just like that - a good-old-fashioned gun-fight ensues. The Jole-ster manages to finagle Wesley out of there with her into her sexy red car, and a good-old-fashioned car chase ensues.

Blah blah blah blah blah guns guns guns cars cars cars, chase-y chase-y, shoot-y shoot-y, car flip-y into bus, bus crush-y police blockade, the dust settles and Angie and Wesley are still alive, the end. Wesley wakes up in a warehouse where he's surrounded by a cast of colourful characters, and receives the information that he's the son of one of the greatest assassins in the world and destined to follow in his footsteps. Wesleys' all "my father left my mother and I when I was 7 years old" and starts to have an anxiety attack - when the ringleader of these colourful characters, played by Morgan Freeman in what must be his 1,000,000th wise, reverent black man role, tells him that his anxiety attacks are misdirected adrenaline that, when harnessed correctly, would make him a superhuman killer.

Morgan then explains the back story - they're this covenant of assassins carrying out fate's work called "The Fraternity" and up until recently, his father was one of them - the best, until he was killed by a rebel "Fraternity" member who is picking them off, one by one. The only one who can avenge his father's death is him and this is his destiny, blah blah blah. Wesley's still not sold - he goes back to his day job, realizes that his father's substantial assets had been transferred to him (to the tune of 3 hundred million dollars) and starts to acquire his taste for life in the fast lane. This comes to a crescendo when his boss Janice has one particularly zesty confrontation over an expense report and he goes ape shit on her, tell her to shut the fuck up, exits the building, and bashes his philandering best friend/co-worker's skull in with his ergoboard (whatever happened to those things? I used to have one and really liked it... whatever...)

He marches out of the building and who should be waiting for him in her sexy, stealth black car? Why none other than a pleasingly pouty GeGe JoJo, ready to whisk him back to Fraternity headquarters.

All is not so sexy and glamorous, however - turns out Assassin central is really a textile factory. What's that? "A TEXTILE FACTORY? Now I've seen everything" - I know. Then Wesley is introduced to potentially the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen... Morgan Freeman explains to Wesley that the Fraternity is carrying out orders dictated to them by, *ahem*, the loom of fate. YES. THE LOOM OF FATE. An enormous loom that spells out names of people numerically and they must die in order for thousands to be saved or some shit.

After this, Wesley is put through a prolonged period of 'training' - he basically gets the fuck beaten out of him repeatedly and is nursed back to health by way of some sort of wax-bath that stimulated white blood cells... during one of which, the audience is treated to the ample, tattooed backside of Angelina Jolie (I'll be she hated that scene...)

Anyballs, after a montage of many a bloody trials and errors, The Jole-ster and Morgan Freeman come to the conclusion that Wesley is ready for his first job. The Jole-ster accompanies him, and when push comes to shove, he can't do it. He doesn't know why he's supposed to kill someone not knowing if they've done anything wrong... The Jole-ster then explains to him that years ago, there was a little girl whose father was a judge - he was assigned to a case where the accused wanted a judge who wouldn't be so stringent, so a hit was put out on him. This particular assassin - named Phillip Frisk or something - came to the judges house, tied up the judge, poured gasoline on him, burned him, and made the little girl watch as it happened. Then, he took a red hot coat hanger and branded her... Well, THAT GIRL WAS ANGELINA. A fact made BEYOND obvious by the lips on the bitch they got to play 7-year-old Angie... for reals... it was a dead ringer...

Anyballs, Angie says that shortly after she joined the assassins, she found that Phillip Frisk's name had been called by the "loom of fate" some two weeks before her father had been murdered, and whichever Fraternity member had been assigned to kill him chickened out - so that's why Angie always follows through, no questions asked.

Time passes, he finally gets some balls and starts offing people, and decides he's ready to finally take out Mr. X. During a previous confrontation with Mr. X, they find one of the custom made bullets he uses, and somehow traces it to Arabia. Yes, Arabia. So he goes to Arabia in search of Mr. X, accompanied by - unbeknownst to him - one Ms. Angelina Jolie-Pitt, because, y'see, it turns out that Wesley's name was picked by the "loom of fate" and he's her next job. D-RRR-AMA!!!!

Blah blah blah they go to Arabia, and Wesley stalks the dude who made the bullets - played by Terrence Stamp, who some of you may recognize from a slew of action-adventure movies, among them: Phantom Menace, Elektra and most recently Get Smart; but I recognize him as the tranny queen in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - and, after sufficiently threatened at gunpoint, he clues them in on the whereabouts of Mr. X.

I can't really remember the specifics of how this unfolds, but there's this crazy chase scene on a train that goes through the mountains, Angelina [sexily] crashes a car into the train to grant herself entrance to it and someone pulls the emergency brake as it's going over a bridge high above a truly cavernous ravine. The train cars start to wobble off - this is the part where I shit myself. SHIT MYSELF. I live at Broadview & Danforth, and the subway always needs to go over the Don River on this suspension bridge, and it's basically my worst nightmare that the cars go off the track. Basically - ANYBALLS... Eventually Mr. X and Wesley come face to face, with Wesley dangling off the car, about to fall to his death, when - GASP - Mr. X reaches a hand out to save Wesley. Wesley, having none of it, shoots the poor fucker in the heart... ah well, too little too late, because the next thing that happens is the train car that they were dangling on plummets below. Wesley's alive, Mr. X barely is. Wesley gets up in his face, about to do him in. With his last breath, Mr. X tells him that he, in fact, is Wesley's father and he had been trying to protect him all along - which makes stunning sense really, as Mr. X never shot at Wesley, just the other assassins. Then he dies.

Then, out of nowhere because she's magical, appears Angelina Jolie. Yeah... somehow she stowed away on this particular car that just plummeted 18 miles down a ravine. He asks her if this is true, and she says "yeah... but whatever. His name came up bitch. And so did yours-" and as she goes to shoot him, he shoots the window that him and his apparent father were atop of, and rides his dead apparent father like a boogie board to the river below.

Cut to him waking up in yet ANOTHER wax bath, this time, at a different locale. He's greeted by Terrance "Bernadette" Stamp, giving him the low-down - "your father wanted you to have a different/better life than that of an assassin, he was always protecting you, [Morgan Freeman] is bad news, he takes out corporate hits for people and claims it comes from the loom of fate"-I KNOW! HOW DARE HE BESMIRCH THE LOOM OF FATE?!?!?-"blah blah blah..." Wesley hatches a plan for revanche.

He fills 10,000 rats up with a deadly concoction of peanut butter and gasoline - don't fucking ask me why - puts synchronized bombs on their backs and drives a garbage truck full of them into the textile factory. After the rate bombs explode, he bursts in, guns blazing, shooting everyone in sight - really, the next sequence plays out like a video game... one mounting obstacle after the other, until finally he finds himself in Morgan Freemans' library, surrounded by the core group of the Fraternity, all aiming guns at him.

He then spills the beans that Morgan Freeman has been lying to them and using them for his own financial game and that, in fact, Morgan Freeman's name came up on the "loom of fate" a long time ago and he has the shred of cloth to prove it or something. Then Morgan Freeman is all like "yeah. So? Fuck you! Get a load of this - ALL of your names have come up on the 'loom of fate'..." and he hands them all the proof. Then he's all "Come with me brothers and sisters, and let's all share the feast! Oh... and kill this Wesley bitch before you do... peace out".

Anyballs - everyone thinks his goose is cooked, when all of a sudden Angelina Jolie fires this crazy circular bullet shot that pierces through every single persons skull before throwing Wesley the gun and taking the final blow of the bullet herself. And yes, you can rest assured, she was pouting suggestively until the very, very end.

Anyballs... he can't find Morgan Freeman. He ambles home. Finds that his former father's vast fortune that was transferred to him is no more and he's just all 'fuck it'. The last scene implies that he goes back to his accounting job, same old, same old. Then Morgan Freeman appears behind him with a gun all "some things never change". He spins the dude around, realizes it's not Wesley but instead a decoy, Morgan Freeman swears and gets a bullet through his head.

Sha-la-la-la.

And that's that.

Anyballs... it was fun... go see it... if ONLY for the unstoppable sensuality of Angelina Jolie...

That's it for me for today. It looks like it's going to rain. Hmmm.

--- Aj

THIS is why I don't tan/Pasty Pride

2008-07-07T11:43:00.000-07:00

A jubilant Monday to you and yours,

More on that title in a second...

But firrrrst...

A question: when was the last time you came incredibly close to actually punching someone in the back of the head? Like, ACTUALLY. Like you could feel your fist clenching and teeth gritting together in preparation of a deadly blow? I came within inches of punching someone in the back of the head today, a mere two hours ago. The scene: Approximately 1:30, Post-Meridian. The PharmaPlus in the Metro Concourse, located approximately beneath Roy Thompson hall at streets King & University.

This particular PharmaPlus transforms into a hub for professional, office-type gals betwixt the hours of 12 and 2 PM - lunch hour for many. Lines as far as the eye can see of these gals buying concealer, tampons, hand sanitizer, manufactured Hostess confectioneries, personal lubricant, y'know - that racket. It takes fucking FOREVER to get the cash register as a result. It's just bitch in Reitman's-purchased tasteful-yet-modern sweater set after bitch in Reitman's-purchased tasteful-yet-modern sweater set buying one item at a time and putting it on their credit card.

Today - after getting my boss and I's lunch - I headed over there to get some Diet Coke and some SPF-packed moisturizer (you'll know why in a scant few seconds... trust me) and took my place in line. Today, I was situated behind the most searing assache I've ever come into contact with - it was a bitch who was RETURNING A TOOTHBRUSH OVER CREDIT CARD. Do you KNOW how long this transaction took?!?! AND, the motherfucking toothbrush cost $1.27. ONE DOLLAR AND TWENTY-SEVEN CENTS. And she NEEDED to return it. On credit card. Which she needed to sign for, the fucking cashier needed to sign for, the fucking manager needed to sign for - I'm surprised I didn't need to sign for it. It was EXTRAORDINARY bullshit. She then proceeded to haggle over some Polysporin which she claimed was 20% off in her current coupon flyer - and the cashier was like "yeah... it's 20 off. It says so right there". But this bitch was insistent that it was 20% off ON TOP of that 20% because, y'know, that makes all the sense in the world. CUT TO 5 MINUTES LATER - I'm swearing under my breath and just looking at her murderously. She seems unfazed. Finally, the manager convinces her that the discount has been given, and this bitch waddles away narrowly escaping me actually punching her in the head.

My God I hate these people. Like, I get it - you're desperate for human interaction and the only way you can claim some sort of importance is by needlessly robbing people of minutes from their day. But all I ask is that next time you please go and take this out on a homeless person or something... they'll gladly assume a captive audience with you for a lot less money than it costs to return a toothbrush. AN ASSFUCKING TOOTHBRUSH!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!?!

Gah - sorry. It just confounds me...

Another thing that confounds me...

Do y'all remember Baywatch? How could you forget. Do y'all remember Jeremy Jackson? He played Hasselhoff's character's son - here he is during his stint on Baywatch, looking his age...

Yeah. We all spanked to that at one time or another... ladies, am I right?

Well, here he is PRESENT DAY-

I asked my boss to guess how old he is/was. And my boss (not knowing who he is/was) guessed, without remote hesitation, "early 40's".

Then I gleefully revealed to him that the fellow pictured and myself are the same age. Yeah. JerJack and I are the exact same age (well... not really... he's actually a year older than I am, but at present we're both the big two seven.)

Upon laying eyes on Mr. Jackson, I can honestly say I cherish my vampire-esque aversion to sunlight more than every. HOLY. BALLS. That is Busted with a capital 'Usted. He looks like the lead singer of Warrant/Quiet Riot/Whitesnake/The Scorpions/some hair metal band of yesteryear...

So, to all of you in your mid-late 20's still soakin' up the rays like it's good for what ails ya - it's not. 20-something wrinkles ain't pimples, darlings - they're not going to clear up. They're there forever. Add to that the occasional gray pube, and you might as well go cash in on the 20% discount on Thursdays at Denny's (that's the seniors discount day... I know this because as a kid, I couldn't wait until I turned 55 and older so I could get it... now I feel decidedly different).

Anyballs... that's all the wisdom I have to impart today...

Slather on the sunscreen,

--- Aj

Big Whoop! Who Gives A Bibble! Gabba Gabba Hey

2008-07-04T11:59:00.000-07:00

Um... yes...

Haven't done one of these in a while.

The title, of course, pertains to Marge Simpson's catchphrase dismissing trivial inconveniences a-la "Ah well, what are ya gonna do?"... and I use it to sort of title a post that deals with random minutia that doesn't really matter. But before that...

How are you today? I'm splendidly, thanks for asking. It's a super nice day weather-wise here in Toronto, the CEO of my company - David Mirvish - finally got my name right, and I just got a brand spanking new pair of shoes on my extraordinarily prolonged lunch break. Loveliness all around. And tonight I'm joining a group of chums down at the harbour front to take in the sights, sounds and smells of Ladytron to celebrate the birthday of Matt Thomas - the editor-in-chief of Fab Magazine.

Speaking of Fab magazine, make sure you pick up the latest issue, as there's a roundup of pics that were snapped over Pride weekend with hilarious captions provided by myself, comedians Richard Ryder and Dawn Whitwell, and drag divas Donnarama and Daytona Beach. There were like 30+ photos that we needed to caption in a turnaround period of like 8 hours from the time we got them to the magazine going to print... it was insanity... I hammered them out in like 3 hours (that's what she said)... my creative juices had all but evaporated by the end of it... I actually think there's this one picture of a bunch of naked guys getting ready to strike at each other on a wrestling mat that I captioned "Don't Cha Hate Mondays?"... and it has nothing, if very little, to do with Garfield. Ohhhhh brother.

Anyballs... here's some randomness...

1.) ANNA WINTOUR CELEBRATES 20th ANNIVERSARY AS EDITRIX-IN-CHEIFETTE OF VOGUE MAGAZINE

Yeppy.

Nigh on 20 years ago - June 28, 1987 as a matter of fact - one Anna Wintour began her reign of terror/fabulousness over the fashion industry when she stepped into top position at the world's leading fashion rag.

Pictured, is Anna giving a hearty 'thumbs up' celebrating the occasion (not really). I can't imagine cake was served to commemorate the occasion... maybe ice cubes on Popsicle sticks, but definitely no sort of customary celebratory confectionery (all of those words started with a 'c' and ended with a 'ry'... see that?)

Anyway - it's really not worth mentioning for any other reason that me wanting to bring up how fucking obsessed I still am with Anna Wintour - an obsession that I dealt with in great detail in this post. Anyballs... if you read it, you'll remember one little reported habit of hers that struck me as very funny - that she stands in her office, frustratedly throwing pennies from her purse into the garbage as if to say "I simply do not have time for all these 1 cent pieces!!! *Angry shriek*"... well I was speaking about this over the weekend, and as it turns out, a lot of people do this. The more I continue to bring it up, the more people come out as being a penny trasher - I HAD NO IDEA. I think I'll make my first foray into investigative journalism on the topic of Penny Trashers... so, if you're a penny trasher who really wants your story told, please e-mail me at femaledogsalad@gmail.com - I smell a Pulitzer.

2.) MONKIDS ARE MAKING A COMEBACK!!!

Oh shit. This is terrifying.

I don't care how desperate you are for companionship - YOU CANNOT GET A MONKEY AND TREAT IT LIKE A CHILD!!! IT'S UNSPEAKABLY BIZARRE!!! THERE SHOULD BE LAWS AGAINST THIS!!!

The leading culprits in this unholy trend? Empty Nesters (not Richard Mulligan, or Kristy McNichol, or Park Overall or any other cast members from the hit sitcom Empty Nest, but rather sexagenarians who's children have flown the coop). The logic behind this? They want a child again, but they don't want to have to deal with the teenage years again. Sound incredibly wholesome to me. And by that I mean, IT REALLY, REALLY DOESN'T.

All of this makes me feel incredibly at ease about my mom talking to our cat as a result. Because she totally does. She'll totally be in the kitchen, and our cat - Simba - will prance over the cupboard where the wet cat food is and meow, and my mother will repeatedly say "No! No! You just had some! Well what am I supposed to do? Later! No! No!" and really, this thing has just meowed like 5 times but by the 5th time, my mom has lost the argument. Like it actually was an argument - like Simba actually provided points and counterpoints as to why he should have the wet cat food right now and my mother had no other alternative but to crack open the Fancy Feast because Simba's case was so air-tight. It's actually insane.

BUT NOT AS INSANE AS PEOPLE WHO HAVE MONKIDS!!!! So kudos, mom.

3.) SOME VINTAGE - AND I MEAN VINTAGE - CELINE DION

Incognito.

I thought I'd leave you with that.

Have a great weekend,

--- Aj

Pride Diary

2008-07-02T07:39:00.000-07:00

Hey stranger,

I know, I know. It's been OVER a week. I mean, c'mon, what is this, late 2006? (I say that, because in late 2006, my blogging frequency was spotty at best. AT BEST.)

Well if ever an excuse was appropriate, t'would have been the fact that this past week was Pride.

T'kicked off Tuesday with the Pride Edition of Bitch Salad, which went famously, thanks for asking. Slight snaffoo: we had to compete with something in the next room at Buddies, entitled Pride Prom. "A costumed prom for gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered/whatever youth who all probably give terrible blow jobs, as has been my experience with high school kids", as I put it. They was loud and all ova' the place. But whatever, o bla di, o bla da, sha-la-la-la "Life Goes On" is what I always say. Particularly because no one remembers the short-lived ABC dramedy "Life Goes On" starring a young, pre-Gypsy but post-Evita Patti LuPone.

Following that, a gaggle/whack of us headed to Crews for some much needed karaoke - I, personally, had set my sights squarely on Glenn Medeiros' "Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You" - ONLY TO FIND THAT, *GASP*: Crews was closed. Due to some sort of liquor violation. Can anyone say catastrophe? Probably not if you're dislexic, but that problem is a horse of entirely different colour. Anyballs - yeah. Can you imagine? Crews - Toronto's premiere cover-free, gay-&-lesbian-mixed hotspot which boasts an exceptionally rude and belligerent bar staff - closed?! FOR PRIDE?! Wow.

Anyballs, Wednesday night I took part in a seemingly never-ending Pride edition of Spirits Open Mic, hosted by the incomparable Jo-Anna Downey - WHO, by the by, was on the Pride Edition of Bitch Salad the night previous, and, by the by, received what I might consider my best introduction yet: "What do our first guest of the evening and Maple Leaf Gardens, Sam The Record Man and the GM Plant in Oshawa all have in common? They're all venerable, life-giving landmarks of the Greater Toronto Area. However, what do those things NOT have in common with our first guest of the evening: she's still open and serving the public". Eat your fucking heart out, Bruce Vilanch.

B'anyway - besides being a very late night, fun times continued to ensue there. Thursday I forced myself to have a very low-key day, despite the fact that I had the photo shoot for the next Bitch Salad... expect to have details about that crammed in your face very shortly. After that ended at like, 7:45, I decided to treat myself to a cab home. It was frivolous, but y'know when sometimes, you're just so fucking tired that you'd rather make love to a cactus froggystyle than take the TTC? Well, that's how I felt.

Friday was supposed to be a day off for me, but I had to come into work for a half-day. Boo. This was particularly 'boo' as a gaggle of my friends were heading to Canada's motherfucking Wonderland including, but not limited to Heidi, Yerxa and Bort (YES! BORT. I MISSED A DAY AT WONDERLAND WITH BORT). I haven't been to Wonderland since I was like 11. I miss it. Especially Smurfland. I seem to recall somebody telling me that Smurfland closed. Or maybe it was a nightmare I had - a terrible, terrible nightmare that can't be true - because Smurfland was the shit. Anyballs...

I spent the afternoon doing some last minute Pride weekend shopping. I was super dead-set on buying shoes, but was wearing flip-flops, and didn't want any of that fucking 'you have to put on the store sock' action, so that's still on m'to-do list. Following a perfunctory nap, I headed over to an already-swinging pre party after which we were apparently to 'head to Church, and see what happens'. Church St. was pandemonium. PANDEMONIUM. Holy balls. Do you know the only place we could get into? This random Vietnamese restaurant that no one ever knew existed and even this place was PACKED. We all did shots of tequila, drunkenly heckled the Vietnamese waitress like we were the most entertaining beings on the face of the planet (which, no doubt, we were), and played a game that reared its head three more times this very weekend... 'go around the table and name 80's sitcoms'. Here's how this game breaks down every time:

Someone: Full House!
Someone: Family Matters!
Someone: 227!
Someone: Mr. Belvedere!
Someone: Silver Spoons!
Someone: Alf!
Someone: Facts a'Life!
Someone: Mr. Belvedere!
Someone: 8 Is Enough!
Someone: Webster!
Someone: Roseanne!
Someone: Mr. Belvedere!
Someone: Perfect Strangers!

And so on and so forth... then...

[sometime later]

Someone: ... ... ... Did anyone say Mr. Belvedere?

For real. Happens every time. For some reason "Mr. Belvedere" is that thing that everyone says, but no one remembers anyone saying, but then springs to someone's mind waaaay after the fact. Anyballs - as per expected, I got waaay more hammered than I resolved to (or rather resolved not to), and ambled myself home.

Cut to: Saturday morning. Yikes. Hungover. I blame the Vietnamese. Somehow I got myself functioning and watched the previous days' installment of "The View" - the ladies were live from Vegas all week - with guest Bette Midler, who's currently on stage at Caeser's palace taking over the gig once famously held by Celine Dion (I'm sure Bette's great and all, but I doubt bitch can conduct lightning from her hands a-la Celine...) - Anyballs, apparently excerpts from Better Midler's "The Showgirl Must Go On" did the trick because I was off and running in no time... after some obligatory cardio, booze shopping and a crazily painful Nair mishap, all of a sudden it was time to go.

The scene: Buddies for the annual Homo Night In Canada, which, after what I interpreted to be a disastrous appearance at last year, I was invited back to again this year. So hooray for that. I was on last, so I was completely hammered by the time it was time to go on. I don't remember it going badly, though. So there's that. Anyway - fun fun fun fun fun FUN fun afterwards. Basically everyone I know in the world was there, basically. It was like a high-school dance, only with tranny's taking the place that inappropriately dressed 14-year-old skanks once occupied. Then, for one reason or another, at around quarter to 1, I vamoosed. Yep. For no reason at all. Certainly not [necessarily] because I met someone, and, even if I did - which I absolutely did not (necessarily) - I certainly wouldn't discuss it here as I'm famously guarded about discussing my a.) religion, b.) finances and c.) boy-beav. Not that there's anything to discuss, of course. [Necessarily].

B'aaaanyways, after a surprisingly active evening for going home early and [not necessarily] alone, I was plumb-wiped out Sunday morning. Best efforts were made, but despite them, I missed the parade for the first time in like 6 years or some shit... I know, I know, I know... but from what I heard - it was more of the same. Elderly junk on full frontal display, Beefy be-speedo'd dudes dancing on ridiculous corporate floats and more trannys than you conceivably shake a stick at. But, for old times sake (I used to blog a roundup of pictures I'd taken during pride and caption them humorously... now, because I'm clearly moving up in the world, I'm doing that for Fab magazine...) I'll include a photo that jumped out of me - of a chola tranny, bits un-gloriously exposed to the world, who spun down the street in a gigantic hamster wheel. It's really somethin' to see.

I've gotta tell ya, though - skipping the parade was perhaps the best idea I had... I'm usually so effin' tired because of waking up earlier than I humanly would after the night I usually have before it, then going to it, getting sun, then going home, napping, then being totally lethargic for the night - but no... languidly lounging around luxuriously all afternoon was exactly what the doctor ordered, let me tell ya... I then took in the first 10 minutes of a show that I'm presently obsessed with - "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?" - and met people for drinks on the only patio that we could possibly get seated at, the Micky Finns at Church & Carlton a-k-a Hooker Central. After casually swigging back some cocktails (that's what she said), we strolled our way up Church St. It's at this point that I'm reminded how very much I hate crowds. Sheesh. Then we settled at the Artful Dodger where I didn't [necessarily] meet up with someone I didn't [necessarily] meet the night before and have some more drinks.

Why Heidi Brander is the most amazingly entertaining human being in the world, Reason # 1,229,836: After menus were distributed, she ran across the street to a Rabba, bought a $7 jar of Cheese Whiz, ran back, took her seat, and asked if she could "have an order of steamed broccoli... but, could [she] add her own personality to it?" and whipped out the Cheese Whiz accordingly. The waitresses reply: "Well, sure. But we don't have steamed broccoli." So she ordered toast points instead and added her own personality to them.

After a while, we all parted ways. I heard Heidi and Bort went and sang SingStar karaoke at someone's house. Anth had to work in the morning. Yerxa had been passed out for hours after spending all afternoon line dancing in a beer garden. And once again, I [didn't necessarily] go home alone and [didn't necessarily] do nothing. And that was that with that.

That was pretty much it. I took Monday off and it was the second best decision of my life. Last night was pretty low key as well - just some convergence on a back porch in the west end, thinking we could see the fireworks, which we totally couldn't, but oh well. Luckily the night was spiced up by A.) Bort telling us a story from her childhood - or, rather Borthood - about making her severely hungover grandmother barf by farting in the car and B.) The fact that one Dean McArthur can only communicate via showing people youtube clips recently... anyway... he showed us this - an apparently not-retarded contestant on the latest British version of Big Brother -

Just might be the most uproarious thing I've seen in some time. Certainly since the wheeling chola tranny with mangled business above.

So yeah. That's about it. Not the kind of stuff that makes up for an over-week-long absence, but still. It's at least an alibi.

--- Aj

EXCLUSIVE: Papparazzo'd Nude Shots of Orlando Bloom!!!

2008-06-24T10:55:00.000-07:00

Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!

I know what you're thinking. Day of Bitch Salad. I'm making another post advertizing something salacious then faking you out and being like "made ya look" and you're like "ugh. You are so desperate". BUT NOT TODAY!!! I'm not crying wolf... or rather, cock...

He's not really my cup of tea... well, actually, seeing as I frequently tout my love of English Dandies, he kind of is. So I guess I should shut my effin' mouth.

NEVERTHELESS - I actually do have pictures that were snapped of one Mr. Will Turner himself whilst him and his girlfriend were abroad, frolicking sexily in the surf (is there any other way to frolick in the surf/is there any other place to frolick sexily/is there any other thing to do sexily in the surf? Methink not.)

Anyway... uncensored pic after the jump...

And I think I can show it in its full, uncensored entirety...

I believe bums are allowed...

Anyway...

Here it is...

Kinda flat, huh?

Something that won't be flat? But, in fact, quite bulbous and flavorful?

TONIGHT TONIGHT TONIGHT TONIGHT TONIGHT TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, it's intoxicating. Hope to see you there!!!

Also - quick note - SUUUUPER congratulations to my dear, dear friend Katherine "Kitty" Ryan for winning the Nivea "Funniest New Female Standup In Britain" award - SO amazing. Watch your back, Jennifer Saunders.

Anyballs...

YAY!

--- Aj

Pre-Pride Preporatory Poop

2008-06-23T10:20:00.000-07:00

Heyyyy everybody...

A fair Monday to you.

How was y'alls weekend? Mine was cool. Reasonably low-key. I'm currently saving/hoarding my juices for the coming weekend - as it's pride. One eventful thing that happened to me since last I blog'd, that I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, is that on Thursday night I attended the first-ever full-length solo show by brizilliant character comedienne Kathleen Phillips. Holy balls. It was the stuff that dreams were made of... particularly, this video:

Yes. I'm am so thoroughly obsessed with that at present.

Anyballs...

The weather here in Toronto continues to be retarded to the third degree. Scattered thunderstorms seem to have become a staple. I think I can kind of remember a time when thunderstorms were relatively rare - angels bowling, y'know - but I swear to crap that they've happened at least twice a day, EVERY day for the past two weeks. This just won't do.

I can't remember a Pride week when it hasn't been a shade below pristine, so it better fuck off by tomorrow... uhhhhbecause:

YEAHHHHHHH!!! TOMORROW TOMORROW TOMORROW TOMORROW!!!

With very special guests Sue Johansson and resident news corres-PUN-dant, Heidi Brander, pictured, to the left, to the left...

That is, of course, the profile picture from the myspace I set up for her this past Christmastime.

Backstory re: that. For a Christmas present, Heidi went to an authentic Japanese karaoke joint and recorded a full-length album of her singing Christmas songs and distributed to the discs to us. It was basically amazing. Basically.

Anyballs... Beyond that, you may recognize Heidi from a recurring segment at the Salad in which she reads news stories via puns... it's kind of the most amazing thing in the world.
Beyond her typical brand of pun slinging, she's also quite renowned in her work circle for weekly e-newsletters she sends out. The shit is pure gold. This past Friday, she sent out one suggesting do's and don't's that every hag must abide by this Pride... I'm simply going to re-publish it.

I’m here, I’m not queer, get used to it!

Every week is pride week when your name is Heidi Brander! A Saturday night for me typically consists of coordinating my outfit with my network of gays in hopes that I overhear someone point out, “Hey, that guy’s shoes match his hag”. But a gal can get bored when there’s nothing to do (in the most painfully literal sense.) Lucky for you I’m here to fill you in on what NOT to do.

I’ve been kicked out of more gay bars than there are colours of the rainbow, and I’m not even a troublemaker – I’m more Amy Adams than Amy Winehouse! Take heed, ladies: Here is a list of things that WILL get you booted from a gay bar:

-If it’s a rainy night and you have an umbrella in your purse DO NOT open it up on the dance floor during Rhianna’s “Umbrella”.

-When “S Club Party” by S Club 7 comes on, DO NOT attempt to do the worm on the dance floor. Yes, Paul’s getting down on the floor, but you’re getting tossed on the street.

-DO NOT hijack someone else’s song at gay karaoke by grabbing the other microphone and turning the song into a duet. Even if you DID ask for Karma Chameleon before he did.

-And, if caught by a bouncer, DO NOT fake right and break left, scurrying through the crowd Dolores Van Cartier-styles like minute 0:28 of this trailer for “Sister Act”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CP72415jNQ. You are one of three girls in the establishment. They WILL find you.

Ohhhh Brander.

Also in Pre-Pride Prep Poop news, I thought I'd post my annual Pride Mix/This month's Bitch Salad mix. It's a delightful mish-mash or knick-and-knack-and-brick-and-brack-and-things of Pride anthems... some of them old, some of them new, ALL of the positively FAGTASTIC!

Here's the track listing:

Corona - Rhythm Of The Night [Planet Funk Breakbeat Mix]
Donna Summer - Stamp Your Feet [Escape & Colucio Mix]
Seamus Haji - Last Night A DJ Saved My Life [Original]
Crystal Waters - Dancefloor [Speakerbox Mix]
Duffy - Mercy [Gareth Wyn Mix]
The B-52's - Funplex [CSS Mix]
Metro Station - Shake It [Lenny B X-Mix]
Eyes Cream - Fly Away (Bye Bye) [Original]
Sylvester - You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) [Original]
The Waitresses - I Know What Boys Like [TNT Mix]
Robyn - Handle Me [Soul Seekerz Mix]
Kylie Minogue - All I See [Mark!s Deep House Mix
"High School Musical" Cast - What Time Is It? [Jason Nevins Mix]
Shapeshifters - Incredible [Original Extended]
Justin Timberlake - Lovestoned [Justice Mix]
Cheryl Lynn - Got To Be Real [Original]
Tweet - Boogie Tonite [DB Boulevard Mix]
Lady Gaga feat. Colby O'Donis - Just Dance [Trevor Simpson Mix]
Pussycat Dolls - When I Grow Up [Ralphi Rosario Mix]
C&C Music Factory - Work That Body 2008 [Alex Gaudino Mix]
Funkstar De Luxe vs. Grace Jones - Pull Up To The Bumper [Original]
Beyonce - Get Me Bodied [Hex Hector Mix]

Download/Listen to it HERE!!!

Yes... I know... a remix of a song from "High School Musical"... it was mainly at the prompting of celebrated co-fag, Tranthony Suppa. He's also the one who really prompts me to post these. Despite the fact that I know he'll only fast forward and rewind it to said "High School Musical" remix. And I'm always like "why don't I just send you that song" and he's like "NO! Post the whole thing"...

It's all very reminiscent of that story I reported about Anna Wintour years back... about how she'd ask her assistant to go to Brooklyn to get her this specific bowl of soup... then, she'd just through a gob of butter in it and eat the butter and, as her assistant noted, "it just seemed like a way to eat the butter". THE "HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL" REMIX IS THE BUTTER IN YOUR SOUP, ANTH!!!

Gah... I'm getting crazy... Methinks it's time to Peace Out...

So,

Peace out!

--- Aj

Haute Topics

2008-06-19T12:09:00.001-07:00

Time is tight today, so let's dive right the fuck in...

A.) JAMIE LYNN SPEARS POPS

Where does the time go? It seemed like only yesterday (or at least last month) that the world was balls deep in news about the 'misadventures' of one Britney Spears only to see it all come to a thunderous crescendo when it was announced that her 17-year-old sister was pregnant. Those were the days.

Well bitch finally popped today - a bouncing baby girl named, *ahem*, Maddie Briann Spears Aldridge. Really. Really? Maddie Briann. They might as well have named it Trayla Trash. Or, if it were a boy, Taylor Trash.

I can't get over the sort of Southern baby-name aestethic - I don't even know if you'd call it that. But you know what I'm talking about - that pool of names that Southern people pick from that they think are pretty for some reason? How they name their kids shit like Cassie and Terri Ann and Shawnie and stuff? Ugh. If I were Jamie Lynn Spears I would have gone out of my way to name my daughter something like Guinevere Millicent [Spears Aldridge] or Brunhilda Prudence [Spears Aldridge] or some shit... Good grief...

B.) NIP/TUCK & THE CITY!!!

Reports are swirling that Sex & The City co-stars Cynthia "Miranda" Nixon and Kristen "Charlotte" Davis recently underwent cosmetic surgery to get they tee-ta's lifted and varicose veings plucked on out they legs, respectively.

I.) Who the fuck cares? Why is it news anymore when celebrities get plastic surgery? II.) This means one thing and one thing only: A SEQUEL IS UNDERWAY!!! AHHHHH!!!

That's what it totally means!!! It totally means that they saw the movie, were both like "yuccckkk... ", the producers were like "this was a monumental success... we're starting production on a sequel yesterday", and they were like "I needs to get that shiz fixed, y'all." Totttally...

I'm so excited about this unofficial sequel and I'll tell you what it should be - a prologue. Yep. To what they were doing pre-the first episode... like how they met. I've always hypothesized that Carrie & Miranda were friends from childhood (because how else would a corporate lawyer and a sex columnist be friends? Really.) and Carrie met Charlotte via repeatedly crossing paths at her gallery, but was always unsure about how Carrie and Samantha met... Well...

Last night I was revisitng S&TC, as I'm prone to doing before I go to bed. The episode in question was "Coulda Woulda Shoulda" - where Miranda finds out she's pregnant and initially decides to go for a good-old-fashioned abo. Samantha then says, "Well, we've all been there. I've had two-" then asks Carrie "How many have you had" and Carrie says, assertively "Umm... One!"...

Later, Samantha and Carrie are walking down the street discussing the unpleasantness of it all and how Carrie is going with Miranda to soften the blow. Then Carrie starts reminiscing about the guy who knocked her up all those years ago - he's a loser who still works at a TGI McFridays... - and remarks, "I could have a 13-year-old child by now"... THEN says to Samantha "But then I would have never known you".

CARRIE & SAMANTHA TOTALLY MET AT THE ABORTION CLINIC WHEN CARRIE WAS GETTING HER FIRST ABO AND SAMANTHA WAS GETTING HER SECOND ABO!!!

It all makes stunning, stunning sense. When Samantha asked Carrie how many she had at the breakfast nook, Carrie said "Ummm... One!" as in "Uhhh, you were there! That's how we met, asshole!" --- Anyway... yeah... make the sequel about shit like that.

C.) HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DLISTED.COM's MICHAEL K!!!

Lift a glass and make a toast to the ultimate tastemaking blogger - and my inevitable future husband - Michael K. of dlisted.com - thank you for the countless hours of entertainment.

D.) THE HAUTEST TOPIC OF ALL...............

TUESDAY TUESDAY TUESDAY!!!

AND, I'm very pleased to announce, we'll be having a very special guest: Septugenarian sexpert SUE JOHANSON!!!

It's going to be OUT. OF. CONTROL.

I've used far too many caps this time around...

OH - and this was my 300th post. Who knew?

--- Aj

What the balls is a Flibbertigibbet???

2008-06-17T10:03:00.000-07:00

Well, according to wikipedia, it's a term used to describe a flighty, whimsical, gossipy, overly talkative person and has its roots in Anglo-Saxon mythology and Shakespearean lore.

It's also used by one of those bitchy cunt nuns to describe Maria in the song "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?" in The Sound of Music.

The song, "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?" is the title of a reality show currently on CBC which sets out to find the lead in the upcoming Mirvish production of The Sound of Music.

AND I'M OBSESSED WITH IT!!! AHHHH!!!

Seeing as I work at Mirvish, the lot of us went over to the CBC atrium yesterday for the official unveilling and press conference of the Top 10 Marias hosted by ever-delightful and super-sweetheart Gavin Crawford.

I happenstancially taped it on Sunday night and it's some good times, y'all. Hundreds upon hundreds of obnoxious, outgoing female musical theatre types auditioned in front of a panel of judges that included:

A dude named Simon Leeds, who is A.) Andrew Lloyd Webber's right hand music dude and B.) Busted with a capital B... if the damning effects of the tanning bed weren't made clear to me yesterday upon laying eyes on this man, I don't know what will...

Another dude named John Barrowman, who's apparently a leading man in London's West End and one of the stars of Doctor Who. He's A.) Smarmier than a tiger-skin rug soaked in perfume and B.) Debatably British. He doesn't speak with an accent. Maybe it's some sort of gesture to being on Canadian soil. It's weird.

Annnnd...

The hottest bitch alive, Elaine Overholt (pictured). Here are the deets about Lainey O - she's a vocal coach and arranger who's worked on Chicago, Hairspray and a slew of other big shit deal musical endeavours. Buuut - before all this fame and acclaim came to her, she worked on a little show called "Popstars: The One" which a friend of mine (who I won't name, but it's not hard to figure out) was on. Elaine and my friend hit it off... after the dust of Popstars: The One settled, my friend went and worked as Elaine's personal assistant. During her tenure, one of the greatest stories was relayed to me that I've ever heard: Elaine frequently holds vocal workshops. They'd be held in some sort of conference room. Chairs would be set up facing the front, recital-stylez. As guests would filter in, Elaine would greet them - "Hello. Oh, hello!". Then, some point after, Elaine would tap my friend on the shoulder, say "It's time", and disappear behind a rice-paper folding screen set up at the front. My friend would then go to the front, ask people to get settled, welcome to the workshop, saying something to the extent of "Are you ready to raise your voice in song today? Please welcome your friend and mine, Elaine Overholt!"

At which point Elaine would emerge from behind the rice-paper folding screen. Yeah. She's already mingled with people. Then disappears. Then reappears. If there's one person who knows the effect of and the desire to make an entrance, it's me. Work it out, Elaine Overholt. FIERCE.

Anyway - they're the judges. And along with Andrew Lloyd Webber, they selected the Top 10 girls who could each be Maria. They're a mixed bag... let me tell ya...

Yesterday at this press conference it expressed by 'leading man' John Barrowman that all of these girls could be Maria - they're all talented and right for the part (I WHOLE HEARTEDLY DISAGREE) - this is merely a matter of letting the public decide who they very specifically want for the part. Yep - Canada votes. It's like Maria Idol. I don't know about that... upon expressing how iffy I was about that, I was told that "it was a hit in England" - where seemingly everything television-wise happens first. I said that maybe true, but Canadians are a.) working on a much smaller scale and b.) oh-so-fucking apethetic about this sort of shit. They're not going to furiously vote for a girl who stole their heart then climb out from under whater rock they live under to flock to Toronto to kiss her feet. Anyone who does watch this and somehow feels motivated to vote is just going to vote who reminds them of Julie Andrews the most...

That said - my favourite is EASILY Janna. EASILY. LOOK AT HER!!! She's perfect. In that she reminds me of Julie Andrews the most. And I lovvvves me some Julie Andrews.

Plus - from what I've seen - she can actually sing and actually act and - most importantly of all - twirl like there's no tomorrow. Twirling is paramount.

And she stands out from the pack - upon seeing them yesterday, it was just a bunch of slightly out-of-shape sopranos who nattered like birds. For real - they all sound the same... when they laugh, it's in melody. It was all very reminiscent of Amy Adams as "Princess Giselle" in Enchanted. Picture that TIMES 10.

So yeah, I don't know what shape it's going to take - the competition, that is. At first I thought it was like each week they all took the stage and performed the same song from the show, and the audience voted on whose rendition they liked the best... like "WEEK ONE - THE LONELY GOATHERD!" But apparently it really is Idol-stylez... different songs, different genres. And really - this is a better prize than the one they receive on Idol. On Idol, they're groomed to be disposable domestic products... they get to make an album and have some time in the sun for one year and one year only - it's all very akin to Miss America at this point. But this show, they actually get something useful - a job. I'd have to imagine whomever wins this will probably have equal if not greater notoriety than the winner of the current season of Canadian Idol, so hey, good on ya...

Anyway - that's what I'm obsessed with... Jesus in heaven, there really is nothing on television this summer...

I've heard it re-airs tonight at 8, so why don't you tune into CBC tonight and see your tax dollars at work...

Something that will NOT be re-airing, so you best not miss it ---

JUST UNDER ONE WEEK AWAY!!! AHHHHH!!!

That'll be it today. Did you know that tomorrow will mark my 300th post?

Fuck. What have I done with my life?

Ta!

--- Aj

The gayest night of television... ever

2008-06-16T11:24:00.001-07:00

Hey friends,

I am sooo underslept and o'ertired today...

For reasons still unclear to me, I decided to venture out at 11 PM (YES. 11 PM. ON A SUNDAY NIGHT... generally, by that point on any given Sunday [literally any given Sunday... not suggesting some weird intersection betwixt the Jamie Foxx movie and my life] I've been asleep for 5 hours...) to Revival for Perez Hilton's post MMVMA party that I randomly got an invite to.

I decided in lieu of y'know, actually getting an invite to the ceremonies (... yeah.), I guess I'd snatch a teency piece of that pie and go to this party. It was certainly a dressier affair than I thought it'd be... no 'celebrity sightings' per se... unless you count Mario 'Perez Hilton' Lavandeira himself... and it's entirely possible that there were cast members from The Hills there, but it's also entirely possible that they were just other synthetic, desperate hangers-on from Canadian soil - it's kind of impossible to tell from my estimation.

Anyballs... hung out there for a bit... downed a few Heinekens... shot the shit with Tranthony, Dini D and Sabrina, then went home...

But before that... a thoroughly gay evening of television...

First up: T-T-TONYS!!!

Yeppers... the 109th annual Tony Award telecast happened last night... a poorly-rated good time was had by all...

I never used to watch this shit, but now I can't tear myself away. I hesitate to say that it's mandatory for a gay dude to watch the Tonys, because it totally isn't... just because you're gay doesn't mean you HAVE to watch the Tonys... but it's kind of like when a Jew eats brisket - it just feels right. Like you're doing something very traditional and indigenous to your people. Am I little out on a limb here? Yes? Okay... well, pressing on...

Whoopi Goldberg hosted, and just about bored everyone to tears. Holy shit. It was like she was about 5 beats behind every time... as a matter of fact, the only time I was actually entertained by the Whoopster all evening was when flew out dressed like Mary Poppins... I felt that was how Miss Celie in The Colour Purple would look like present-day...

Sidebar: the tranny behind Whoopi's getup all night? Project Runway winner/proprietor of all things fierce, Christian Siriano. It was no small feat that he got her out of her signature extra-large untucked denim shirt and stirrup look that she so often rocks and into his signature hot tranny mess look...

Someone who was NOT looking like a hot tranny mess for once, or at least a lot less of one, was Liza Minnelli. Holy balls!

She was looking shockingly un-busted last night - so congrats, Liza! Fortunately, she was still all kind of crazy - she said something to the extent of "For an actor... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... the theatre is home... ... ... ... ... [delivered with total, complete commitment, thinking that this is the punchline to end all punchlines]... BIG, ISN'T IT?!"

Just something that struck me funny.

Another thing that struck me... How Glenn Close looks more and more like Ed Harris with each passing day. Observe:

Jeez Louise. Still in need of some more feminine facial features. She actually makes Ed Harris look downright dainty by comparison...

Anyway - enough talking about who looks busted and who looks busted-er, as fun as it is - other highlights included, but were not limited to: the original cast of Rent reuniting on stage for "Seasons of Love", performances from rock musicals du jour "In The Heights" and "Passing Strange", the formerly-anonymous journeymen actors of the Steppenwolf company completely cleaning up for "August: Osage County", the cut-off jorts that Xanadu's Cheyenne Jackson wore and of course... the human equivalent of a lightning bolt coursing through your body - Patti Motherfucking Lupone...

Holy FUCK. Work it out, Patti LuPone. Does anyone else remember the show "Life Goes On"? It was the show that had the guy with Down's Syndrome on it - Corky, I believe. I watched it because it was on Sunday nights right before "America's Funniest Home Videos" - and Patti LuPone played the mother, 'Libby'. That's how I knew her. I was totally unaware that she was so crazily ferocious. Good on ya.

Highlights DID NOT include: that bitch from The Little Mermaid, those bitches from Grease, that bitch from South Pacific winning instead of that bitch from In The Heights, and speaking about In The Heights - when that dude won and went up and basically rapped his acceptance speech? I felt very uncomfortable. Like, very uncomfortable. I know I reference this scenario a lot, but I felt watching that the way I do when a retarded person accosts you on the subway alerting you that your shoe is untied and insisting you tie it.

Anyballs... that was that was that.

In other news: JUST OVER A WEEK AWAY!!! AHHHH!!!

That's all.

--- Aj

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

2008-06-12T13:01:00.000-07:00

Hmmm... I don't quite know what that title's about, but whatever.

Well, I do, but yeah... more on that shortly...

Sorry I've been such an asshole about posting this week. I've just been all of sorts/whack. Last night it was between blogging and cleaning my apartment, and in the rarest of rare turns - CLEANING actually won out.

I've been in this ass-nasty habit of just shoving my clothes into my closet like I'm disposing of a corpse before company comes over, so I decided to embark on the Mount Everest-ial challenge of cleanin' out m'closet - and no, I did not do it to Eminem's "Cleaning Out My Closet" on loop.

I filled a garbage bag to the brim with shit that I'm just amazed I hung onto - cargo pants purchased sometime between 1998 and 2000... synthetic Le Chateau man-blouse after synthetic Le Chateau man-blouse... and more slogan-T's with tart, naughty sayings on them than any one person needs... GONE! I'm feeling so minimalist now, and I love it.

Anyballs... in other news:

Question: DO YOU THINK THIS LOOKS LIKE ME?!

His name is Chris. Chris Jarosz. He's a contestant on the current season of the most belligerently-titled series of all time, So You Think You Can Dance?

One of my facebook friends - a gal known only as 'Shawna F.' - made a post on m'wall alerting me to the fact that I have a supposed doppelganger on So You Think You Can Dance? yesterday, and although I was very adverse to this at first, I'm learning to live with it now...

It wasn't until I actually saw the bitch in action, that I started to understand where she was coming from... Here's him on the first performance show of the season dancing with EASILY the hottest bitch alive, a candid hip-hop hoofer named Comfort... yes... Click HERE to watch it... (I'm having maddening problems with embedding it... sorry...)

First off - that Comfort bitch rules m'world. LOVE IT. Secondly - yeah, that looks like me. Fuck.

Well, hopefully he does really well on the show and perhaps at some point I can hook up with a crooked party promoter who'll advertize parties hosted by him - only it's totally not him, it's me, wearing shades, skulking in the corner, not talking to anyone... a-la that chick who was claiming to be Kim Kardashian and doing the exact same shit...

For real - this red hot tranny mess pictured to the right was hosting parties claiming to be Kim Kardashian, looking like that, and people bought it. Not only did they buy the act, but they bought tickets to parties hosted by fake-Kim.

I can't tell you the severe, uncompromising judgement I have for anyone who would buy tickets to go to a party that was hosted by Kim Kardashian - real or otherwise - in the first place, but holy crap, that's hilarious. And also brilliant. You can bet that I will totally be doing that if he does well.

I'd much rather be mistaken for that Comfort chick, as I feel much more akin to her temperment and fervor, but I'll take what I can get.

In other 'reality television stars are fucking with my life' news, I've been trying to avoid addressing this for a coon's age, but feel now that I must...

Once upon a time, if you googled me, a short list of notable Andrew Johnston's would come up. One was a movie critic for Time Out New York... one was a 40-something character actor who claim bit parts on "MacGuyver", "The X-Files" and "Agent Cody Banks" to his name... one was a former American president who would come up despite the fact that his last name is "Johnson" and not "JohnsTon"... and one was me.

Well that's all shot to shit now - a few months ago this meek, pudgy little choirboy with the voice of a castrated angel marched on stage on a little talent competition across the pond called "Britain's Got Talent". He proceeded to capture the hearts of England (and Whoopi Goldberg, who raved about him on The View) and sailed through the finals, landing at third place and has recently signed a 1 million dollar record deal with Simon Cowell's record label.

ANNND... his name is Andrew Johnston. FUCK!!!

Now when you google/youtube/whatever me, this fucking eunuch is going to pop up. Forever. And his voice is totally going to change any day, so say goodbye to any redeeming qualities he has... he's just going to be this shy, fat guy who used to be able to sing pretty. Glug.

I can't imagine me going to England any time soon. I can't imagine going on stage, being introduced as "Andrew Johnston" and not having that be obvious and humiliating. It'd be like some British comic coming here named Ryan Malcolm or something... well whatever...

Okay... I PRRROMISE more interesting blog fare next week... PRRROMISE...

I also PRRROMISE that this will be awesome:

SOOO close. So, so, so very, very, very close.

Have a terrific Friday/night,

--- Aj

Belated Birthday Roundup

2008-06-11T14:29:00.000-07:00

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah...

Sorry I've been MIA for almost a week. Things came up. Namely: a lot of phlegm. I've been sick. Sorry. I don't know how I managed to squeeze out that blog last Thursday, as it was the height of my sickness. It might explain why it was just a bunch of disdainful sentences weaved together, though...

ANYBALLS - despite the fact that I was sick as fuck and probably should have stayed in all weekend... I TOTALLY DIDN'T... snap... that's right - Friday night marked the Twenty-Something'th Semi-Annual Andrew Johnston Birthday Cotillion and OOH-WEE it was a doozy...

The theme: every guest needed to come as something I've photoshopped them as... Here are the sometimes hilarious and often sexy results...

TALK about mixed company: Heidi Montag and Kathy "Annie Wilkes" Bates...

Of MacDonald's lore, The Hamburglar...

Yours truly as a very pregnant Angelina Jolie and the YELLOW! Rosie O'Donnell...

Nip-Slip queen Tara Reid...

Tranthony Suppa as Katie Holmes, in all hir glory...

In costume change #2, Rita MacNeill and Angelina...

New mom Nancy Grace...

Newer mom Michelle Duggar with Katie...

The Captain & Tennille/Tennille & The Captain...

And, of course, no party would be complete without Christine "Rojo Caliente" Marinoni...

T'was a fun night.

What's that? I looked expontentially more like Dog The Bounty Hunter than Angelina Jolie and I'll have to live with that for the rest of my days? Agreed.

That's all...

Exceeeeept...

JUST UNDER TWO WEEKS AWAY!!!!

CAN YOU BELIIIIEEEEVE IT???!?!?!?!?!

I went postering on Friday. Not because I felt well, but because I had to. And holy mother of God it was hot - like Louisiana swamp hot. I sweat clear on through what I was wearing. It was a very enjoyable experience. I don't know why I'm telling you this.

I'm back tomorrow with more topical goodness than you can shake a stick at - and oh, you'll want to shake a stick at it. Trust me.

--- Aj

Is 60 Sexy?

2008-06-05T12:09:00.000-07:00

Well, that's a question that I'll have an answer to in a matter of years, rest assured. Because yesterday saw me turn another year older... huzzzzah...

Yep. I'm now officially late-mid-twenties/mid-late-twenties as opposed to regular old mid-twenties. Whatever the fuck it is, the glass is half-empty, not half-full. *Sigh*. Oh well...

Sorry I haven't posted since Monday's blogstravaganza de Sex & The City, but I figured, seeing as that was 4,000 words long, I figured I had a few off days. So yesterday was spent enjoyably enough. But can I TELL you about the fucking day I had on Tuesday? HOLY CRAP...

SO - Monday night, I get a call from my former agent saying that I had been requested specifically to come into a casting house in Toronto to audition for a Futureshop commercial. This is odd. I'm currently unrepresented and my former agent is no longer in business, so yes, I'd imagine that if someone in the casting world wanted to see me, they'd certainly have to do some searching around to find out how... (or you could just facebook me... really, either/or).

So I find this all too curious. Me? Requested specifically? For a Futureshop Commercial? Whyever for? I went down and relayed this circumstance to one Kathleen Phillips - Toronto's premiere alternative character comedienne who'll be appearing in her first full-length one-gal show entitled "Kathleen Phillips Is... Beside Herself" later this month... can't wait! - and she speculated that 'maybe they want some gay tech guy'... a theory that would have made perfect sense...

To say that I had trepidations about going would be the understatement of the year... I hate hate HAAAAATE auditioning for commercials... it's not my bag... I can't imagine an existence worse than being some theatre-school grad whose day/life is filled by auditioning for commercials... I could care less. And the money really isn't that terrific. Unless you're the Snapple Lady or some shit like that, it's only a couple grand here and there, it takes months to see the money and you get known as a commercial actor and blah blah blah... none of this applies to me. I'm a live act, a pop-cultural pundit and a 'personality'... soon to be mogul when I launch my line of signature knee pads. I could not care less about auditioning for commercials is the bottom line.

Beyond that, the last time I was at this particular casting house it was SO preposterous I can't even tell you. It was for a callback for - ironically, Futureshop - which ran TWO HOURS late. By the time I get in there this assfuck casting director sees me do it once then says... "hmmm... well, I feel like I should give you some sort of direction" implying that I was a lost cause or something and I'm all OHHHH NO YOU DIDN'T MOTHERFUCKER! For realz - he was one of these bitches who probably started out wanting to be Spielberg but had to settle for being a commercial casting director and hates life because of this... which is such a shame... such a shame that I've already made more of a contribution to culture than he would doing what he does dozens of lifetimes over, but I digress...

Anyballs - I sit around, waiting for this assfuck casting director to send me the sides he said he'd send the night before, I e-mail twice, call twice, nothing. All signs are point to DO NOT GO. But I couldn't help but wonder: what sort of part in a Futureshop commercial is SO right for me that I'm requested specifically?! Ooooooooooooh! You know how they say that curiosity killed the cat? Well flattery killed the fag...

So I go. Curious as all get-out. When you get into these things, there's a sign-up sheet that will be like: "Name, Agent, Agent's #, ACTRA #, Time arrived, Time allotted"... I don't have an agent nor an ACTRA # (ACTRA's the actor's union... I'm non unionized) so right away that's three "N/A"'s in a row... awesome... I go up to the bitch behind the desk and say that I never received sides and have no idea who I'm here for (here comes the surprise!!! ooooh!!!)... it's just some random dude who fixes shit in the background - the same one that fucking 30 some-odd other dudes are auditioning for... I saw RED...

So I'm sitting there. Listening to these 5 actors who were ahead of me in line (and had been waiting for like, an hour) who know each other talk about this so excitedly, ACTUALLY running their two lines with each other, and holy mother fuck it just made me want to put a gun to my head... I sat there for about 5 minutes, then put on m'jacket, grabbed my gym bag, pulled out my Diet Coke, flounced my fierce ass up the counter and, as faggily as I possibly could have delivered it: "Hi. I have a very narrow window of time today [illustrated by me miming closing a window], so if I can't do this in the next 5 minutes, I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave." MmmmmHmmmmmm... I was like "See ya in Hell" thinking that would be over and done with it...

Well, the bitch called my bluff and ACTUALLY put me ahead. WHAT?! Well... I certainly wish I would have known to do that back in the days that I was actually auditioning for shit and waiting for hours on end... so there ya go...

Anyway - the thing went fine. I tried my damnedest to look like I didn't completely NOT want to be there. I ran the fuck out of there, called Yerxa and proudly proclaimed "that is my LAST commercial audition ever".

So, to whomever at Futureshop did want to see me specifically, and thought to themselves, "you know who we should get for this behind-the-scenes tech guy in our latest commercial for home gaming? Andrew Johnston!" - while I can't express how flattered I am that you thought of me, for future reference: LOSE M'NUMBER, BITCH!

And that's that.

Speaking of bitches...

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH SNAP!!! Yeppy. It's that time of the month again.

I feel as if I should leave you with something funny...

A dear, dear friend of mine, Kerri Carrisse, posted this on my wall yesterday. It's one of the greatest things I've seen in my life...

Yep. Amazing.

Bye!

--- Aj

Sex & The City: The Movie: The Review

2008-05-30T09:40:00.000-07:00

Okay.

This is going to be interesting.

WARNING: (And I'm entirely serious about this...) DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DO NOT WANT TOTAL, COMPLETE, ABSOLUTE, UNASHAMED SPOILERS...

I'm not just talking about divulging plot points - I'm fucking just givin' away end points as well... Imma ruin it, RIGHT NOW...

So, AVERT YOUR GAZE/GAYS RIGHT NOW LEST THE S&TC MOVIE EXPERIENCE BE COMPLETELY SPOIL'D!!!!!!

Last chance...

I'm not kidding...

Don't read any further, as tempting as it sounds...

This is actually going to be kind of a depressing post...

Alright...

Here we go...

FINAL FINAL FINAL chance to steer away...

Okay...

So Thursday night I had the opportunity to attend an advance screening of Sex & The City: The Movie with a gaggle of friends, old and new, at the Varsity Cinemas, right here in Toronto. We had been drinking cosmos for nigh on 2 hours before heading down, so we were in a pretty festive mood (some of us more than others... you know who you are [and it's not who you think. Yeah.]). Beforehand, I was remarking to some of my acquaintances that I think S&TC is so fond for us is because it really was the timely zeitgeist of our University years - the final episode aired my final semester - a fact that was very clearly represented in the crowd... allllll 20-something gals and gays...

After 18 million previews for stone-cold chick flicks a-la "He's Just Not Into The Sisterhood of the Travelling Secret Bees", the movie finally started... A misleadingly brusque recap of where we left off with the four girls and where they are/what they're doing now right off the top... the entire cinema practically cums their pants... it's a sensory overload... like dumping blood in shark infested waters - HOLY FUCK!

The movie opens up with Big and Carrie cooking in the kitchen... Carrie discussing that she needs to get things in order, that nothings certain, she can't predict her and Big's future, and I guess all this non-committal-ness gives Big a boner because then he very uneventfully proposes to her... the audience cums their pants yet again... THIS IS THE MONEY SHOT THAT WE'D BEEN WAITING FOR BUT NEVER GOT!!! YES! And promising, off the bat.

More blood into the shark infested waters: We get our first shot of the girls coming together and trotting down the streets of Manhattan. At first, it's just Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda strolling along, Carrie mentioning that Big's buying them a penthouse and it's going to be fabulousity... then they meet up with Samantha, who's apparently just flown in from LA and boy are her arms tired. Y'see, Samantha's now LA-based, running a management company that revolves around her boy-toy, Smith Jerrod.

Suddenly, we're back at the gals' favourite brunch hutch - ANOTHER COLLECTIVE AUDIENCE BONER - only this time, there's a fifth at the table... Charlotte's adopted Chinese daughter, Lily, who's just about as cute as a pony fucking a kitten... times have changed, and now they have to code talk about 'fucking' into talk about 'colouring'... Samantha's not getting laid, as Smith is very busy shooting long hours on the apparent 'hit TV show' he's on... Miranda - who loathes her Brooklynite existence with every fibre of her being - also has no time for 'colouring'... and point made crystal clear in a scene in which her and Steve are 'colouring' and she abruptly asks "okay... can we wrap this up?"... yeah... SNAP! This obviously doesn't sit well for Steve...

Anyballs... the next 'collective audience boner' scene I can remember has Carrie packing up her apartment and deciding what stays and what goes - culminating in the hardest department of her hoarding: the clothes. We're then treated to a fashion show of her past outfits and Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte holding up signs that say "take" or "toss". Some hilarious, hilarious 80's outfits that obviously go, and then, the last outfit she trots out - the tank top and the tutu from the original S&TC opening!!! AHHHH!!! I lost it. LOST it. Obviously, that one stayed.

I'm sure more shit happens, but the next thing that happens that I remember is an entirely different fashion show - Carrie modelling her potential wedding dress for Charlotte and her main gay, the scarcely used Anthony Marantino played by the ever-irascible Mario Cantone. The dress is fugly. It's a vintage suit with some sort of embossed floral motif smack dab in the centre. They're decidedly against it, but Carrie insists that it's perfect because this wedding will be a small affair and speak about the simplicity and definitiveness of Carrie and Big's love. Whatever.

Then she's summoned to Vogue... by her editor, Enid Frick, played by a downright SHOCKINGLY busted Candice Bergen. Time hath not been kind to Ms. Bergen. Nevertheless... Enid says that Vogue wants to feature her in a shoot of crazy haute wedding garb in a piece called "getting married at 40" or something. Carrie reluctantly agrees.

If part of your S&TC viewing enjoyment was spotting labels, the next sequence would have induced a seizure that might have killed you - a montage of her wearing a wedding dress by every designer under the sun. It was extravagance that would have made a scene of Marie Antoinette feasting on pastries look like the Paper Bag Princess mackin' on apple sauce, yo.

After the spread comes out, Carrie receives a gift from one Ms. Vivienne Westwood saying she saw her in the layout, and that the Westwood dress Carrie modelled was 'made for her'. Suddenly, a small wedding no longer seems fit.

All of a sudden, Carrie turns bride-zilla-esque - the wedding party swells from 75 to a whopping 200+, it's going to be held at the New York Public Library, covered by Page Six, blah blah blah - IT'S GOING TO BE A BIG FUCKING DEAL. Guess who's not cool with this? Big. He's all "this is my third time getting married" and he doesn't want all this attention paid to it, but Carrie's insatiable.

Sometime before all of this, Miranda's in the kitchen of her Brooklyn brownstone, going through the motions of some wifely/motherly duty and Steve blurts out: "I slept with someone else". Just like that. Although it's never revealed who, I've narrowed it down to A.) Magda, B.) his ex, Debbie, or C.) Nina Katz. Anyballs - I don't really feel the need to draw this out - Miranda's super pissed and moves out.

Cut to: the rehearsal dinner. This is where - if you're SUPER attentive - you can spot a bunch of former S&TC bit characters who are given 0.0 lines... I spotted the irrepressible Bitsy Von Muffling-Fine, and I'm sure there are more to be found... it's here when Steve - who was apparently shunned from the wedding after this - shows up because he knew that Miranda would be there and she hasn't been returning his calls... it's actually a really cool scene - Big, Smith and Harry are all outside having a cigar and then Steve shows up and it's like "Ahhh all the men are together!! Quick - someone get Jack Berger, Aidan, Dr. Robert Leeds, Trey MacDougall, Richard Wright and Mitch 'Mr. Pussy' Sayler for a group shot!!!" - but no...

Anyway - he tries to talk to Miranda in the rain, she outrightly rejects it, leaving him with these parting words: "I changed who I was for you!" Very dramatic. Miranda marches back in, Big tries to talk to her and she imparts this pivotal plot-altering statement: "Don't get married. It all goes to shit" or something. Well, this is very impressive to Big, because:

Next Day. The big day. Bells are ringing. Bridesmaids are bridesmaiding. Carrie's getting dressed. Yadda yadda yadda. Big's trying to call her. He's trepidatious, but not completely going to pull out - he just needs to talk to her, they'd reaffirm their feelings for each other, and things would go off without a hitch. Well, not if Charlotte's mischevious adopted Chinese daughter has anything to do with it... she hides Carrie's cell phone. Big can't get a hold of her. He panics. Doesn't show.

Carrie's left at the altar. Ohhhhh fuck. This isn't good. Everyone's stomach is churning. If only he could have talked to her. Carrie and the girls speed off in a cab and at some sort of intersection, come face to face with Big in the car. Shit hits the fan - the girls get out and pummel him with the wedding flowers... "I knew it! I knew you would do this! It's OVER!" shouts Carrie. It's all very heartbreaking. It also kind of makes 0.0 sense, a recurring theme of this movie, but meh - whatever.

Because S&TC wouldn't be S&TC without unrealistic, needless jet-setting to fabulous places on a whim, Samantha manages to broker Carrie & Big's honeymoon into a group vacay for the gals within a split second. So they go. To Mexico. Carrie refuses to get out of bed. She's beyond heart-broken. It's here when Kristin Davis' Charlotte shines - she keeps on being overly cautious with everything she touches, justifying it under her breath by saying "It's Mexico!", then eventually swallows a mouthful of water in the shower and poops her pants... HILARIOUS! Hilarity rivalled only by the shot of Miranda's downright feral unkempt bush...

The gals return from Mexico and back to life, back to reality. Carrie manages to score her old apartment back (possibly the most unrealistic occurrence in this movie) and decides it's time to hire an assistant to do her bidding. Requisite burnout and borderline-retard montage not unlike the one in Mrs. Doubtfire when Robin Williams calls Sally Field as a bunch of crazy characters before he scores with Mrs. Doubtfire. Anyway - at this point, enter one Jennifer "Louise" Hudson. She's perfect! And she rents bags - can you do that? Rent bags? Wow.

Anyballs - she helps get Carrie's life in order, one of her duties is manning Carrie's mail etc... it's here when Carrie tells Louise to definitively block Big from her e-mail. Yep. That's it.

Some more shit happens that I can' remember - Well, I assume that shit happened, this movie was 2 and a half hours long after all... - including a montage of what all the ladies are doing on New Years set to this crazily poignant version of "Auld Lang Syne" sung by this real, old-tymey Scottish bitch... I can't get it out of my head. Charlotte celebrates it with Harry and her little home wrecker Lilly, Samantha and Smith are intertwined in a hot tub out in LA, Carrie watches "Meet Me In St. Louis" (a gift from Louise, who's from St. Louis, and becomes known as "St. Louise") then goes to bed, and Miranda - having just passed Brady off to Steve - sits at home drinking alone. Miranda calls Carrie and is all like "what are you up to?" and Carrie's all "I'm sleeping" and it's all terribly, terribly depressing. Then Carrie bolts down to Miranda's new place in "little Ukraine-town" and they end up spending it together and it's all lovely...

OH!!! One more couple is paid mind to in this montage - STANFORD AND ANTHONY! Yes. They're at the same party, and, upon finding each other at it, say "thank God you're here". Then they kiss at midnight! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?! What the fuck happened to Marcus?! And their searing hatred of each other? Could we not have devoted 40 seconds of this monster to explaining that shit? And of COURSE the two gay characters had to end up together... of course... fuck, even Will & Grace didn't pander to that gentrified expectation... and they pandered to a lot... whatever... I'll save the editorializing for later...

Flash forward a little bit: Charlotte becomes pregnant. Charlotte doesn't want to do anything to jeopardize this - like running. But "running is a part of who you are". And, slowly but surely, Charlotte lets go and let's destiny be destiny. Yes. And THIS is Charlotte's big storyline in this movie. Yep. That's it. I'm not kidding - Charlotte was outrageously underused in this. I think Jennifer Hudson's character got more to work with than her. Wow.

Suddenly, it's Valentines' Day: I assume Charlotte spends it with her loving-yet-unconventional family bathed in eternal happiness in her Park Avenue apartment. Samantha, in gesture both romantic and hilarious, adorns her naked middle-aged beav in sushi and waits for Smith to come home. And waits. And waits. And waits. He's waylaid. She finally says "F" it and sheds the sushi - however, not before noticing her attractive neighbors fucking like there's no tomorrow in their bay window that apparently looks right into Samantha's.

Smith comes home and boy is there hell to pay. To the surprise of no one, he's tired after a long day on set and doesn't want to do anything. Samantha then unleashes an unholy barrage of sushi at him and the whole thing is just too funny.

Meanwhile, back in New York, Carrie and Miranda decide to ring in Valentine's Day by having a good-old-fashioned spinster's night out at some restaurant that's overzealously decorated with balloons. It's here that Miranda drops the bomb: she told Big not to get married. Carrie's crazily pissed and storms out of there.

Maybe it was my 17th cosmo-in-a-water bottle or maybe it was the fact that this movie just went on and on and on but quite possibly it was both - I can't, for the life of me, give you a blow by blow anymore. But I can tell you how everything ends...

Somehow, it's convinced that Miranda and Steve go to a couple's councillor in attempts to reconcile - something he's heartily in favour of, something she's decidedly leaning against. It's then decided that they both make a list of pros and cons and set a date to show up somewhere and make the call. The site is the Brooklyn bridge - get it? The thing that bridges Manhattan and Brooklyn? Miranda's past and future life? yeah - and upon seeing each other, fall back madly in love and all is right in the world again. Cut to: a scene of them furiously humping, featuring a full, furious frontal by Cynthia Nixon. "Yikes" doesn't begin to describe how I felt about this.

Speaking of frontal action - albeit not full - Samantha is out for a stroll on the beach one day sporting a ridiculously high-wasted two-piece bathing suit (bitch might as well been wearing a set of olde-tymey swimming trunks) with her new dog (yes... Samantha got a dog...) when the pup wanders up the stairs of Samantha's zexxxy next-door-neighbor, Dante, only to find him naked as the day is long enjoying an outdoor shower. Samantha, who hasn't bounced up and down on anything in a coon's age, is flabbergasted. He says she's welcome to join him any time. She runs away in befuddlement.

Some time later, during one of her many, many, MANY visits to New York (I honestly remarked out loud to myself, "She certainly visits a lot"), the girls notice that she's put some weight on. Apparently, Sam's been eating her feelings - filling the void she once filled with a cock with food. This won't do - sooooo, SHE BREAKS UP WITH SMITH!!! YEP!!! Ha. She ends it. He comes home one day and she says "we need to talk" and he's all like "what now?" and she's all "see ya NEVER, asshole". No. What she actually says is "I love you, but I love me more" - the exact same thing she said to Richard Wright when she broke it off with him, which I can't decide is an homage to a past episode or just a case of the creative 'well' running dry and them just not remembering that they used that line before.

NEVERTHELESS - back in NYC, a very pregnant Charlotte is sitting down for some brunch when who should she see across the restaurant but Mr. John James Preston/BIG. She bolts, he bolts after her. Out on the street, Charlotte becomes hysterical telling Big, "I always fought for you!" and he tries to explain himself - then, POOF. Or rather, GUSH. - Charlotte's water breaks. Because, y'see, in the Sex & The City world, no one's water ever breaks in a non-eventful context. Big whisks Charlotte to the hospital. Some time later, Carrie arrives to meet and greet the new baby, named "Rose" ("Now I have a Lily and a Rose"). Harry tells Carrie that Big was the one who took Charlotte to the hospital and that he was waiting around for her, saying "he really wanted to see you and he's been trying to get in contact with you incessantly". Carrie's all "NO HE HASN'T!!! AHHH!!!" and goes home.

With this thought still lingering in her head, Carrie checks all her mail to see if there's any from Big she hasn't received. Oh yeah - I should mention, Carrie's assistant Jennifer "Louise" Hudson has moved back from whence she came as she re-fell in love with an old flame at a New Years party back in St. Louis, so Carrie's on her own now to do all her remedial day-to-day bullshit herself. Anyballs - still curious as to where this incessant correspondence from Big is, she rifles through her e-mail and remembers that she told Louise to block all of Big's e-mail. Those e-mails are in a folder, but there's a password blocking them. She telephones Louise, but she don't answer. Then she takes a wild stab at the password, and it's "love". Of course it is.

It's here that she's deluged by e-mails from Big, each one more romantic than the last. Quoting all these great lovers and shit, culminating in one that says simply: "No matter what happens - I will always love you." Yep. Re-stating that makes me misty... up here and down there... holy crap - THAT was the proverbial money shot that S&TC fans yearned for but never thought they'd get. At this point, Louise telephones Carrie and she's all "Girrrrrl I miss ya call! What's happenin'?" and Carrie explains the situation from her. For some reason, Louise reminds Carrie to go and get the pair of shoes that Carrie put in the closet of the penthouse that her and Big were to live happily ever after in until things fell through. Yeah - I forgot to mention that... at the beginning, Carrie does that - sort of christens the closet - by putting a pair of Manolos in there.

So Carrie goes to pick them up. Who should she find there, standing alone in the penthouse's barren ball room but BIG. They run into each others arms, have sex on the bare floor and badda bing, badda boom, cut to: City Hall. They have the modest, uneventful wedding that they were initially supposed to have.

Final scene of the movie: the girls, all four of them, sitting around, sipping on Cosmos - "these are delicious! Why did we stop drinking these?"/"Because everybody else started to!" - celebrating Samantha's big 5-0. They toast to another 50 years, Jennifer Hudson's wildly addictive song "All Dressed Up In Love" plays while the credits roll and the stage is quaintly set for a sequel.

FIN.

Now...

Thoughts....

To say that I felt and still feel ambivalent about this whole she-bang would be apt. APT!

If I could say but one thing to definitively sum up my thoughts and feelings about the Sex & The City movie, it would be this: "It was terrible, but not at all disappointing".

And that's the God's truth. It was good-old-fashioned pandering to the show's fanbase and that's all there is to it. Part of me wishes it could have actually been good - that it actually could have been something that pleased the show's rabid fan base, but also stood on its own as being good.

For real - more happened in the two-part finale of the series than did in the movie. And I mean it - more cohesive and comprehensive storylines, more emotional depth, just more substance period! I went in expecting 5 episodes back-to-back-to-back, a mini-season as it were. Not a very far-fetched expectation seeing as they actually did this regularly when the series was on. Maybe it was just a case of rustiness, but it seemed like they barely had the time to accomplish anything - and bitches had over 2 hours!

That said, it sure was nice seeing them again. I don't care how sub-par the actual meat of it was, if you're granted the opportunity to see four of your most beloved acquaintances whom you thought had passed on, however brief and however on their terms, you'll fucking take it. And LOVE it.

So although it was like having a 5 course meal of Mexican food - savoury and enjoyable at the time, but virtually non-existent in two hours time after you're done - I'll see it again. And likely again after that.

The ladies have all held up - I didn't really think any of them were worse for the wear. SJP is still as spritely and toothsome as ever. Kirstin Davis hasn't aged a day. Even Kim Cattrall is holdin' up - and she's at an age where things rapidly go to shit, so kudos to KC. Cynthia Nixon, m'afraid, is rockin' some jowls and that's all there is to it. I assume because she just inhales pussy night after night c/o her lover, the intriguing Christine Marinoni (pictured, to the left, to the left).

I didn't think Jennifer Hudson was terrible at all - I thought she did quite nicely with what she had to work with! Sorry she didn't have an 11th hour showstopper a-la "And I'm Telling You" to deliver, but sheesh, give her a break!

My main gripes deal with the oversimplification of things - Charlotte not having a storyline, Stanford and Anthony uneventfully paired up - but all this can and will be remedied by the sequel! So huzzah for that!

Anyway... this post has been biblical...

Both in length and in its sacred properties...

Peace out,

--- Aj

Haute Topics...

2008-05-29T10:09:00.000-07:00

So hi,

First off: Thanks to each and every human soul that came out for yet another through-the-fucking-roof-FANTASTIC edition of Bitch Salad Tuesday night - it's just completely overwhelming that so many people come out. T'went on a little long, yes, but it was worth it. And I taped the shit, so expect some highlight reels a'comin'...

I was basically malfunctioning yesterday. Basically. I couldn't even speak straight, so that explains my absence. Like, for real. I think I opened this up, attempting to post something, and quite actual gibberish was coming out of my mouth... I opened with something like "My boss keeps ending his sentences by saying "period". Aloud. And it's driving me MAD." Which was true - in that he was ending his sentences by saying "period" and it was driving my batshit crazy. And he's still doing it today - and this only started yesterday, it's not like he normally does this. Anyway. Yeah.

Whatever... on with the show...

Of note: Ads for Dunkin' Donuts featuring Rachel Ray wearing an apparent Jihadist scarf - something called a "keffiyeh" - have been pulled amidst criticism and controversy...

Is that what that is? Really? An oppressive, terrorist vestment? I thought it was just one of those hipster scarves that all the kids (and not-so-kids) are wearin' nowadays.

What's more - is THIS how fucking egg-shell thin the ground that American advertisers need to walk on is?! And is this how absolutely ghastly an offence it is to even suggest anything Islamic in the American marketplace? Like, really. That's what this is - it's an explicit example and straightforward admission that anything pertaining to Islamic culture is considered a swear word in American culture... it's being treated as if her scarf is adorned with swastikas or something when no, it's just a fucking scarf. CHILL THE FUCK OUT.

Bah... anyway...

In other news:

GUESS WHO'S GETTING CARRIED AWAY TONIGHT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

ME!!!

That's right - I'm going to an advance screening of Sex & The City: The Movie tonight and I can't even fucking wait. For real - I actually had trouble sleeping last night I'm so excited.

Be forewarned: tomorrow I will be posting a comprehensive, shameless spoiler-ridden account of my experience getting Carried away. So don't come here if you don't want your Carrie-ing away to be spoiled.

Well I suppose that'll all depend on how drunk I get on requisite pre-movie cosmos. Oh - it's like that.

So in anticipation of tonight's getting Carried away, a little refresher course on the last episode... this is where we left off:

Amazing. Hilarious. Also, quite true to how things actually wrapped up.

Until tomorrow,

--- Aj

Nice night for a Salad...

2008-05-27T11:11:00.000-07:00

Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy you.

So today is normally a day where I promise to post something entirely sensational in order to direct your gaze (and gays) to the impending Bitch Salad - WHICH IS HAPPENING TONIGHT!!! AHHHH!!! -

But I actually DO have two quite sensational things for your viewing pleasure/horror today...

A.) Amy fucking Winehouse in diapers.

Yes.

This is what it's come to. Before this you could always say: "Well... the bitch sure is a mess, but at least she's not defecating all over herself." Those days are now past. Oh dear.

Crazy. Speaking of crazy - not to be outdone...

B.) SHARON STONE SAYS KARMA IS TO BLAME FOR THE CHINESE EARTHQUAKES!!!

Oh Sharon Stone. How I love thee.

C.) It's not really that sensational in an "Oh My God I can't believe she said that/crapped herself" but more sensational in a "Wow. I can't help but bust a move! What a SENSATION!" - but here's the Bitch Salad mix I promised for your move-bustin'/cardio enjoyment:

Track Listing:

Estelle feat. Kanye West – American Boy (Original)
Usher feat. Young Joc – Love In This Club (Stonebridge Mix)
Michelle Williams – Break The Dawn (Lost Daze Mix)
Robyn – With Every Heartbeat (Punks Jump Up Mix)
Ashlee Simpson – Little Miss Obsessive (Dave Aude Mix)
Rihanna – Take A Bow (Seamus Haji Mix)
Jordin Sparks & Chris Brown – No Air (Jason Nevins Mix)
Danity Kane – Damaged (Popstar Mix)
Kimberley Locke – Fall (Bimbo Jones Mix)
Jesse McCartney – Leavin’ (Ralphi Rosario Mix)
The Rickrollerz – Never Gonna Give You Up (Original)
Taylor Dayne – Beautiful (The RJ Mix)
Li’l Mama w/Chris Brown, T-Pain – Shawty Get Loose (Mr. Beat/Spyda Mix)
Madonna – Give It 2 Me (Paul Oakenfold Mix)
Kylie Minogue – In My Arms (Imare Mix)

Download/Listen to it HERE!!!

That'll be it for today.

SEE [some of] YOU TONIGHT!!!

--- Aj

Better Late Than Never...

2008-05-23T08:25:00.000-07:00

Yeah yeah yeah, I missed recapping the 'shocking upset' on American Idol... I was busy! Suck it!

Yesterday was maddening. MADDENING. I'm going to try and describe this situation as diplomatically as per possible: currently, the company that I work for is working on a project with another company, and the bitch in charge of manning operations for this other company is driving me MENTAL. She calls me about EVERYTHING. Assuming that I a.) know the answer and b.) give a remote fuck in hell about what she's talking about - I DON'T. I guess it's sort of my fault... in the beginning, I was being very helpful and very available - which is such a mistake. Whenever you make yourself overly available in any sort of relationship, it's so hard to redefine that dynamic later on. Well, in most cases. My current strategy is just to completely withdraw myself and act like a total bitch, but it doesn't seem to be working. This is a actual conversation that took place yesterday:

Her: "Andrew! I didn't get a receipt for my cab!" (A cab that she literally took from King & Yonge to King & University... yeah... 4 fucking blocks... it wouldn't have been more than 5 bucks...)

Me: "Oh. Well, you know whose problem that is?"

Her: [stares at me as if I'm actually going to give her someone to contact about this...]

Me: "... NOT MINE!"

Sheesh. Whatevs... so yeah... yesterday was just caught up in a lot of bureaucratic hussmuss that made me want to wretch, and I'm so, so, so sorry about neglecting this here blog and that there American Idol finale. Sooo... better late than never...

Idol Finale. Thoughts:

First off... a little red carpet re-cap...

- Paula Abdul continues to tumble towards looking like present-day Chita Rivera...

- What a coincidence! Number 9 and number 5 on my list of all-time Plus-Sized Sistahs, Cammy Manheim and Marissy JW respectively, rockin' the red carpet...

- And, prepare yourself for this onset of dream-boat winners... Holy fuck... there's so much failure comin' at ya here, you'll be recoilled in the fetal position by the time it's done...

You can't stop the beat...

There's more...

Wowza. Those 9 should start some sort of cougar-specific all-male burlesque revue or production of The Pirates of Penzance or something... I can't believe all that washed-up boy beav was congregated together in one place at one time...

Anyway... pressing on to the actual show...

- 90-something million votes. Good grief. That's a lot of cell phone minutes, losers.

- Do you know who I love? Like, LOVE? Mikalah Gordon. Despite the fact that her voice sounds like a robot quiffing, I fucking loved her in Season 4... so happy to see her back, even if it is in remote-hometown-correspondent capacity.

- D'Cook sounded good on Chad Kroeger's "Hero" - I imagine this is the kind of fare we can expect from him in the immediate future. D'Archuleta, however, looked like a Make A Wish kid having a Make A Wish moment next to him during this.

- Guess what I won't be seeing: Mike Myers in "The Love Guru".

- My my my that YeYe Mercado seems to be confidant. She's certainly sporting this air of entitlement all evening as if to say "I made third place because of m'talent 'n ch'risma, y'all. How the hell else would I be singin' with Seal Klum?" No, honey. You made third place because of voter displacement and a timely peak in ability. So you just go ahead and wipe that damned smirk off yo face...

- You know what might not have been the proudest moment of my life if I were one of the gals in this year's Top 12? Being a glorified backup singer for Donna Summer as she debuted her new single, "Stamp Your Feet". Well, actually that'd be pretty awesome for me, as I'm a great big fat fag who loved me some Donna Summer since I was 8 years old, but I can't imagine it was very dignified moment for them.

- It occurs to me more and more with each passing second how much I'm going to miss Amanda Overmyer. Here's an idea for you, Fox Reality Channel: give Amanda her own show where she's put into situations that she doesn't want to be in... because she's just about the most amusing person to watch not be into doing something...

- It's official: Michael Johns and Carly Smithson were outrageously good. Also official: Brooke White was outrageously bad. What were people thinking?!

- A Bryan Adams cameo?! Holy crow, they really went all out for this...

- I spoke too soon... David Cook gets to duet with ZZ Top?!?! TALK ABOUT STAR POWER!!!

- Again, the Jonas Brothers. Apparently they're big with the kids. Is anyone else deeply, deeply unsettled by their appearance?! They dress like Mr. Howell from Gilligan's Island with this emo twist and I just get the most reverberating feeling that there's incest afoot... but maybe that's just me...

- An Idol finale wouldn't be an Idol finale without Idol alumnus pushing their next single down our throat - this time around, we're treated to two: perennial Idol darling Carrie Underwood and her sassy new hit, "Last Name" - a song about meeting a guy in a bar, making out with him and not even knowing his last name... what a shocker! Maybe she can do a remix of it for the gay clubs called "First Name" - about meeting a guy in a bar, sleeping with him and not knowing his first name, last name or race, because I'mma tell ya, that'd be a considerably more relatable scenario in my 'circle'... And of course, Jordin Sparks... who, still rockin' her linebacker build, decided to dawn a gold lame baby doll dress - a move that I can only assume was made to intentionally draw similarities between her and a drag queen... specifically: Toronto's own Sofonda Cox...

- I guess if there was one, the comedic highlight of the night came with that CGI-d retelling of Gladys Knight & The Pips performing "Midnight Train to Geo'gia" with Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey, Jr. subbing in for the original Pips. Who decided that Robert Downey, Jr. was going to become relevant of a sudden? Like, when and why did this happen?

- The George Michael medley. Hmmm. Best part of this: during the boys' group warbling of "Father Figure", Stripper for a mostly male audience-cum-Idol finalist David Hernandez was given the following lyric: "For just one moment, to be bold and naked, at your side". And he cheekily whispered "naked". Yay. He's in on the joke.

- Speaking of George Michael, the cold that was ailing him must have been severe, because he sounded 0.0 percent like himself. Whatever - Paula was certainly reduced to tears. Presumably because she was silently reminiscing about the good old days of having coke fueled orgies after the 1989 MTV VMA's...

- Then of course, came the shocker: D'Cook takes the cake. Well, who fuckin' saw that one comin' - not me. I was actually shocked. Actually amazed that D'Archuleta didn't sufficiently pluck at people's heartstrings and voting fingers. That D'Cook has some mighty fervent fans... maybe they'll make good by him... Anyballs... That just about concludes that...

Oh yeah,

TUESDAY!!!!!!!!!!

AHHHHH!!!!! Can you not wait?!

I'm posting the mix tomorrow...

--- Aj