“It Girl” Watch, 2010: a Guy’s View (Zooey Meets Zoe…)

*THANXX to ADAM LAMBERT & DAVY JONES FANS for great ongoing discussions; Scroll Down for Adam & Davy…

‘It Girl’ Watch, 2010  by Elizabeth Searle

I asked some smart guys I know to comment on the concept of ‘It Girls of 2010′: who are they watching?  Here on the blog, we are always waching Zooey Deschanel, our 2009 ‘Hit Girl’.  Zooey, meet Zoe.   And a few other new names…

Mark McNutt, co-founder of Bravo Sierra Motion Pictures, nominated lovely young Katherine Waterston:

“My ‘it girl to watch’ is Katherine Waterston, daughter of Sam Waterston. By chance the other morning, I turned on the TV and the movie “The Babysitters” was on. Katherine Waterston played the lead.  Something I would never in a million years, volunteer to pay or rent to watch. But it turned out to be disturbing, entertaining, compelling and just plain good in my opinion.”

Blog fave and former blogger for Wonkette, LITOTES, is smitten with Zoe Saldana the sci-fi beauty in Star Trek and the cat-woman star of AVATAR.  Littotes dubs her the ‘Ava-Tart.’ (And he means that in the best possible way…)  Why Zoe?  Litotes replies succinctly: “Because she is lithe.”

Author, blogger and surfer Eugenio Volpe– like many Mad Men I’ve met recently– raves about the classic curvy charms of Mad Men femme fatale Christina Hendricks, who caught our blog fashion police’s eye in her ‘peachy champagne’ dress at the Golden Globes.

Says Volpe: “She’s my kind of woman.”

Who is yours?  Emily Deschanel?  Taylor Swift?  Weigh in on your own It ‘Girls’ and Women for 2010.

(photos: blog.z2it.com, zimbio.com, fashionindie.com)

SAINTS & STARS: A Who’s ‘Who’ of Halftime Highlights

*THANXX to ADAM LAMBERT FANS for a great ongoing discussion; Scroll Down for GLAMLOVE!

SAINTS & STARS  by Elizabeth Searle

The Saints were the all-stars of the night– down to the littlest Saint, Drew Brees’ photogenic baby son.  What about the nights’ less saintly stars?

Pondering Superbowl Haltime Show hits and misses, Jim Balint of BleacherReport somewhat wistfully recalled the controversy and buzz surrounding Justin Timberlake & Janet Jackson’s infamous ‘wardrobe malfunction’ and commented: “Bringing in noted “bad boys” The Rolling Stones and Prince notched 89.9 million and 140 million viewers for their respective halftime shows. It’s clear the American public responds to possible scandal.”

This year, the classic band & CSI theme-songsters THE WHO took centerstage.  A ’scandal’ lurks in the background, but not one folks are likely to want to buzz long about: internet porn charges vehemently denied by Pete Townsend.  Scandals and accusations aside, how did The Who do?

Like Carrie Underwood  belting out this year’s national anthem, they performed solidly and soulfully.  But did the 2010 entertainers meet or near highwater Halftime Show marks set by an airbourne Michael Jackson?  Or No Doubt and Sting sending a memorable ‘Message in a Bottle’?

What were your own favorite Halftime Show moments– from last night or years gone by?  Are the commercials the real entertainment stars these days (this year: the orca whale in the bridgestone tire ad)? ‘Who’ would have been your own dream choice as a Halftime Star act worthy of the Sainted 2010 Superbowl?

(photos: reuters.com, open.salon.com., telegraph.co.uk, billboard.com)

TMI Tipping Point: Which Scandals are We Sick Of (& Why Can’t We Stop Watching?)

*THANXX to ADAM LAMBERT FANS for a great ongoing discussion; Scroll Down for GLAMLOVE!

TMI TIPPING POINT by Elizabeth Searle

When news of a John Edwards sex tape surfaced, screenwriter Caitlin McCarthy suggested a Post on TMI scandals.  Now we hear the FBI has the TMI tape no one wants to (or do we?) see.

Which scandals have reached the Too Much Information Tipping Point for you?  I asked Caitlin.  Her quick list:

“Tiger Woods; Charlie Sheen; Conan/Leno (not a sex scandal, but a scandal, no less); Casey Johnson/Tila Tequila; Jon and Kate (no one cares about them anymore, and yet they’re desperately creating scandals for the sake of coverage); Anything having to do with the “Jersey Shore” cast (Who cares about their nude photos, club fights, etc.?) ;the upcoming Kitty Kelley Oprah book, where Oprah’s “real” relationship with Gayle is exposed. Yawn.”

As always, Caitlin says it best.

Of course no one is making us read this stuff, but once hooked on certain celebrities or scandals, it’s hard to stop– even if you ‘hate yourself in the morning’.

Britney Spears carried out in a stretcher amidst a mad rant was a riviting yet also revolting spectacle.  Tia Tequila’s ‘Grief Tweets’; Gov. Mark Sanford’s cringe-worthy emails.  And now Jenny Sanford is ‘telling all’ in her own new book– though she was the one who wisely warned her husband before his infamous press conference NOT to talk about ‘your heart’ .

When I read an online headline stating that the latest Tiger Woods mistress says his sexual fantasies are ‘not normal,’ I didn’t press the link to learn more.  Who is pushing you over the TMI edge?  Have you stopped watching?  If not, why not?  WDYT?  PS: THANKS to Litotes & Mike Luckovich for this perfect cartoon commentary on Edwards et al…

(photos: Edwards & mistress- stupidcelebrities.net; Conan&Leno- examiner.com; Jersey: GoogleImages)

GLAMLOVE: Adam Lambert, What Have You Done to Me? by Angela Still

Angela Still is an ex-Los Angeleno now living back in her birth state of Georgia. She’s working towards her MFA in Creative Writing and revising her first novel, a story about, love, revenge, and magic.

GLAMLOVE: Adam Lambert, What Have You Done to Me?  by Angela Still

Every day at 3:30, I eagerly make my way over to my email account and sign in with bated breath. Well, not on Saturday and Sunday, because those days I’m not trapped in front of a computer, so the times I mosey on over to google vary.  Trust me, though, I still go.  Every day.  Seven days a week.  Why, you ask?  I have to check my Adam Lambert google alert.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with google alerts, it is a service provided for free by google wherein you give them a phrase, and once a day they send you updates on any news that has been posted on the internet about your phrase.  It can be a little incomplete sometimes, but it stills serves as a great springboard for all the current news, and in this case, gossip.

Oh, Adam.  Adam, Adam, Adam.  What have you done to me?  I admit, I’ve always had a weakness for make-up wearing femme boys in bands, and if they happened to be amazing singers, all the better.  It started when I was just a wee lass with KISS.  At the age of eight, I was pretty certain I was going to marry Paul Stanley.  Later, this became a slew of now-embarrassing 80s bands (Poison, anyone?) and their singers.  I also went through a pretty serious Bowie phase at this time, and the concept of androgyny took over.  At one point, I was seriously considering a sex change operation, but just decided to cut off all my hair and wear combat boots instead.

But, see, here’s the thing.  All this happened in my teens.  Ok, some of it happened in my early 20s.  Either way, these were appropriate times for this sort of thing.  But I am now a slightly chubby, forty-year-old corporate drone.  I should not be spending significant portions of my day worrying about you, Adam Lambert.  I should have more important things to do.

Grammy Gazing: Choose Your Dueling Diva

Most Honest Acceptance Line: “We’re all a little drunk but happy drunk” from the Kings of Leon, who also promised, “Anyone we forgot, we’ll buy them shots.”

Theme of the Night: “Welcome to the Future;’ spoken by will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas plus Darth Vader masks in one of many bizarre sci-fi production numbers intended to shore up Grammy’s shaky grip on the ‘cutting edge’…

Entrance of the Night: Lady Gaga dumped into a flaming Fame machine and emerging, covered in soot with a similarly smudged yet sparkly Elton John…

Dueling Divas of the Night: Beyonce dressed in the evening’s bewilderingly militaristic sci-fi style grabbed her crotch in If I Were a Boy, upstaging sweetly simple yet flatter-voiced Taylor Swift, who nevertheless nabbed an upset Album of Year– but did Poker-Faced Lady Gaga upstage them both?  Who do you think won the Diva Duel?

Fatherly Advice of the Night: Stephen Colbert telling his daughter, “Stay away from Katy Perry“

Most Bizarre of the Exhaustingly Bizarre Production Numbers: Pink in a see-through sparkle-crotched body suit, drenched and dangling above the disconcerted-looking crowd, shaking herself off like a dog so electrically lit droplets rained down on hundreds of hair-do’d stars, all of whom could have used….

The Accessory of the Night: Imogene Heap’s plastic parasol…

Most Intriguing New Voice: young Prince Jackson, son of Michael, spoke with feeling in a strikingly deep and husky voice; heaven help him if he has inherited his father’s gift for singing, but he and his equally ethereal sister already know how to stop a show…

Add your own Grammy-gazing rants and raves on our Comments…
(photos: USToday [Pink], oskaya.com, grammy.com, hardspotonline.com, flickr.com, billboard.com)

Love is the Ultimate Trip by Michelle Soucy

Michelle Soucy is currently pursuing her MFA in the Stonecoast MFA program. Her fiction has appeared in the literary journals The Florida Review and The Bryant Literary Review, and elsewhere.

Thanks, Michelle, and thanks Ingrid for a new StarLit. piece on Gaimanda (Amanda Palmer + Neil Gaiman…)

Michelle sang Daydream Believer with DAVY JONES

Love is the Ultimate Trip by Michelle Soucy

The 1980s were dark times for hair. And for fashion. And for music. I’m not sure what happened to initiate the cultural collapse in judgment, maybe it was a kind of styling product-fueled rebellion against our hippie-parents’ love of all things “natural.” But the whole world looked and sounded like it had been aerosol-hairsprayed into a stiff and angry gloss. Subtlety was dead, or at least in an induced coma. We wore panic-button red sunglasses that zigzagged off the sides of our heads like lightning bolts. And, speaking of lightning bolts, those were also shaved into the buzz-cut hair of the boys in my school.

The clothing we chose to wear was as big as we could possibly get it and still be able to walk, but bunched up and held onto our bodies with fluorescent pink and green belts — many, many belts. Our fingernails, too, were painted in bright neon, and sometimes enhanced with polka dots or, again, lightning bolts, giving the appearance of poisonous insects living on the ends of our fingertips.

And our hair, dear God, our hair. Perms like the summit of K2. Mohawks, spray-painted blue and purple. Rat-tails. Ducktails. Bangs that we burnt into layers with our curling irons and bent upside-down to hairspray into what looked like a wild turkey’s fanned tail feathers. When I look through old photo albums at my parents’ house now, I feverishly flip past the photos of the 80s, pretending that couldn’t really be me… no, no, haha, no. But when no one else is looking I flip back and sneak a peek, because my early-teen face really was quite sweet and doll-like. But you could barely notice it under that maniacally hairsprayed mane. So, yeah, the 80s were a dark time, so dark that I was desperately compelled to dig for some light. And so I dug, and I unearthed for myself love… in the form of The Monkees.

It was The Monkees who saved me from the 80s.

NANCY

“I’m sorry I couldn’t stop writing about you,” I said to Tonya Harding when I met her at the premiere of Michael Teoli’s and my rock opera based on her and Nancy Kerrigan’s skating scandal.

Tonya– who cheered on the show then partied with the cast, playing video poker in the bar– told me matter-of-factly: “You got some things wrong but that’s OK.”

Though I’ve never met Nancy Kerrigan, I felt as if I knew her when I heard the terrible news this week of the death of her father and arrest of her brother. Another bizarre and violent twist in a life that has had more than its share. Her family asks for privacy regarding this death.  I have nothing to add beyond the sad facts already known. But aside from expressing sympathy, I did want to say a few words about ‘my’ Nancy.

As I can testify to firsthand– having written librettos for both a chamber opera and rock opera about Nancy’s skating scandal, both shows headed for new productions this year– the fascination with Nancy Kerrigan’s story lives on. While I focus more on Tonya in the plays, it was Nancy’s plight that first captured me in 1994.

Nancy came from Stoneham, a town near ours in Massachusetts, and I believe I once glimpsed Nancy on the Minuteman Bike Trail in Arlington, MA: an auburn-haired vision on rollarblades. I remember kneeling by the radio speakers in our home listening breathlessly from Lillehammer as Nancy Kerrigan, under unimaginable pressure, skated her nearly flawless nearly gold-medal performance.

Nancy’s grace and grit captured everyone’s attention and infuriated some. Many folks have told me over the last few years how they couldn’t sympathize with the reserved and disciplined Nancy. Many believed mistakenly that Nancy came from money, when really her blue-collar family double-mortgaged their home to pay for Nancy’s skate lessons.

There seems to be an outpouring of sympathy this week. Maybe that same strength Nancy found during her knee-attack ordeal will carry her through this tragedy. And no matter what, some of us will not be able to stop watching.
(photos: people.com, commons.wikimedia.or, womens’history.org)

“IT WOMEN”: In Praise of Aging Gracefully by Elizabeth Searle

Sharon Stone recently commented that Meryl Streep looks like “an unmade bed.’”

That’s some unmade bed. Not only did Streep look ravishing and natural at this month’s Golden Globes, she is acting circles around her over-Botoxed frozen-faced peers in her golden years. ‘Gold’ as in lotsa shiny statues: Streep garnered double-whammy Globe nominations and is a favorite for the ultimate Golden Boy, Oscar.  And how about a true Golden Girl, 88 year old Betty White, who stole the show at the SAG awards?

Helen Mirran hits the beach

Note to Stone and Heidi Montag: film acting can be enhanced by movable facial muscles.

I asked blog fave Caitlin McCarthy– who alerted me to Stone’s comment– which other actresses besides la Streep seem to be aging gracefully. Caitlin’s list:

“Helen Mirren, Julie Christie, Jacqueline Bisset, Sophia Loren, Susan Sarandon, Candice Bergen, and Patricia Clarkson all look natural and beautiful — not like plastic people.”

True, these ladies have had a ‘little help from their friends’ but they have eschewed the drastic knife-work of less gutsy stars.  Cheers to these ‘It Women’.

Who is your fave. from the big or small screen?  Oprah?  Diane Sawyers?  Blog fave Julianna Margulies?  Send in your own nominees as we celebrate celebrity women of a certain age, who aren’t afraid to ‘own it’…
PS: Great additional List suggestions on Comments: Anjelica Huston, Diane Ladd, Judi Dench, Jessica Lange…PPS: plus Cloris Leachman, Glenn Close & Angela Lansbury…& Lauren Bacall!

(photos: Meryl Streep:kidk.com; Helen M: audi-sport.net; Oprah: Googleimages; Julie C: cinematical.com; Betty W: mjtimes.sk.cn)

JOHN EDWARDS: What Can We Say?

Surprise, surprise: who's your Daddy?

When news first broke– confirming the affair that America’s ‘paper of record,’ the National Enquirer, had uncovered– my husband phoned me himself.  He knew I had flirted with voting for John Edwards and his populist fervor and winning smile, plus his highly admirable, highly likable wife: a fellow Elizabeth.

Though first a Hillary then an Obama supporter, I had contributed ‘Coulter cash’ to the Edwards campaign when he and his wife were under attack.  (Now I wonder if that small donation found its way to Rielle Hunter’s love nest, where she hid out while carrying the now-confirmed Edwards’ offspring– the darling baby who always, as the intrepid Enquirer pointed out, looked like ‘John Edwards in a onesie.’)

‘Oh no,’ I cried into my cellphone when my husband said Edwards had admitted the affair, my voice so appalled that my young son in the back seat of the car– a child of these Recession-struck times– asked in horror: “Did Daddy lose his job?”

No, it was just Mommy losing her mind.  Which scandals drive you up a tree?  Blog fave Mary Kissane put it all so well I can only quote her Facebook flame, affire with the indignation so many of us feel toward the man who has just confessed to fathering the child he at first denied and who has been declared by Huffington Post pollsters to be the most unpopular figure ‘anywhere, anytime.’  Mary Kissane, responding to that poll, takes the mic:

“Gee, Mark McGwire gets a standing o for “coming clean,” but at least this poll shows people have some sense of proportionality left!

Cheating on his dying wife, the mother of his very young children, fathering a love child w/ a gold-digging party girl, and only NOW admitting he fathered the skank’s baby, after denying it for 2 yrs & even asking an aide to beard for him… Yeah, political Siberia is too good for him. Also loved a thread commenter’s noting that by timing it amidst grim Haiti news (not to mention our comic relief from NBC), he cannily avoids being ‘Tigered.’ And Seth Meyers priceless line: ‘Edwards’ admission is so the REVERSE of shocking that my coffee spit ME out!’”

Mary and Seth, you speak for millions.  Is anyone sorry for this man, at one time one of the most popular in politics?  I’m certainly sorry for his hard-working idealistic volunteers and supporters, for his wife and kiddies, all of them.  Why is this particular politician-with-pants-down scandal so irksome, so– as Mary put it in a separate Facebook post– ‘revolting’.  What is it about this one that makes some of us reverse-spit our coffee and frighten our own innocent young children?

photos: Edwards & daughter: crooksandiers.com; National Enquirer: mostlymedia.com; Edwards smirk: gather.com

Cosmo-Scott Vs. Charisma-Challenged Coakley

Former pin-up, future Senator

I voted for Martha Coakley in the MA Democratic Primary, but reluctantly.  Lukewarmly.  I almost went instead for her liveliest opponent Alan Khazei, since he exhibited more ’spark.’ Then a robo-phonecall from my personal political rock-star Bill Clinton pushed me over the edge. Maybe I should have gone with my gut.

Our blog’s ‘beat’ is personality/media/star power.  How big a role did that play here?  Nixon observed that you can be anything in politics– except ‘boring.’  Will Health Care reform founder because of another worthy charisma-challenged Democratic candidate? Of course, real anger about the economy and health care among many voters fueled Brown’s fire.  But how big a factor were the two perceived ‘personalities’ here?

Like a young George W. Bush, Brown won over working class voters with his jaunty ‘populist’ style.  Like former beauty queen Sarah Palin (below, in red swimsuit), former Cosmo. pin-up Brown capitalized on his telegenic looks and campaigning flair.  Martha Coakley made matters worse on the image front by mixing up her Red Sox facts and calling Curt Schilling a Yankees fan three days before the election.

Many voters in the original Bush/Gore match-up voted for George W. because they wanted to have a beer with W.  But we never got that beer: only war and recession.

Liberal winners like JFK and Obama have capitalized, too, on good looks and showbizzy campaigning skills.  It’s the American way.  But have the same voters who returned Ted Kennedy to the senate for decades taken such a sudden sharp turn to the right that they support Brown’s pro-life right-winger views?  If one of Kennedy’s sons had run, would they have won? What tipped the balance to bring Brown his upset win? Was it his showman-style debates and his showbiz-ready daughters (above)?

And what of our superstar President, sworn in exactly a year ago?  Is Obama’s star power waning?  Or will this wake-up call recharge his own potent charisma?  WDYT?
PS: Thanks to Penny2 for Brian McGrory’s hilarious morning-after article, Seduced by Our New Senator…

(photos- Brown nude: jezebel.com & Cosmo mag.; Palin: thetodayexperience.com; Brown & daughters: the-912-project.com)